This past Monday, May 9th, legislation was passed to make the bison, aka the American Buffalo, the national mammal of The United States and now sits along with the bald eagle, the rose, and the oak tree as official symbols of our nation.
But did you know that the bison was rescued from the abyss of extinction right here in The Bronx?
If you feel subways and buses are crowded now more than ever—it’s not just your imagination.
For the first time in New York City history, the population has hit above 8.5 million people according to US Census estimates issued for last year—and The Bronx is leading not just the city in terms of growth but also the State of New York.
Here’s a favorite tidbit of Bronx history we’re reposting in honor of Albert Einstein!
Happy π Day! Not only is this a day we celebrate the mathematical constant known as Pi (thus 3.14) but it is also the birthday of the late Albert Einstein…what a wonderful coincidence that he was born on this day!
One day after his 74th birthday, he agreed to attach his name to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine right here in the Bronx which opened its doors in 1955.
It was a wonderful moment for the Bronx to have the honor of becoming home to the first medical college to open in NYC since 1897 back at that time.
Since then, the institution is renowned for its excellence and leadership in several medical areas.
Celebrate the Bronx!
In 1970, The Bronx registered a historic population record of 1,471,701 residents—and then the great decline led to a 20% drop by 1980 as over 300,000 people fled the chaos our borough was thrown into by government officials with planned shrinkage, landlords torching their properties, redlining, and a host of other systemic issues that plagued our borough of which we still feel the impact today.
Now, as of 2014 census estimates, The Bronx has an estimated population of 1,438,159—just 33,542 shy of our historic high in 1970.
Born in 1904 in The Bronx and attended St Anselm’s Roman Catholic school on Tinton Avenue, Helen Clare Schroeder would eventually become the inspiration for one of the most iconic and lasting cartoon characters, Betty Boop.
Little did Helen Kane, a German-Irish Catholic woman from The Bronx (as she later became known), know that her likeness would set the globe ablaze as one of the first and most famous of all sex symbols in all the world of animation.
36 years ago in 1980, Immaculate Conception Church in the Melrose neighborhood of The Bronx, along with its convent, rectory, and priests’ residence was calendered for landmarking by New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission but nothing happened.
Until this past Tuesday.
LPC removed 65 properties from the calendar, many of which sat for decades waiting for action, but kept Immaculate Conception and prioritized for designation as a landmark by year’s end pending further hearings and a vote.
207 years ago today, one of The Bronx’s most notable residents was born—the poet Edgar Allan Poe who once lived in what was known as the Village of Fordham in what was once Westchester County.
The famed writer and poet, one of the most important in American history, moved to The Bronx when his wife Virginia became ill from tuberculosis and he thought the fresh country air would help her condition.
It’s been almost a year since Netfilx and Baz Lurhman announced that they were embarking on producing a series based in the South Bronx in the 1970s as hip-hop was emergency, disco was reigning supreme alongside Salsa, and of course—The Bronx was burning. Now here’s a sneak peek at the series as Netflix puts out the first trailer for ‘The Get Down’.
Netflix simply writes, “Told through the lives and music of a ragtag crew of South Bronx teens, The Get Down is a mythic saga of the transformation of 1970s New York City.
Fordham University has made public over 300 oral interviews conducted for the Bronx African American…
An exploration of supernatural phenomenon, ghosts, and old-wives tales in the borough of The Bronx with LATIN HORROR’s Edwin Pagán.
Most people don’t associate the Bronx as a place connected to paranormal activity, having haunted houses, or deep and dark secrets connected to the supernatural, but there are plenty of old estates built on vast landscapes that were once farmland during the Colonial or industrial age, and plenty of places where tragedies have fostered apparitions seeking justice (or who cannot gain closure). We’ll visit a few of these places and discuss how these locations became haunted and the scary things that take place there, and who—or what—still walks those grounds today (and we’re not talking about the current tenants).
We love The Bronx, the much maligned borough of New York City.
I dare even say that Bronx pride surpasses that of other boroughs.
We have so much to be proud of throughout our history giving birth to so many movers and shakers, artists, music genres, and that’s not even touching upon our beautiful, natural resources.
A French Huguenot family, the Lorillards, settled in the area which is now known as Allerton as well as parts of the New York Botanical Garden back in the late 1700s. The family became extremely successful in the tobacco industry and their company would eventually give rise to Lorillard Inc, which makes Newport, Kent, and other cigarettes.
By 1840 they had built what is now known as The Snuff Mill at NYBG which according to the New York Times, “…tobacco was ground into smokeless, powdery form called snuff, which could be flavored and inhaled.”
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