The Bronx

==In popular culture==
===Film and television===
{{See also|List of films set in New York City|List of television shows set in New York City}}

====Mid-20th century====
Mid-20th century movies set in the Bronx portrayed densely settled, working-class, urban culture. ''[[From This Day Forward]]'' (1946), set in [[Highbridge, Bronx|Highbridge]], occasionally delved into Bronx life. The most notable examinations of working class Bronx life were [[Paddy Chayefsky]]'s [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]]-winning ''[[Marty (film)|Marty]]''<ref>{{cite web |last=Chronopoulos |first=Themis |title="Paddy Chayefsky's 'Marty' and Its Significance to the Social History of Arthur Avenue, The Bronx, in the 1950s." The Bronx County Historical Society Journal XLIV (Spring/Fall 2007): 50–59. |url=http://themis.slass.org/marty.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130120181558/http://themis.slass.org/marty.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 20, 2013 }}</ref> and his 1956 film ''[[The Catered Affair]].'' Other films that portrayed life in the Bronx are: the 1993 [[Robert De Niro]]/[[Chazz Palminteri]] film, ''[[A Bronx Tale]]'', [[Spike Lee]]'s 1999 movie ''[[Summer of Sam]]'', which focused on an [[Italian-American]] Bronx community in the 1970s, 1994's ''[[I Like It Like That (film)|I Like It Like That]]'' which takes place in the predominantly [[Puerto Rican people|Puerto Rican]] neighborhood of the South Bronx, and ''Doughboys'', the story of two Italian-American brothers in danger of losing their bakery thanks to one brother's gambling debts.

The Bronx's gritty urban life had worked its way into the movies even earlier, with depictions of the "[[Bronx cheer (gesture)|Bronx cheer]]", a loud flatulent-like sound of disapproval, allegedly first made by [[New York Yankees]] fans. The sound can be heard, for example, on the [[Spike Jones]] and His City Slickers recording of "Der Fuehrer's Face" (from the 1942 [[Disney]] [[animated film]] of the [[Der Fuehrer's Face|same name]]), repeatedly lambasting [[Adolf Hitler]] with: "We'll Heil! (Bronx cheer) Heil! (Bronx cheer) Right in Der Fuehrer's Face!"<ref>{{cite web |first=David |last=Hinkley |title=Scorn and disdain: Spike Jones giffs Hitler der old birdaphone, 1942 |work=[[New York Daily News]] |date=March 3, 2004 |url=http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2004/03/03/2004-03-03_scorn_and_disdain_spike_jone.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090408091714/https://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2004/03/03/2004-03-03_scorn_and_disdain_spike_jone.html |archive-date=April 8, 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1633240/m1/|title=Pop Chronicles 1940s Program #5|first=John|last=Gilliland|date=April 14, 1972|website=UNT Digital Library}}</ref>

====Symbolism====
Starting in the 1970s, the Bronx often symbolized violence, decay, and urban ruin. The wave of arson in the South Bronx in the 1960s and 1970s inspired the observation that "The Bronx is burning": in 1974 it was the title of both an editorial in ''[[The New York Times]]'' and a [[BBC]] [[documentary film]].<ref>O'Connor, John J. [https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/13/archives/tv-cbs-on-cia-and-bbcs-bronx-is-burning.html "TV: CBS on C.I.A., and BBC's ''Bronx is Burning''"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', June 13, 1975. Accessed March 10, 2023. "This Sunday at 9 P.M., WNEW/Channel 5 will offer an hour‐long documentary called ''The Bronx is Burning.'' Documenting the daily routines of Engine. Company 82 in the South Bronx, the program captures some of the peculiar ingredients that constitute 'perhaps the toughest square mile in the city.'""</ref> The line entered the pop-consciousness with Game Two of the [[1977 World Series]], when a fire broke out near [[Yankee Stadium (1923)|Yankee Stadium]] as the team was playing the [[Los Angeles Dodgers]]. As the fire was captured on live television, announcer [[Howard Cosell]] [[The Bronx Is Burning#Summary|is wrongly remembered to have said something like]], "There it is, ladies and gentlemen: the Bronx is burning". Historians of New York City often point to Cosell's remark as an acknowledgement of both the city and the borough's decline.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mahler |first=Jonathan |title=Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning |url=https://archive.org/details/ladiesgentlemenb00mahl |url-access=registration |year=2005 |publisher=[[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]] |isbn=0-312-42430-2}}</ref> A feature-length documentary film by Edwin Pagán called ''Bronx Burning'' chronicled what led up to the many arson-for-insurance fraud fires of the 1970s in the borough.<ref>Conde, Ed Garcia. [https://welcome2thebronx.com/2014/05/06/bronx-burning-a-documentary-by-edwin-pagan/ "''Bronx Burning'': A Documentary By Edwin Pagán"], Welcome2TheBronx, May 6, 2014. Accessed March 10, 2023. "Edwin Pagán, a "New York-based filmmaker, Photographer, cinematographer, screenwriter and cultural activist," will begin filming Bronx Burning this June and is seeking individuals who lived those terrible years of our borough and have any personal, unique, or little known stories they'd like to share."</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bronxarts.org/newsletter/200601.html |title=Opportunities for Arts Organizations and Community Based Organizations |publisher=Bronx Council on the Arts |work=E-News Update |date=January 2006 |access-date=December 27, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060626082500/http://www.bronxarts.org/newsletter/200601.html |archive-date=June 26, 2006 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Bronx gang life was depicted in the 1974 novel ''The Wanderers'' by Bronx native [[Richard Price (writer)|Richard Price]] and the [[The Wanderers (1979 film)|1979 movie of the same name]]. They are set in the heart of the Bronx, showing apartment life and the then-landmark Krums ice cream parlor. In the 1979 film ''[[The Warriors (film)|The Warriors]]'', the eponymous gang go to a meeting in [[Van Cortlandt Park]] in the Bronx, and have to fight their way out of the borough and get back to [[Coney Island]] in [[Brooklyn]]. ''[[A Bronx Tale]]'' (1993) depicts gang activities in the [[Belmont, Bronx|Belmont]] "Little Italy" section of the Bronx. The 2005 video game adaptation features levels called Pelham, Tremont, and "Gunhill" (a play off the name [[Gun Hill Road (Bronx)|Gun Hill Road]]). This theme lends itself to the title of ''[[The Bronx Is Burning]]'', an eight-part [[ESPN]] TV mini-series (2007) about the [[New York Yankees]]' drive to winning baseball's [[1977 World Series]]. The TV series emphasizes the team's boisterous nature, led by manager [[Billy Martin]], catcher [[Thurman Munson]] and outfielder [[Reggie Jackson]], as well as the malaise of the Bronx and New York City in general during that time, such as the blackout, the city's serious financial woes and near bankruptcy, the arson for insurance payments, and the election of [[Ed Koch]] as mayor.

The 1981 film ''[[Fort Apache, The Bronx]]'' is another film that used the Bronx's gritty image for its storyline. The movie's title is from the nickname for the 41st Police Precinct in the South Bronx which was nicknamed "Fort Apache". Also from 1981 is the horror film ''[[Wolfen (film)|Wolfen]]'' making use of the rubble of the Bronx as a home for werewolf type creatures. ''[[Knights of the South Bronx]]'', a true story of a teacher who worked with disadvantaged children, is another film also set in the Bronx released in 2005. The Bronx was the setting for the 1983 film ''[[Fuga dal Bronx]]'', also known as ''Bronx Warriors 2'' and ''Escape 2000'', an Italian B-movie best known for its appearance on the television series ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''. The plot revolves around a sinister construction corporation's plans to depopulate, destroy and redevelop the Bronx, and a band of rebels who are out to expose the corporation's murderous ways and save their homes. The film is memorable for its almost incessant use of the phrase, "Leave the Bronx!" Many of the movie's scenes were filmed in [[Queens]], substituting as the Bronx. ''[[Rumble in the Bronx]]'', filmed in Vancouver, was a 1995 [[Jackie Chan]] [[kung-fu]] film, another which popularized the Bronx to international audiences. ''[[Last Bronx]]'', a 1996 Sega game played on the bad reputation of the Bronx to lend its name to an alternate version of post-Japanese bubble Tokyo, where crime and gang warfare is rampant. The 2016 [[Netflix]] series ''[[The Get Down]]'' is based on the development of hip hop in 1977 in the South Bronx.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/aug/15/baz-luhrmann-get-down-tv-review-netflix "''The Get Down'' review – an insanely extravagant love letter to 70s New York"] by Sam Wollaston, ''[[The Guardian]]'', August 15, 2016</ref>

===Literature===
{{See also|List of books set in New York City}}

====Books====
The Bronx has been featured significantly in fiction literature. All of the characters in [[Herman Wouk]]'s [[City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder]] (1948) live in the Bronx, and about half of the action is set there. [[Kate Simon]]'s ''Bronx Primitive: Portraits of a Childhood'' (1982) is directly autobiographical, a warm account of a Polish-Jewish girl in an immigrant family growing up before World War II, and living near [[Arthur Avenue]] and [[Tremont Avenue]].<ref>Kate Simon, ''Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood.'' New York: Harper Colophon, 1983.</ref> In Jacob M. Appel's short story, "The Grand Concourse" (2007),<ref>''[[The Threepenny Review]]'', [http://www.threepennyreview.com/tocs/109_sp07.html Volume 109, Spring 2007]</ref> a woman who grew up in the iconic [[Lewis Morris]] Building returns to the [[Morrisania]] neighborhood with her adult daughter. Similarly, in [[Avery Corman]]'s book ''The Old Neighborhood'' (1980),<ref>[[Avery Corman]], ''The Old Neighborhood'', [[Simon & Schuster]], 1980; {{ISBN|0-671-41475-5}}</ref> an upper-middle class white protagonist returns to his birth neighborhood ([[Fordham Road]] and the [[Grand Concourse (Bronx)|Grand Concourse]]), and learns that even though the folks are poor, Hispanic and African-American, they are good people.

By contrast, [[Tom Wolfe]]'s ''[[The Bonfire of the Vanities|Bonfire of the Vanities]]'' (1987)<ref>Tom Wolfe, ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'', [[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]] 1987 (hardback) {{ISBN|978-0-374-11535-7}}, Picador Books 2008 (paperback) {{ISBN|978-0-312-42757-3}}</ref> portrays a wealthy, white protagonist, Sherman McCoy, getting lost off the [[Bruckner Expressway]] in the [[South Bronx]] and having an altercation with locals. A substantial piece of the last part of the book is set in the resulting riotous trial at the Bronx County Courthouse. However, times change, and in 2007, ''[[The New York Times]]'' reported that "the Bronx neighborhoods near the site of Sherman's accident are now dotted with townhouses and apartments." In the same article, the Reverend [[Al Sharpton]] (whose fictional analogue in the novel is "Reverend Bacon") asserts that "twenty years later, the cynicism of ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'' is as out of style as [[Tom Wolfe]]'s wardrobe."<ref>Anne Barnard, [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/nyregion/10bonfire.html Twenty Years After 'Bonfire,' A City No Longer in Flames], ''[[The New York Times]]'', December 10, 2007, retrieved on July 1, 2008</ref>

[[Don DeLillo]]'s ''[[Underworld (DeLillo novel)|Underworld]]'' (1997) is also set in the Bronx and offers a perspective on the area from the 1950s onward.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Kakutani|first=Michiko|date=September 16, 1997|title='Underworld': Of America as a Splendid Junk Heap|work=The New York Times|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/14/daily/underworld-book-review.html}}</ref>

====Poetry====
In poetry, the Bronx has been immortalized by one of the world's shortest [[couplet]]s:
<poem style="margin-left: 2em;">The Bronx?
No Thonx
: [[Ogden Nash]], ''[[The New Yorker]]'', 1931</poem>

Nash repented 33 years after his [[calumny]], penning the following poem to the dean of faculty at [[Bronx Community College]] in 1964:<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/05/27/archives/contrite-poet-gives-a-cheer-for-bronx-on-golden-jubilee.html
 |title=Contrite Poet Gives A Cheer for Bronx On Golden Jubilee
 |date=May 27, 1964}}</ref>
<poem style="margin-left: 2em;">
I wrote those lines, "The Bronx? No thonx";
I shudder to confess them.

Now I'm an older, wiser man
I cry, "The Bronx? God bless them!"<ref name="thonx" /></poem>

In 2016, W. R. Rodriguez published ''Bronx Trilogy''—consisting of ''the shoe shine parlor poems et al.'', ''concrete pastures of the beautiful bronx'', and ''from the banks of brook avenue''. The trilogy celebrates Bronx people, places, and events. [[DeWitt Clinton High School]], [[St. Mary's Park (Bronx)|St. Mary's Park]], and Brook Avenue are a few of the schools, parks, and streets Rodriguez uses as subjects for his poems.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/wr-rodriguez/banks-brook-avenue/|title=From the Banks of Brook Avenue by W.R. Rodriguez |website=Kirkusreviews.com|access-date=August 26, 2017}}</ref>

Nash's couplet "The Bronx? No Thonx" and his subsequent blessing are mentioned in ''Bronx Accent: A Literary and Pictorial History of the Borough'', edited by Lloyd Ultan and Barbara Unger and published in 2000. The book, which includes the work of Yiddish poets, offers a selection from [[Allen Ginsberg]]'s ''[[Kaddish (poem)|Kaddish]]'', as his Aunt Elanor and his mother, Naomi, lived near Woodlawn Cemetery. Also featured is Ruth Lisa Schecther's poem, "Bronx", which is described as a celebration of the borough's landmarks. There is a selection of works from poets such as [[Sandra María Esteves]], [[Milton Kessler]], Joan Murray, W. R. Rodriguez, Myra Shapiro, Gayl Teller, and [[Terence Winch|Terence Wynch]].<ref>{{cite book | last1=Ultan | first1=Lloyd | author1-link=Lloyd Ultan (historian) | last2=Unger | first2=Barbara | title=Bronx Accent: A Literary and Pictorial History of the Borough | publisher=Rutgers University Press | series=Rivergate Regionals Collection | year=2006 | isbn=978-0-8135-3862-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M2i8HAAACAAJ | access-date=August 2, 2017 }}</ref>

"Bronx Migrations" by Michelle M. Tokarczyk is a collection that spans five decades of Tokarczyk's life in the Bronx, from her exodus in 1962 to her return in search of her childhood tenement.<ref>{{cite book | last=Tokarczyk | first=M.M. | author-link=Michelle Tokarczyk | title=Bronx Migrations | publisher=Cherry Castle Publishing | year=2016 | isbn=978-0-692-73765-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KPO7DAEACAAJ | access-date=January 11, 2018 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Daniels|first=Jim|url=https://workingclassstudiesjournal.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/jwcs-vol-1-issue-1-december-2016-daniels.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://workingclassstudiesjournal.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/jwcs-vol-1-issue-1-december-2016-daniels.pdf |archive-date=October 9, 2022 |url-status=live |title=Tokarczyk, Michelle M. (2016) Bronx Migrations, Cherry Castle Publishing, Columbia, Md.|journal=Journal of Working-Class Studies|volume=1|issue=1|date=December 2016}}</ref>

====Bronx Memoir Project====

''[[Bronx Memoir Project: Vol. 1]]'' is a published [[anthology]] by the Bronx Council on the Arts and brought forth through a series of workshops meant to empower Bronx residents and shed the stigma on the Bronx's burning past.<ref name="NYDNI">{{cite web|title = A trio of Bronx tomes tell the tales of the borough|url = http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/trio-bronx-tomes-tales-borough-article-1.2057670|website = NY Daily News| date=December 28, 2014 |access-date = January 24, 2016}}</ref> The Bronx Memoir Project was created as an ongoing collaboration between the [[Bronx Council on the Arts]] and other [[cultural institution]]s, including the Bronx [[Documentary film|Documentary]] Center, the [[Bronx Library Center]], the (Edgar Allan) [[Poe Park Visitor Center]], Mindbuilders, and other institutions and funded through a grant from the [[National Endowment for the Arts]].<ref name="HP">{{cite web|title = Writing to Heal in the Bronx|url = https://huffingtonpost.com/charlie-vazquez/writing-to-heal-in-the-br_b_7485218.html|website = The Huffington Post|date = June 2, 2015|access-date = January 24, 2016}}</ref><ref name="AT">{{cite web|title = Bronx Council on the Arts Receives National Endowment for the Arts Grant for The Bronx Memoir Project – Bronx, NY|url = http://www.americantowns.com/ny/bronx/news/bronx-council-on-the-arts-receives-national-endowment-for-the-arts-grant-for-the-bronx-memoir-project-15548834|website = www.americantowns.com|access-date = January 24, 2016}}</ref> The goal was to develop and refine memoir fragments written by people of all walks of life that share a common bond residing within the Bronx.<ref name="HP" />

===Songs===
{{see also|List of songs about New York City}}
* "[[Jenny from the Block]]" (2002) by [[Jennifer Lopez]],<ref>This Is Me... Then (liner notes). Jennifer Lopez. Epic Records. 2003.</ref><ref>Cartlidge, Cherese (2012). Jennifer Lopez. Lucent Books. p. 13. {{ISBN|978-1-4205-0755-3}}. Jennifer Lynn Lopez's parents, David and Guadalupe, were both born in Ponce, the second-largest city in Puerto Rico.</ref> from the album ''[[This Is Me... Then|This is me...Then]]'' is about the South Bronx, where Lopez grew up.<ref>"Jennifer Lopez: Actress, Reality Television Star, Dancer, Singer (1969–)"</ref>
* In Marc Ferris's 5-page, 15-column list of "Songs and Compositions Inspired by New York City" in ''[[The Encyclopedia of New York City]]'' (1995),<ref>''[[The Encyclopedia of New York City]]'', edited by [[Kenneth T. Jackson]] ([[Yale University Press]] and the [[New-York Historical Society]], New Haven, Connecticut, 1995 {{ISBN|0-300-05536-6}}), pages 1091–1095</ref> only a handful refer to the Bronx; most refer to New York City proper, especially Manhattan and Brooklyn. Ferris's extensive but selective 1995 list mentions only four songs referring specifically to the Bronx: "On the Banks of the Bronx" (1919), by [[William LeBaron]] & [[Victor Jacobi]]; "Bronx Express" (1922), by [[Henry Creamer]], Ossip Dymow & [[Turner Layton]]; "The [[Tremont Avenue]]<!--intentional disambiguation--> Cruisewear Fashion Show" (1973), by [[Jerry Livingston]] & Mark David; and "I Love the [[New York Yankees]]" (1987), by Paula Lindstrom.

=== Theater ===
[[Clifford Odets]]'s play [[Awake and Sing!|Awake and Sing]] is set in 1933 in the Bronx. The play, first produced at the [[Belasco Theater]] in 1935, concerns a poor family living in small quarters, the struggles of the controlling parents and the aspirations of their children.<ref>{{cite web|title=Clifford Odets {{!}} American dramatist|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clifford-Odets|access-date=October 7, 2020|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}</ref>

[[René Marqués]] [[La Carreta|The Oxcart]] (1959), concerns a rural Puerto Rican family who immigrate to the Bronx for a better life.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Gussow|first=Mel|author-link=Mel Gussow|title=Theater: The Oxcart|work=The New York Times}}</ref>

[[A Bronx Tale (play)|A Bronx Tale]] is an autobiographical [[one-man show]] written and performed by [[Chazz Palminteri]]. It is a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx. It premiered in Los Angeles in the 1980s and then played on Off-Broadway. After a film version involving Palminteri and Robert De Niro, Palminteri performed his one-man show on Broadway and on tour in 2007.<ref>{{cite web|title='A Bronx Tale: The Musical': Theater Review {{!}} Hollywood Reporter|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/a-bronx-tale-musical-theater-1159895|access-date=October 7, 2020|website=www.hollywoodreporter.com|date=November 9, 2018}}</ref>