Photo courtesy of WHEDCo

Philosopher and environmentalist Wendell Berry famously observed that “you can’t know who you are until you know where you are.” Considering this, think about the challenge of re-connecting people to a physical environment that was systematically destroyed over a couple of decades; a place where familiar neighborhood landmarks no longer exist, where today’s children—and even their parents—have no recollection of carefree streets or of a time when the mention of their neighborhood evoked warm smiles of recognition.

Kids growing up in the Bronx today cannot recall when being from “Da Bronx” meant taking the first steps into the middle class; when living in the projects signified arrival to a much better place, and where being young meant being busy—physically and mentally—all of the time.

In 1987, at the time I arrived in the Bronx, the dust had barely settled on one of the worst urban calamities this nation has ever seen. Theories of community development practice, including debates over investing in people, places, jobs, or homes, were extinguished during New York’s mid-1970s fiscal crisis when policymakers decided that New York City must shrink in size in order to survive.

What ended up shrinking was the Bronx, along with sections of Harlem and Brooklyn. The South Bronx was dealt the worst blow: scores of handsome apartment buildings were demolished, and hospitals, firehouses, and schools were shuttered. Thousands of families fled or were forcibly moved. Community gathering places were obliterated. Fordham University Professor Mark Naison summarizes the result: “The Bronx, once the first rung for upwardly mobile, lower middle class families, ended up buried beneath a mountain of unemployment, urban decay and a crippling city-wide drug epidemic, despite the best efforts of its remaining residents.”