South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City
Jill Jonnes's recounting of the rise, fall, and resurrection of the Bronx has become a classic of urban history. In this new edition, she describes in a new final chapter the extraordinary and monumental rebuilding of the borough by the grass-roots groups that was just getting underway in 1984. The original book was hailed as a vivid history of the Bronx from its origins as colonial farmlands to the borough's 1980s status as one of the nation's foremost urban disasters. The book tells the colorful story of the Bronx, starting with its development as a New York suburb and boomtown when hundreds of thousands of German, Irish, Italians, and above all, Jewish immigrants flowed into the borough to raise their families. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, assisted by his powerful lieutenant, Boss Ed Flynn, built vast Democratic majorities in the polyglot Bronx into political domination of New York and the nation. After World War II, the Bronx underwent its second boom, beginning with emigrants from Puerto Rico and blacks displaced from Manhattan. On their heels came the camp followers of modern urban poverty: drug dealers, real estate pirates, arsonists. By the mid-1970s the Bronx was burning. Block after block, once given over to working- and middle-class family life, was now utterly destroyed, abandoned, given up on. The teeming, populous Bronx had turned into an American urban desert. This borough, which in its heyday had produced such notable Americans as Clifford Odets, Paddy Cheyefsky, Lauren Bacall, Herman Wouk, Jules Feiffer, Jake LaMotta, Stanley Kubrick, E.L. Doctorow, Neil Simon, and Tony Curtis, now lay in ashes, visible to us mainly as a dreadful object lesson. Yet change was in sight. Even while the worst destruction was taking place, new forces were rising to set aside or remake the tired machinery of government, allying such institutions as the Catholic Church, insurance companies, and dedicated non-profits to rally the Bronx and turn the tide of urban thinking. In her new final chapter, Dr. Jonnes describes the triumph of the grass-roots groups as they fulfilled their great dream of rebuilding these devastated neighborhoods.
1118138854
South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City
Jill Jonnes's recounting of the rise, fall, and resurrection of the Bronx has become a classic of urban history. In this new edition, she describes in a new final chapter the extraordinary and monumental rebuilding of the borough by the grass-roots groups that was just getting underway in 1984. The original book was hailed as a vivid history of the Bronx from its origins as colonial farmlands to the borough's 1980s status as one of the nation's foremost urban disasters. The book tells the colorful story of the Bronx, starting with its development as a New York suburb and boomtown when hundreds of thousands of German, Irish, Italians, and above all, Jewish immigrants flowed into the borough to raise their families. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, assisted by his powerful lieutenant, Boss Ed Flynn, built vast Democratic majorities in the polyglot Bronx into political domination of New York and the nation. After World War II, the Bronx underwent its second boom, beginning with emigrants from Puerto Rico and blacks displaced from Manhattan. On their heels came the camp followers of modern urban poverty: drug dealers, real estate pirates, arsonists. By the mid-1970s the Bronx was burning. Block after block, once given over to working- and middle-class family life, was now utterly destroyed, abandoned, given up on. The teeming, populous Bronx had turned into an American urban desert. This borough, which in its heyday had produced such notable Americans as Clifford Odets, Paddy Cheyefsky, Lauren Bacall, Herman Wouk, Jules Feiffer, Jake LaMotta, Stanley Kubrick, E.L. Doctorow, Neil Simon, and Tony Curtis, now lay in ashes, visible to us mainly as a dreadful object lesson. Yet change was in sight. Even while the worst destruction was taking place, new forces were rising to set aside or remake the tired machinery of government, allying such institutions as the Catholic Church, insurance companies, and dedicated non-profits to rally the Bronx and turn the tide of urban thinking. In her new final chapter, Dr. Jonnes describes the triumph of the grass-roots groups as they fulfilled their great dream of rebuilding these devastated neighborhoods.
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South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City

South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City

by Jill Jonnes
South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City

South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City

by Jill Jonnes

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Overview

Jill Jonnes's recounting of the rise, fall, and resurrection of the Bronx has become a classic of urban history. In this new edition, she describes in a new final chapter the extraordinary and monumental rebuilding of the borough by the grass-roots groups that was just getting underway in 1984. The original book was hailed as a vivid history of the Bronx from its origins as colonial farmlands to the borough's 1980s status as one of the nation's foremost urban disasters. The book tells the colorful story of the Bronx, starting with its development as a New York suburb and boomtown when hundreds of thousands of German, Irish, Italians, and above all, Jewish immigrants flowed into the borough to raise their families. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, assisted by his powerful lieutenant, Boss Ed Flynn, built vast Democratic majorities in the polyglot Bronx into political domination of New York and the nation. After World War II, the Bronx underwent its second boom, beginning with emigrants from Puerto Rico and blacks displaced from Manhattan. On their heels came the camp followers of modern urban poverty: drug dealers, real estate pirates, arsonists. By the mid-1970s the Bronx was burning. Block after block, once given over to working- and middle-class family life, was now utterly destroyed, abandoned, given up on. The teeming, populous Bronx had turned into an American urban desert. This borough, which in its heyday had produced such notable Americans as Clifford Odets, Paddy Cheyefsky, Lauren Bacall, Herman Wouk, Jules Feiffer, Jake LaMotta, Stanley Kubrick, E.L. Doctorow, Neil Simon, and Tony Curtis, now lay in ashes, visible to us mainly as a dreadful object lesson. Yet change was in sight. Even while the worst destruction was taking place, new forces were rising to set aside or remake the tired machinery of government, allying such institutions as the Catholic Church, insurance companies, and dedicated non-profits to rally the Bronx and turn the tide of urban thinking. In her new final chapter, Dr. Jonnes describes the triumph of the grass-roots groups as they fulfilled their great dream of rebuilding these devastated neighborhoods.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780823221998
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Publication date: 01/01/2002
Edition description: 2
Pages: 481
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Daughter of American civil servant abroad, Jill Jonnes grew up in many countries. She graduated from Barnard College and the Columbia School of Journalism, has written for The Record (Bergen, N.J.), and free-lances for numerous magazines. Married to a physician, she now lives in Baltimore.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Third Edition ix

Foreword Nilka Martell xv

Introduction: Do Not Give Way to Evil 3

1 "It Is a Veritable Paradise," 1639-1900 11

2 The First Boom, 1900-1922 27

3 Boss Flynn, 1922 41

4 "The Bronx Is a Great City," 1923-1929 51

5 "Hard Hit by the Depression," 1929-1932 65

6 The New Deal Years, 1933-1939 78

7 War Fever, 1939-1945 85

8 The Diaspora after the War, 1946-1953 91

9 "There Was No Standing Still," 1952-1953 105

10 "Moses Thinks He's God," 1954-1959 117

11 The New Boss, 1959-1963 127

12 "Horse Was the New Thing," 1960 137

13 The New "Other Half," 1962-1966 144

14 The Pondiac's Last Hurrah, 1961-1967 153

15 The Puerto Rican and the Priest, 1962-1967 164

16 Mau-mauing the City, 1967 175

17 Who Will Be Caudillo?, 1968-1969 182

18 "The Whole Place Was Caving In," 1969-1970 199

19 Interlude: Sweet Days on Charlotte Street, 1925-1951 205

20 Charlotte Street: It Was Not a "Good" Neighborhood, 1951-1961 219

21 Charlotte Street: "What a Madhouse It Was," 1961-1968 225

22 Charlotte Street: The Fires, 1969-1973 231

23 Charlotte Street: The Gangs, 1970-1975 236

24 Charlotte Street: The Collapse, 1973-1975 249

25 The Grand Concourse, 1965-1969 268

26 The Hotel and the Concourse, 1969-1976 281

27 Roosevelt Gardens, 1974-1975 288

28 The Grass Roots, 1974-1977 300

29 The President's Magic Visit, 1977-1978 311

30 Disenchantment, 1979-1980 324

31 Charlotte Street and National Politics, 1980 333

32 "The Next Part of the South Bronx," 1972-1978 345

33 "We're Still Here," 1978-1982 363

34 White Picket Fences, 1984 376

35 "South Bronx Rising," 1985-2002 389

36 Still the Poorest Urban Congressional District in America, 2003-Mid-March 2020 441

Covid Afterword 515

Acknowledgments for the Third Edition 547

Notes 551

Bibliography 569

Third Edition Bibliography 579

Index 581

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