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How the Bronx died, 1950 – 1980
A very long, detailed article about the decline of the Bronx, my home town. It details the rise in crime and drug use – mostly heroin, loss of manufacturing jobs, and influx of minorities. This rings true to me, I fled the Bronx in the early ’70s when I graduated from high school. I remember stepping over nodding junkies in the stairwell of the building we lived in, heroin having “brand names”, the streets becoming unsafe after dark (I still carry personal weapons on a daily basis from this experience), the south bronx burning and becoming a zone where the fire department did not go without a police escort.
A very sad tale. My paternal grandfather Al, who passed away in the late ’80s at age 100, used to tell stories of the Bronx he grew up in where there were vegetable farms and they slept on folding chairs in the parks on hot summer nights.
Dagny's Desk 