The Bronx

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[[rum-running|Bootleggers]] and gangs were active in the Bronx during [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]] (1920–1933). Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Polish gangs smuggled in most of the illegal whiskey, and the oldest sections of the borough became poverty-stricken.<ref>{{Cite web |title=BNew York – The Bronx |url=https://chsserver01.org/jwalker012017/Q3/Assignment00CSC2/bronx.html |access-date=October 15, 2023 |website=chsserver01.org}}</ref> Police Commissioner Richard Enright said that speakeasies provided a place for "the vicious elements, bootleggers, gamblers and their friends in all walks of life" to cooperate and to "evade the law, escape punishment for their crimes, [and] to deter the police from doing their duty".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.nyc/blog/2019/3/8/prohibition|title = Prohibition|publisher=NYC Department of Records & Information Services|date=March 8, 2019|access-date=May 23, 2023|website=[[Government of New York City]]}}</ref>

Between 1930 and 1960, moderate and upper income Bronxites (predominantly non-Hispanic Whites) began to [[White flight|relocate]] from the borough's southwestern neighborhoods. This migration has left a mostly poor African American and Hispanic (largely [[Puerto Ricans in the United States|Puerto Rican]]) population in the West Bronx. One significant factor that shifted the racial and economic demographics was the construction of [[Co-op City, Bronx|Co-op City]], built to house middle-class residents in family-sized apartments. The high-rise complex played a significant role in draining middle-class residents from older tenement buildings in the borough's southern and western fringes. Most predominantly non-Hispanic White communities today [[Demographics of the Bronx|are in the eastern and northwestern sections of the borough]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Bronx |url=https://chsserver01.org/jmora012017/Q3/Assignment001csc/thebronx.html |access-date=September 13, 2022 |website=chsserver01.org}}</ref>

From the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, the [[quality of life]] changed for some Bronx residents. Historians and social scientists have suggested many factors, including the theory that [[Robert Moses]]' [[Cross Bronx Expressway]] destroyed existing residential neighborhoods and created instant slums, as put forward in [[Robert Caro]]'s biography ''[[The Power Broker]]''.<ref>{{Cite Power Broker}}</ref> Another factor in the Bronx's decline may have been the development of [[high-rise]] [[Public housing#United States|housing projects]], particularly in the [[South Bronx]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://americanrealities.org/locations/south_bronx/ |title=The South Bronx |publisher=American Realities |access-date=December 23, 2014 |archive-date=August 12, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140812035736/http://americanrealities.org/locations/south_bronx/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Yet another factor may have been a reduction in the real estate listings and property-related financial services offered in some areas of the Bronx, such as [[mortgage loan]]s or insurance policies—a process known as [[redlining]]. Others have suggested a "[[planned shrinkage]]" of municipal services, such as fire-fighting.<ref>Roderick Wallace (October 1988). [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3168963/ "A synergism of plagues: 'planned shrinkage', contagious housing destruction, and AIDS in the Bronx"]. ''Environmental Research'', Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 1–33. Retrieved July 18, 2022.</ref><ref>Roderick Wallace (1990). [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2244222/ "Urban desertification, public health and public order: 'planned shrinkage', violent death, substance abuse and AIDS in the Bronx"], ''Social Science & Medicine'', Vol. 37, No. 7 (1990) pp. 801–813. Retrieved July 18, 2022. "Empirical and theoretical analyses strongly imply present sharply rising levels of violent death, intensification of deviant behaviors implicated in the spread of AIDS, and the pattern of the AIDS outbreak itself, have been gravely affected, and even strongly determined, by the outcomes of a program of 'planned shrinkage' directed against African-American and Hispanic communities, and implemented through systematic and continuing denial of municipal services—particularly fire extinguishment resources—essential for maintaining urban levels of population density and ensuring community stability."</ref><ref>Issues such as [[redlining]], hospital quality, and what looked like the planned shrinkage of garbage collection were alleged as the motivations which sparked the [[Puerto Rican people|Puerto Rican]] activists known as the [[Young Lords]]. The Young Lords coalesced with similar groups who claimed to be fighting for neighborhood empowerment, such as the [[Black Panthers]], to protest urban renewal and arson for profit with sit-ins, marches, and violence. See pages 6–9 of the guide to [https://www.pbs.org/pov/utils/youthviews/pov_palante_toolkit.pdf "''¡Palante Siempre Palante!'' The Young Lords"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326014741/http://www.pbs.org/pov/utils/youthviews/pov_palante_toolkit.pdf |date=March 26, 2009 }}, a "point of view" documentary on [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]].</ref> There was also much debate as to whether [[rent control]] laws had made it less profitable (or more costly) for landlords to maintain existing buildings with their existing tenants than to abandon or destroy those buildings.{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}<!-- User-generated sources such as (in this case) forum posts are generally not acceptable as sources; see [[WP:RS]]. Cite a reputable secondary source instead. <ref>For an example of this argument, as well as of several others mentioned here, see [https://city-data.com/forum/new-york-city/257896-when-bronx-burning-6.html "When the Bronx was burning"], ''City-data'' forum (blog), 2007, where rubygreta writes:

{{quote|Rent control destroyed the Bronx, especially starting in the 1960s and 1970s, when oil prices rose through the roof, and heavily subsidized Coop City opened in the East Bronx.
Essentially, tenants never moved out of their apartments because they had below-market rents thanks to rent control. The apartments deteriorated and common areas deteriorated because the landlords had no cash-flow. And no cash flow meant that they could not get mortgages for major repairs such as boilers, roofs and window replacement.}}</ref> -->

In the 1970s, parts of the Bronx were plagued by a wave of arson. The burning of buildings was predominantly in the poorest communities, such as the South Bronx. One explanation of this event was that landlords decided to burn their low property-value buildings and take the insurance money, as it was easier for them to get insurance money than to try to refurbish a dilapidated building or sell a building in a severely distressed area.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,945795-2,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615050753/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,945795-2,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 15, 2008 |title=Arson for Hate and Profit |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=October 31, 1977 |access-date=March 14, 2008}}</ref> The Bronx became identified with a high rate of poverty and unemployment, which was mainly a persistent problem in the South Bronx.<ref name="Gonzalez 2004">Gonzalez (2004)</ref> There were cases where tenants set fire to the building they lived in so they could qualify for emergency relocations by city social service agencies to better residences, sometimes being relocated to other parts of the city.

Out of 289 census tracts in the Bronx borough, 7 tracts lost more than 97% of their buildings to arson and abandonment between 1970 and 1980; another 44 tracts had more than 50% of their buildings meet the same fate. By the early 1980s, the Bronx was considered the most blighted urban area in the country, particularly the South Bronx which experienced a loss of 60% of the population and 40% of housing units. However, starting in the 1990s, many of the burned-out and run-down tenements were replaced by new housing units.<ref name="Gonzalez 2004" />

In May 1984, [[New York Supreme Court]] justice [[Peter J. McQuillan]] ruled that [[Marble Hill, Manhattan]], was simultaneously part of the Borough of Manhattan (not the Borough of the Bronx) and part of Bronx County (not New York County)<ref>Chambers, Marcia. [https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/16/nyregion/judge-s-ruling-revives-dispute-on-marble-hill.html "Judge's Ruling Revives Dispute On Marble Hill"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', May 16, 1984. Accessed January 8, 2024. "After a painstaking legal and historical analysis, Justice Peter J. McQuillan said rather, that Marble Hill lies in both. 'The conclusion is irresistible,' he said in a 36-page opinion, that Marble Hill is situated in the Borough of Manhattan, but is not part of New York County. By statute, he said, 'it is in Bronx County.' Contrary to what the Legislature may have thought when it redefined boundary lines for Manhattan in 1938 and again in 1940, it 'dealt only with boroughs and not counties,' the judge wrote. In short, the boundaries of New York County and Manhattan are not the same, he said."</ref> and the matter was definitively settled later that year when the [[New York Legislature]] overwhelmingly passed legislation declaring the neighborhood part of both New York County and the Borough of Manhattan and made this clarification retroactive to 1938, as reflected on the official maps of the city.<ref name="Bloom 1995">{{cite web | last=Bloom | first=Jennifer Kingson | title=If Your Thinking of Living In/Marble Hill; A Bit of Manhattan in the Bronx | website=The New York Times | date=July 23, 1995 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/23/realestate/if-your-thinking-of-living-in-marble-hill-a-bit-of-manhattan-in-the-bronx.html | access-date=January 3, 2017}}</ref><ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/27/nyregion/bill-would-clarify-marble-hill-s-status.html "Bill Would Clarify Marble Hill's Status"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', June 27, 1984. Accessed January 8, 2024. "The Assembly voted tonight to move the Marble Hill section of the Borough of Manhattan into New York County, thereby correcting a 46-year old mistake.... A dispute over Marble Hill followed, but the matter was mostly put to rest in 1938, when the boundaries of the Borough of Manhattan were shifted to include Marble Hill.... Tonight the Assembly voted 140 to 4 and joined the Senate in moving to change that, and the measure now goes to the Governor. It would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 1938."</ref><ref>[https://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/appellate-division-first-department/2007/2007-09955.html ''Montesano v New York City Hous. Auth.''], Justia, as corrected through March 19, 2008. Accessed January 8, 2024. "Less than 10 weeks after the Boyd decision, the Legislature eliminated any doubt that the Borough of Manhattan and New York County were conterminous in this respect by specifically including Marble Hill in both the Borough of Manhattan and New York County, 'for all purposes,' retroactive to 1938 (L 1984, ch 939). The official map of the City of New York now shows that Marble Hill is located in New York County."</ref>