The Bronx is Burning

During the 1970s – for the whole decade – the Bronx suffered an epidemic of fires and abandonment. This destroyed over 80 percent of the South Bronx housing stock making it look like a bombed out city during World War II. What exactly caused this? Some b

An episode of the Shoe Leather podcast, hosted by Columbia Journalism School, titled "The Bronx is Burning" was published on May 30, 2021 and runs 43 minutes.

May 30, 2021 ·43m · Shoe Leather

Summary

During the 1970s – for the whole decade – the Bronx suffered an epidemic of fires and abandonment. This destroyed over 80 percent of the South Bronx housing stock making it look like a bombed out city during World War II. What exactly caused this? Some blamed its residents, others blamed the landlords. In 1975, Gelvin Stevenson, a Bronx economist and journalist tried to sound the alarm by telling the story of one building on one boulevard that once promised the American Dream — but then succumbed to abandonment; Roosevelt Gardens on the Grand Concourse. In this episode, we investigate the toxic mix of invisible factors that turned the Bronx into a tinderbox

Episode Description