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Around 1929 the South Bronx was certainly not what it is today. It was a place where Irish, Jewish and Italian families raised their children and did their best to maintain their cultural traditions, while living in what was so often referred to as the “New World”. Despite the Great Depression that was going on at the time, the future didn’t look so bad, for at least they had their own communities – or so they thought!
In 1929 the New York Regional Plan Association had something else in mind for the future. They envisioned Manhattan as a centre of great wealth and to provide the necessary workforce to fuel this affluent centre, a massive expressway would be built that would connect Manhattan to the suburbs. This way commuters could literally drive “over” the Bronx and whatever other areas spanned across this 7 mile experiment.
Robert Moses, who was recognized as the most powerful Urban Builder of all time, was at the head of this project after World War II. He was a man who wanted to make history by any means necessary. And indeed he has done just that, but the price has been higher than just the cost for the raw materials. In the path of this expressway were those communities who dreamed of a better future. 60,000 Bronx residents were simply told that they had a few months to move out and were given $200 per room as a compensation. Thus began the exodus of the Irish, Jewish and Italians out of the Bronx.
Meanwhile, in Manhattan, another exodus was to take place. Under the guise of “Urban Renewal” poor Blacks and Hispanics were forced to leave and relocate to the South Bronx and East Brooklyn. To house them, towering flats were built on a massive scale. The Bronx River Projects and the Millbrook Projects both contained 1,200 units on fifteen floors; the Bronxdale Projects contained 1,500 units and the Patterson Projects rose to 1,700 units.
Those Italian, Irish and Jewish families who were not able to leave so quickly began to form gangs that attacked the incoming Afro-American, Afro-Caribbean and Hispanic families. In turn, these newcomers formed their own gangs in self-defence. Tensions were high on both ends. Organizations like the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords did what they could to mobilize the communities to protest for better services, but pressure from the authorities and conflicts with the gangs soon ended those efforts.
To make matters worse, industry was moving out of the area and factories were being left abandoned. As a result, 600,000 manufacturing jobs simply disappeared. People were left to survive on social welfare with most getting less than $2,500 a year.
In came the slumlords!
Slumlords began buying up apartment buildings and charging unreasonable rent prices. In fact, the object of the exercise was to force people to move out. When they couldnt pay rent, the electricity and water were turned off. When the building was emptied out, the slumlords would pay street thugs $50 to set the building on fire and would then go collect $150,000 from their insurance company. This became very widespread and caught the attention of politicians, but for the wrong reasons!
Because these fires were reported as arsons, politicians like Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan began making statements like, 'People in the South Bronx don’t want housing or they wouldn’t burn it down.' This lead to them forming a concept known as 'benign neglect'. In other words, if the people in the South Bronx don’t care about their community, then why should we give them any funding to build it up? Why not just “neglect” them until they go away? Of course the slumlords certainly weren’t going to step forward and volunteer the truth of the matter that they were the ones burning down the buildings to collect insurance, and who would believe some "poor, young kid from the streets".
As a result of this 'benign neglect' being put into effect, funding for social services were cut. On top of that, seven fire companies were closed down and thousands of fire fighters were laid off. As a result, more than 30,000 fires were set in the South Bronx which destroyed 43,000 housing units! Entire blocks were turned into ghost towns!
Amongst these ashes Afrika Bambaataa was raised. And from these ashes Afrika Bambaataa would see and participate in the coming together of a Hip Hop Culture.
NEXT CHAPTER
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