Bronx

Bronx is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County. It has a land area of 42 square miles (109 km²) and a population of 1,472,654 in the 2020 census. If each borough were ranked as a city, the Bronx would rank as the ninth-most-populous in the U.S. The word "Bronx" originated with Faroese-born (or Swedish-born) Jonas Bronck, who established the first settlement in the area as part of the New Netherland colony in 1639. The Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, and a flatter eastern section. The Thain Family Forest at the New York Botanical Garden is thousands of years old; it is New York city's largest remaining tract of the original forest that once covered the city. It is the poorest congressional district in the United States, the 15th. There are, however, some upper-income, as well as middle-income neighborhoods such as Riverdale, Fieldston, Spuyten Duyvil, Schuylerville, Pelham Bay, and Pelham Gardens, Morris Park, and Country Club. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the borough received many immigrant and migrant groups as it was transformed into an urban community. European settlers displaced the native Lenape after 1643. It was called Rananchqua by the native Siwanoy band of Lenape, while other Native Americans knew the Bronx as Keskeskeck.

Etymology and naming

Bronx was called Rananchqua by the native Siwanoy band of Lenape. Other Native Americans knew the Bronx as Keskeskeck. It was divided by the Aquahung River (now known in English as the Bronx River}. The Bronx was named after Jonas Bronck (c.1600-1643), a European settler whose precise origins are disputed. The Bronx is referred to with the definite article as "the Bronx" or "The Bronx", both legally and colloquially. The capitalization of the borough's name is sometimes disputed. Some people and groups refer to the borough with a capital letter at all times, such as Bronx Borough Historian Lloyd Ultan, The Bronx County Historical Society, and the Bronx-based organization Great and Glorious Grand Army of The Bronx. The United States Postal Service uses "Bronx, NY" for mailing addresses. The "County of Bronx" does not take "the" immediately before "BronX" in formal references, unlike the coextensive "Borough of the Bronx". The region was apparently named after the Bronx river and first appeared in 1874 out of part of Westchester County. The definite article is capitalized ("The Bronx") at the beginning of a sentence or in any other situation when a normally lowercase word would be capitalized. A time-worn story says it stems from the phrase "visiting the Broncks", referring to the settler's family. It is attributed to the style of referring to rivers.

History

Bronx was originally part of Westchester County, but it was ceded to New York County in two major parts (West Bronx, 1874 and East Bronx, 1895) Originally, the area was part of the Lenape's Lenapehoking territory inhabited by Siwanoy of the Wappinger Confederacy. Over time, European colonists converted the borough into farmlands. Bronx County's courts opened for business on January 2, 1914 (the same day that John P. Mitchel started work as Mayor of New York City) The South Bronx was a manufacturing center for many years, noted as a center of piano manufacturing in early part of 20th century. The Bronx has experienced an economic and developmental resurgence starting in the late 1980s and continues into today. The area was a mostly rural area with small farms until the late 19th century, when it grew into a suburb. In 1919, the Bronx hosted the small World Fair at the end of World War I, which linked the Bronx to Manhattan in 1904. In 1999, the city's population grew by a factor of six from 200,000 in 1900 to 1.3 million in 1930. The Great Depression and post World War II years saw a slowing of growth leading into an eventual decline. The mid to late century were hard times, as the Bronx changed during 1950-1985 from a predominantly moderate-income to a predominantly lower-income area with high rates of violent crime and poverty in some areas. The whole territory east of the Bronx River was annexed to the city in 1895, three years before New York's consolidation.

Geography

The Bronx is New York City's northernmost borough, New York State's southernmost county and the only part of the city that is almost entirely on the North American mainland. Its bedrock is primarily Fordham gneiss, a high-grade heavily banded metamorphic rock containing significant amounts of pink feldspar. The Bronx's highest elevation at 280 feet (85 m) is in the northwest corner, west of Van Cortlandt Park and in the Chapel Farm area near the Riverdale Country School. Bronx County was the third most densely populated county in the United States as of 2006 (after Manhattan and Brooklyn), 7,000 acres (28 km²) of the Bronx's area, and one quarter of its land areais given over to parkland. In 1904 the Chestnut Blightogen (Cryphonitica parasitica) was found for the first time outside of Asia, and spread throughout the next 40 years. The borough's northern side includes the largest park in New. York CityPelham Bay Park, which includes Orchard Beach and the third-largest, Van Cortlawnt Park. Nearer the end of the borough, along the Bronx River, is the Bronx Botanical Park; its northern end houses the New York Botanical Gardens, which once covered the county. The county's southern end is Jerome Park, the largest urban zoological gardens in the U.S., surrounded by the Bronx Zoo, Jerome Park Reservoir and Jerome Park Park.

Demographics

The Bronx has 532,487 housing units, with a median value of $371,800. 59.3% of residents speak a language besides English at home, the highest rate of the five boroughs. The borough's most populous racial group, white, declined from 99.3%. The population is 7.2% under 5, 17.6% 618, 62.4% 1964, and 12.8% over 65. 52.9% of the population is female. 35.3 per cent of residents are foreign born. The Bronx is the only New York City borough with a Hispanic majority, many of whom are Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. The majority of the non-Hispanic European American population is of Italian and Irish descent. Only some 5,560 individuals (out of the borough's 1.4 million people) are Native American, which is just 0.4 per cent. In addition, over 319,000 people were of various Hispanic and Latino groups, such as Dominican, Salvadoran and Salvadoran. These groups collectively represented 22.9 per cent on the Bronx's population. In the Bronx, the per capita income is $19,721, while the median household income is $36,593, both being the lowest of theFive boroughs, and 27.9 percent of residents live below the poverty line. In 2010, 46.29% (584,463) of Bronx residents aged five and older spoke Spanish at home. As of 2010, 44.02% (555,767) spoke English, 2.48% (31,361) African languages, 0.91% (11,455) French, and 0.90% Italian.

Culture and institutions

Edgar Allan Poe spent the last years of his life in the Bronx. Hip hop first emerged in the South Bronx in the early 1970s. Newer hip hop artists from the Bronx include Big Pun, Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz, Camp Lo, Swizz Beatz, Drag-On, Fat Joe, Terror Squad, Cory Gunz and A Boogie wit da Hoodie. The Bronx is the home of the New York Yankees, nicknamed "the Bronx Bombers", of Major League Baseball. The original Yankee Stadium opened in 1923 on 161st Street and River Avenue. The former home of New York Giants of the National Football League from 1956 to 1973, it is now the home to the New England Patriots. The 2016 Netflix series The Get Down is based on the development of hip hop in 1977 in the south Bronx. The New York Times has identified 1520 Sedgwick Avenue "an otherwise unremarkable high-rise just north of the Cross Bronx Expressway and hard along the Major Deegan Expressway" as a starting point, where DJ Kool Herc presided over parties in the community room. This was hip-hop pioneer KRS-One's inspiration for his group BDP, or Boogie Down Productions, which included DJ Scott La Rock. Fordham University has established the Bronx African-American History Project (BAAHP) The Bronx has been home to many of baseball's greatest players including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Whitey Fordra, Mickey Miano, Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.

Economy

Prominent shopping areas in the Bronx include Fordham Road, Bay Plaza in Co-op City, The Hub, the Riverdale/Kingsbridge shopping center, and Bruckner Boulevard. Shops are also concentrated on streets aligned underneath elevated railroad lines, including Westchester Avenue, White Plains Road, Jerome Avenue, Southern Boulevard, and Broadway. The Bronx Terminal Market, in the West Bronx, formerly known as Gateway Center, is a shopping center that encompasses less than one million square feet of retail space. The Hub has been called "the Broadway of the Bronx", being likened to the real Broadway in Manhattan and the northwestern Bronx. In configuration, it resembles a miniature Times Square, a spatial "bow-tie" created by the geometry of the street. The center's design has earned it a LEED "Silver" designation. The hub is part of Bronx Community Board 1. It is the retail heart of the South Bronx, where four roads converge: East 149th Street, Willis, Melrose and Third Avenues. The $500 million shopping center was completed in 2009, saw the construction of new buildings and two smaller buildings, one new and the other a renovation of an existing building that was part of the original market. The two main buildings are linked by a six-level garage for 2,600 cars. The shopping center is built on a 17 acres (7 ha) site that formerly held a wholesale fruit and vegetable market as well as the former Bronx House of Detention, south of Yankee Stadium.

Government and politics

Bronx has its own criminal court system and District Attorney, the chief public prosecutor who is directly elected by popular vote. The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. Controversial political issues in the Bronx include environmental issues, the cost of housing, and annexation of parkland for new Yankee Stadium. The Bronx has always supported the Democratic Party's nominee for president, starting with a vote of 21 for the unsuccessful Al Smith in 1928, followed by four 21 votes for the successful Franklin D. Roosevelt. It voted heavily for the winning Republican Warren G. Harding in 1920, but much more narrowly on a split vote for his victorious Republican successor Calvin Coolidge in 1924 (Coolidge 79,562; John W. Davis, Dem., 72,834; Robert La Follette, 62,202 equally divided between the Progressive and Socialist lines). The Bronx also has twelve Community Boards, appointed bodies that advise on land use and municipal facilities and services for local residents, businesses and institutions. Bronx votes for Mayor and President are not carried by successful Republican re-election campaigns of Mayors Rudolph Giuliani in 1997 and Michael Bloomberg in 2005. The only Bronx Mayor to carry the Bronx's vote since 1914 was Fiorello La Guardia in 1933, 1937 and 1941 (and in the latter two elections, only because his 30% on the American Labor Party line was added to 22% to 23% as a Republican) The Bronx was the only borough not carried over 31% of the vote by the anti-war campaign of Morris Hill in 1917.

Education

In 2000, according to the United States Census, out of the nearly 800,000 people in the Bronx who were then at least 25 years old, 62.3% had graduated from high school and 14.6% held a bachelor's or higher college degree. In 2000, 49,442 (57.5%) of the 86,014 Bronx residents seeking college, graduate or professional degrees attended public institutions. The Bronx is also home to three of New York City's most prestigious private, secular schools: Fieldston, Horace Mann, and Riverdale Country School. Three of the city's largest university campuses are in the borough: Fordham University, Mount Saint Vincent, and Westchester County University. The largest public university campus in the city is the University of Manhattan, which has campuses in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Queens. The city's two largest public high schools are the Bronx High School of Science and the Bronx International High School. The borough is home to a number of elite private schools, including St. Raymond's Academy for Girls, All Hallows High School, Fordham Preparatory School, Monsignor Scanlan High School and St. Catherine of Siena High School for Girls. It also has a large number of noncharter schools, many of which are run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New New York and Jewish organizations. A small portion of land between Pelham and Pelham Bay Park, with 35 houses, is a part of the Bronx, but is cut off from the rest of the borough due to county boundaries.

Transportation

The Bronx is served by seven New York City Subway services along six physical lines, with 70 stations in the Bronx. As of the 2000 Census, approximately 61.6% of all Bronx households do not have access to a car. Two Metro-North Railroad commuter rail lines (the Harlem Line and the Hudson Line) serve 11 stations. In 2018, NYC's Soundview line opened connecting the Soundview landing in Clason Point Park to three East River locations in Manhattan. In part of the Bronx, the only part of mainland Manhattan connected to the mainland is the Bronx-Hudson Line. In addition, some trains on the New Haven Line stop at the Fordham Plaza stop. The Bronx is home to one of the largest concentrations of African-American residents in the U.S., with more than 1.5 million people. The population of the West Bronx is the highest of any borough in the United States, followed by the East Bronx, which has about 1.6 million people, and the South Bronx, with about 1 million. It is the only borough in New York that does not have a large percentage of its population living on the Upper East Side or the Upper West Side. It also has the highest percentage of people living on Staten Island, which is the city's second-largest borough, after New Jersey. It has the lowest percentage of residents on the Lower East Side, at about 2.5%. The Bronx has the second-highest percentage of households that live on the East Coast, after Manhattan.