From The Peopling of New York City
Conor's Space of Doom
South Bronx Impressions (3/11)
One could not have asked for a better day to take a walk. Our trip to 161st and Yankee Stadium from 149th street was not only informative, but it had a really nice hands-on quality which a lot of tours miss out on. Sometimes they can seem like drab, numbingly dull experiences where some guide drones on and on about the monotony of life, about how his job is cruel, and how his wife is leaving him for another man with a more euphonious voice and a great taste in music. However, Mr. Greene had an engaging personality to couple with his information, which included some awesome black-and-white photos of the area some eighty years ago (give or take), ontological references to living conditions and ethnic population, and a glimmer of hope for the future of the area, especially with the construction of the new stadium and a revitalized center for New York culture.
Some of the best moments of the tour for me, especially, were when we got to see some of the photographs of the area from its ‘golden days,’ since it was incredibly fascinating to see just how much a neighborhood can change in the matter of a century. Looking at the photograph of the former Mott St. Subway terminal on 149th street, which showed an almost entirely empty lot cut clean by an equally empty street. Seeing the place was now unbelievably evolved from its vacancy totally startled me. Instead of the dirt-trodden road and clayed lots, there was a giant college campus with a walkway which stretched over the street and into the two buildings. The streets were bustling with people walking to and from all directions, stores and restaurants scattered across the Concourse, and buildings stretched across the horizon like mountain ranges of brick and cement.
Besides the photographic comparisons, the very personal approach to Mr. Greene’s tour was very engaging. Like I said, often times one can get lost in the drone of a tour, but we were kept alive and entertained about stories of Grand Concourse, Melrose, Yankee Stadium and several other interesting locales and its population. One thing that really struck me (and call me uneducated for it) was that I did not realize the Grand Concourse was composed primarily of the ‘rich’ of the early 20th century. As someone who has visited it very rarely I just did not expect that, at one time, it had actually been a harbor for the upper-class of the Bronx.
Essentially, the thing that got me the most out of the trip was the whole experience of the evolution of the Bronx. Hearing how much is has fluctuated from the early 1900s to now is quite interesting, especially to see it in a time-periodical format: seeing it in its early days of industrialization, its fall in the 70s, to the new re-blooming of culture in the next few years. To see any effective image of a neighborhood is to see one in motion, both in a single moment and over time.
The Escapist - Zero Punctuation
