“I guess I’d move back, but only if I had to,” is what my brother’s ex-girlfriend and ex-resident of Baychester, Bellanise Davila, says as we sit down over some sodas and pizza to talk. Baychester is a working-class neighborhood located in the northeast Bronx. Its boundaries are East 222nd St. to the north, the New England Thruway to the east, Pelham Parkway to the south, and Boston Road to the west.
The Bronx, as a borough, is notoriously neglected. Perhaps the reason for this is the constant shuffle of people that marks Baychester specifically. The neighborhood went from a mainly Italian, German, and Irish area after the second world war to an area inhabited by Hispanics and African Americans. And the reasons for moving in and moving out are the same: cheaper rent and more space and opportunity. However, what really defines Baychester, to me, is its undeniable sense of community despite its constant demographic change.
Last spring, Bella and my nephew Adrian moved from an apartment in the Edenwald projects in Baychester to an apartment upstate in Poughkeepsie: “I needed to get out, you know, for Adrian.” Bella moved to the Bronx from Bushwick, Brooklyn, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, when she left high school in search of a place for herself and her newborn son. Crime and violence were rampant in Bushwick during her childhood. Bella talks of the time one of her classmates (at Grover Cleveland High, where many Brooklyn kids went to school) stuffed her in a locker. She chomps on some ice: “Yeah, I’m serious. You know I’m skinny, but I don’t take shit. And Alexis, she was huge! Like 5’10, 200 pounds. So you know what I did? I took a desk and hit her over the head with it.” Bella was expelled.
She continues, “There was a lot of shit going on in Bushwick. Like, mad violence. No opportunities. It wasn’t like that in the Bronx. I didn’t have to worry about me or my son.” The rent was also much lower in the Bronx than in Brooklyn. Bella found an apartment on 225th St. and Schieffelin Avenue and stayed there for five years. She laughs: “The government helped me out too though. I’m not gonna front.”
Baychester, to Bella, never became her home. She felt like an outsider as a Puerto Rican and Dominican woman living in a neighborhood in which more than half of its residents are black. “To be real with you, it didn’t bother me, but I did feel like out of place. I was used to Bushwick where all the girls dressed like me and we’d call each other cholas on the street. It wasn’t like a racial comment; it was a joke, but I would never say that in Baychester.”
Bella asks for a refill: “Pepsi with mad ice, please.” When I ask her if she regrets moving to the Bronx, she immediately shakes her head, gulps some Pepsi, and almost chokes: “Hell no, Alexis! I was finally free and on my own in Baychester. I could never regret it.” Baychester was also the place where Bella found a job. She worked as a nurse’s assistant for a home health care agency. Compared to job opportunities in Baychester, the opportunities in Bushwick were seldom.
My family and I spent a lot of time in Baychester when my nephew Adrian was first born. We went to our favorite pizza joint on Boston Road every Friday night. Carlos, the owner, knew our order: one regular pie, one pepperoni, and Pepsi with mad ice. To get to Baychester from my dorm room on 130th St. and St. Nicholas Terrace, I take the express D train from 125th St. to Kingsbridge Road and then the Bx26 bus to Bartow Avenue. Before I meet Bella, I stop into the local corner store for some gum. I’m immediately greeted by Gordo, the clerk, who adores me and my family: “Lexi! Ay, caramba! Where have you been, mi corazón?” I tell him about the move to Poughkeepsie, the breakup, and so on. He tells me of all his customers that have moved, the changes in the neighborhood, and how more and more Latinos, especially Puerto Ricans, are moving out to Connecticut. I suddenly turn into the most ridiculous chismosa when I’m talking with Gordo. And this: the laughs, familiarity, los chismes, is what I, and Bella, miss most about the neighborhood.
In a New York Times article, A Place for Renters to Buy In, Alison Gregor writes of Baychester’s demographics: “The population then [post-World War II] consisted primarily of Irish, German and Italian immigrants. Today Baychester is predominantly home to families from Jamaica, Trinidad, Antigua, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Guyana and Grenada, as well as African- and Italian-Americans.” When I show Bella this article, she sneers: “What does this Alison Gregor know about Baychester? I bet she never lived here.” Like all of us, Bella’s perception isn’t factual. I understand, though, because we spent all our time around the high-rise public housing project called Edenwald, where she lived. There, most of her neighbors were black or West Indian. However, in reality, Bella is not a minority even though she feels like one.
The people of Baychester range in age. Adrian always had kids to play with at the local park. My brother Sean never failed to find a pick up basketball game at the court with other twenty-somethings. Middle-aged and working men and women live there too. The person I remember most, though, is Mr. Owens, the old man who reads on a bench in the Edenwald projects every afternoon. He reads the classics. Bella and I pass by him on our way to get some pizza. “My dear, Alexis,” he says. “Long time no see.” We talk of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Crime and Punishment. (He knows I love to read.) I then ask him about Baychester: “I’m going to say something a bit out there, a bit outlandish, Alexis. I think Baychester is the new up and coming. Just wait and see.” He hears a lot of talk of big developers’ plans to “fix up” the Bronx and make it the “new Manhattan.” Perhaps the Bronx, or specifically Baychester, will soon be the new Harlem, a place where people move to from downtown. Bella and I walk away, smiling, because although we know he’s crazy, we know he’s probably right.
Baychester, in general, is typical of the Bronx. Housing includes apartments, individual homes, and public housing. The neighborhood is mostly residential, except for Boston Road and Baychester Avenue where all the businesses are located. According to Bella, the neighborhood is home to the best auto body shops in New York City. (She wouldn’t know because she only recently learned how to drive.) As we walk around, I compare it to Manhattan. The streets are less crowded. There’s less traffic. Baychester is perfect for someone looking for space, just like Bella was in September 2007 when she was young and scared, looking for an apartment with her son.
“So, B, when you left the Bronx, did you miss your friends?” Bella almost falls off her seat with laughter. “Lexi, are you kidding? Me? Friends? No, I didn’t really make friends in Baychester. I’m not so friendly!” Bella isn’t the most affable woman, but she did make a few friends. Jackie, her neighbor in Edenwald, is one. Like Bella, Jackie recently moved out of Baychester. She moved to Yonkers, a part of New York that New Yorkers call “upstate,” but really isn’t upstate. Like Bella, Jackie moved out of the Bronx for new opportunities and to live less expensively: “I kid you not, Alexis, we was paying double for rent in the Bronx then what we paying now.” After some research, I learned that the rents in the Bronx are not double the rents in Yonkers, but they are more expensive. Mr. Owens agrees too: “Everyday, someone else leaves. It’s weird too, you know, because the Bronx used to be the place people moved to when they were looking for cheaper housing. Now people are going upstate or out of state to pay less rent.”
Bella and I sit in our favorite booth by the window. Carlos comes over with our slices: two plain, two pepperoni: “Chicas, the regular, of course.” Bella is happy in Poughkeepsie. She lives in a massive apartment building right by the Hudson River and Poughkeepsie train station. She’s still working as a nurse’s assistant, but she’s making way more money than she was making in the Bronx. And, most impressively, Bella, a city girl born and bred, drives her own car. I ask if she misses anything about Baychester: “Damn, this pizza is good. Sorry, yeah I do. I miss you…and Gordo!” We laugh, our mouths wide open with pizza until Carlos comes over with a soda cup in each of his hands: “How could I forget your sodas? Pepsi. Mad ice.”
