For my neighborhood research, I chose Marble Hill. The reason I chose this neighborhood is primarily because it is a geographically and politically interesting place in the city. Even though the neighborhood seems to be part of the Bronx it is actually a part of Manhattan. Originally, Marble Hill was separated from the Bronx by the Spuyten Duyvil Creek. However, in 1895, the Harlem River Ship Canal was dug out connecting the Harlem River, Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and the Hudson River, the canal went right through Marble Hill and separated it from Manhattan. Marble Hill remained an island until 1914 when Spuyten Duyvil’s original creek-bed was filled in and Marble Hill became physically attached to the Bronx. Now, the only way to get from Marble Hill to Manhattan Island is to either take the 1 train, Metro North, or drive over the Broadway Bridge. Although the geography of Marble Hill changed throughout time, it remained constant politically always being a part of Manhattan, which to me is very interesting. Another reason I chose Marble Hill is because of its appearance in the news a couple years ago. According to the article, which I cannot find now, when a bunch of high school students cut classes and went to a deli, they owner of the deli recognized them and called their parents. At this point, I still thought that Marble Hill was still an island so I thought this was an incredible showmanship of community where everyone knows each other and is friendly. Even though it was not an island at that point, it was impressive, nonetheless.
According to City-Data.com, Marble Hill is a rather small area, having only an area of 0.145 square miles. The population of Marble Hill is approximately 9,500 – 3,900 males and 5,600 females – making its population density approximately 65,000 people square mile, which is more than twice the density in the rest of the Bronx (32,000). As for demographics in Marble Hill, the two major ethnicities are Hispanics then Blacks, which makes sense for an area in between the Bronx and Harlem. The median income is $44,000, with 30% of the population living below the poverty line, compared to only 16% of the New York City population living below the poverty line. The median age for women is 41 years and for men it is 33 years. Out of all the households, 50% are occupied by families; however, only 20% of these families having children. This is drastically low for the rest of New York City where the percentage is around 55%. This is because single mothers support around half of the household families in Marble Hill. Another shocking statistic is that around 40% of the people living in Marble Hill do not even have a high school degree, where in New York City the average is only around 15%. Metro-North was connected to Marble Hill in 1906 and this lead Marble Hill to its urban renewal. In the 1950’s, 6-story apartment houses and complexes were sprouting all over the neighborhood. Over 2,000 houses were built during this time period and this lead to a large migration of Blacks and Hispanics into a primarily Jewish and Irish community.
When I first got to Marble Hill with my partner, William Newman, I have to say I was disappointed. We got off the 1-train at 225th street and decided to walk north until we hit the river (we thought it was still an island). We walked all the way to 230th thinking that Marble Hill was larger than it appeared. Only when we were talking to a waitress in a diner did we realize that we actually already in Riverdale. I have to say that I was severely disappointed in the fact that Marble Hill was no longer an island. I was frustrated that something that has so much potential like Marble Hill, being an island in the middle of the city, just got covered up. I understand that it was for developmental and economic reasons that the original Spuyten Duyvil Creek was filled in, but I was disheartened for the rest of the day, nonetheless. Once we managed to get back to Marble Hill, which spans only from the Harlem River to 230th street, William and I began to look for people to interview.
Like the demographic shows, everyone I saw near was either Black or Hispanic, especially east of Broadway next to the Marble Hill projects. The projects themselves were like any other projects I’ve seen in the city: tall, brown, and narrow, looking half-desolate, with a large lawn of grass in the middle. However, in my opinion based on what I saw, the people here were mostly older. Keeping in mind everything William Helmreich told us about how to fabricate a story to get people to talk to you, we began to approach an older lady on the sidewalk. We worked the angle that we were students from CCNY looking for an apartment. The first thing she said when she heard that was, “You can’t live here”, shocked me. Of course she was stating the fact that one cannot just purchase an apartment in the complex and you have to wait on a list, but it still not something I was expecting to hear. We began asking questions like “Where is a nice place to live?” and “What is there to do around here?” and got little in return. She mentioned that she goes to the new church that was built across the street and hurried off. We were left with the impression that no one here wants to talk to us, two white college students lying that they want to find a place to rent. So we decided to get serious and drop the act.
The next person we interviewed was in a bodega: an older black man, buying a 24 oz. Heineken. We began by telling him that this was for a school project, but he barely answered our questions and left the store. We turned to the clerk for some answers. We asked him, an Arabic looking individual in his 20’s, what fun he does for fun since he also lived there. He told us that he usually went downtown in his free time. We kept asking to see if he would slip up any interesting spot but he maintained the claim that there was nothing to do in Marble Hill and he just went downtown. We left the bodega with nothing new, only that people in Marble Hill seem to be more reserved than we thought and that there is absolutely nothing to do in Marble Hill.
Discouraged we decided to just walk around before asking any more people. That is when we saw two street vendors sitting next to each other. We decided that if they will not talk to us than no one in the neighborhood would. However, the men, Edward Brown, and what we learned to be his roommate, Tania, were more than pleased to talk to us. The first thing they said confirmed that no one wants to talk to us. He said that the people in Marble Hill stay to themselves and that everyone on the street is just trying to get home as quickly as possible because they want to avoid the trouble on the street. He mentioned that the projects here do contain some gangs but they are not run by any and that they are relatively safer than other projects in the city. An interesting point he brought up is that there is a little to no sense of community because no one wants to live there but it isn’t bad enough that they need to band together. Tania added that every place in the city has its bad people and that Marble Hill also has them but they don’t cause a lot of trouble. Everyone who lives there lives there because they have to and they live alone. He described Marble Hill as a stepping-stone for its occupants. They live there until they can move out; Edward calls these people the lucky ones. He said that a lot of the people used to move Upstate but now they tend to move to the Poconos. This makes sense because of Marble Hill’s low median age, 41 and 33 for women and men, respectively. As soon as they saved up enough money, they got out of there. Edward casually added that no one really wants to live there. He gave another reason as to why there was no sense of community, being that the population of Marble Hill was really dynamic. People moved out and new people took their place, not allowing anyone to know each other for a long period of time. Upon asking him, Edward said that he sees no way for the neighborhood to change or get gentrified because once again he said that no one wants to live there but he also added that there is nothing new happening in the area to allow for gentrification. The only new things are commercial like the new shopping center being built on Broadway. However, there are no new residential buildings being built like there are in East Harlem.
Before we left the neighborhood, we walked to see the west side of Marble Hill and the difference was staggering. There were many apartments there that must have been the ones that were built in the 1950’s. There was also beautiful Victorian styled homes that were completely jaw dropping. However, there was no one there who wanted to talk to us. We tried to talk to a superintendent of a building but he spoke little to no English. We decided to call it a day at that point. On my way home, I felt happy that we got at least one good interview. I decided that it doesn’t matter what questions you ask, it’s the people you ask that matter. If someone doesn’t want to talk to you, nothing you say will change his or her mind.
