Today is Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 and it is now 958AM here in the South Bronx, New York City, USA.
Recap: I was slowly relating the story of my 1st conviction, for a drug offence (drug smuggling) in Israel, while in the army.
This entry: I will continue the previous post in a sunsequent entry.
I am sitting on a wooden bench on the west side of the Grand Concourse, the most famous street in the Bronx, 1 that runs almost the entire length of the Boro. For those that are unaware, NYC is comprised of 5 "Boros," or individual cities: Manhattan, the nerve centre, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island. The last one is not a city per se, but an island with rural to urban environments, but a Boro never-the-less.
The Bronx is the northern most Boro and the only 1 actually located on the Mainland United States. Brooklyn and Queens are on Long Island, and Manhattan and Staten Island have 2 entire islands of their own.
The Grand Concourse was built in 1922, finished in its present form in 1927. It was modeled after broad Parisian avenues like the Champ D'Elysee. For many years it was one of the richest areas in the entire city and for 3 decades, until the early 1960s served as the main artery of the world's largest Jewish Community.
In the 1950s a Jew by the name of Robert Moses began vivisecting the city with what he and his defenders claimed were the best thing to happen to New York in decades, modern hiways.
While they indeed saved time for happy motorists (when not snarled in their ever present traffic jams) they also divided very cohesive neighbourhhods into 2, and sometimes 3 sections.
NYC neighbourhoods are small cities unto themselves. Indeed, many have populations rivalling many small cities across America.
Neighbourhoods here have specific ethnic themes, since humans have a tendency to settle with people much like themselves. The "Jewish Bronx" actually comprised several different neighbourhoods, albeit as 1 conigious area.
When Mr.Moses drew his pencil across a map of the Bronx to create the Cross Bronx Expressway he created a natural barrier that allowed a section called the "South Bronx" to expand north, up to this new hiway, and consume all other neighbourhoods in its path.
The South Bronx was home, then as now, to the city's poorest residents. The US being what it is, this means that they were and are black and Latino. As these groups moved northward groups like the Jews and Southern Italians fled en masse. This wasn't due to their colour of their skin but out of fear of crime and illegal drugs which has already been destroying black and Latino lives for 2 decades.
As more Jews and Italians fled, more Latinos poured in to the vacuum, with blacks having peaked in the post-WWII Era and the great South to North Migration that took place when poor southern blacks came north to take jobs left vacant by whites serving in the war.
As this "changing of the guard" took place, from Jews and Italians to blacks and Latinos, property values plummeted. Hoping to recoup imminent losses, property owners began burning their buildings to gain the insurance pay off. By the 1970s a Jew in this area was a rare sight.
My mother's relatives, whom I considered my granparents (my mum's family was exterminated in the Holocaust), had gained entry to City Housing ("Projects") when they were built in the post-WWII Era Refugees, like my mum, they were placed in Housing which had been primarily created for returning soldiers and their families. At that time Housing didn't accept people on the dole (Welfare), and families had to be intact, no single family households, except widows with a source of income. Refugees were given a very limited quota system and thus my "family" gained their flat, in Millbrook Houses, and others in Webster Houses in the larger Claremont Village complex, one of the largest "Projects" in the US.
As I discussed in "My Life" entries, I came to the South Bronx when I was about 11, because I had begun "assimilating" in Brooklyn, becoming Americanised in the worst way, cutting school, smoking cannabis. Of course the South Bronx only made this worse but that is neithere here nor there since I have covered this in the afore mentioned entries.
I am here, on this bench, because I came out to wire some cash back to Manila, to Jackie. If it was Rizza, my wife, she would have gone to a Jewish man we use for private cash transfers. I will not let Jackie get near that because IF I did, she could simply go to him on the basis of her friendship with me and borrow up to 10,000 US. Imagine that...
Her rent is due on the 9th but she ran short on her food and spending money so I sent 200 US, about 9400 Pesos, enough for this rent, utilities, food and savings.
When I came to do that I decided to see about modifying my data plan on my cellulars (I use 3, 1 for internet, this Sidekick, 1 for phone, my Nokia, and 1 strictly for my business affairs, a 2nd Nokia). The store hadn't opened yet so I came to this Farmer's Market they have on the Grand Concourse and E161 St, every Tuesday. I ended up spending 40 US, go figure.
Enough for now.
Recap: I was slowly relating the story of my 1st conviction, for a drug offence (drug smuggling) in Israel, while in the army.
This entry: I will continue the previous post in a sunsequent entry.
I am sitting on a wooden bench on the west side of the Grand Concourse, the most famous street in the Bronx, 1 that runs almost the entire length of the Boro. For those that are unaware, NYC is comprised of 5 "Boros," or individual cities: Manhattan, the nerve centre, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island. The last one is not a city per se, but an island with rural to urban environments, but a Boro never-the-less.
The Bronx is the northern most Boro and the only 1 actually located on the Mainland United States. Brooklyn and Queens are on Long Island, and Manhattan and Staten Island have 2 entire islands of their own.
The Grand Concourse was built in 1922, finished in its present form in 1927. It was modeled after broad Parisian avenues like the Champ D'Elysee. For many years it was one of the richest areas in the entire city and for 3 decades, until the early 1960s served as the main artery of the world's largest Jewish Community.
In the 1950s a Jew by the name of Robert Moses began vivisecting the city with what he and his defenders claimed were the best thing to happen to New York in decades, modern hiways.
While they indeed saved time for happy motorists (when not snarled in their ever present traffic jams) they also divided very cohesive neighbourhhods into 2, and sometimes 3 sections.
NYC neighbourhoods are small cities unto themselves. Indeed, many have populations rivalling many small cities across America.
Neighbourhoods here have specific ethnic themes, since humans have a tendency to settle with people much like themselves. The "Jewish Bronx" actually comprised several different neighbourhoods, albeit as 1 conigious area.
When Mr.Moses drew his pencil across a map of the Bronx to create the Cross Bronx Expressway he created a natural barrier that allowed a section called the "South Bronx" to expand north, up to this new hiway, and consume all other neighbourhoods in its path.
The South Bronx was home, then as now, to the city's poorest residents. The US being what it is, this means that they were and are black and Latino. As these groups moved northward groups like the Jews and Southern Italians fled en masse. This wasn't due to their colour of their skin but out of fear of crime and illegal drugs which has already been destroying black and Latino lives for 2 decades.
As more Jews and Italians fled, more Latinos poured in to the vacuum, with blacks having peaked in the post-WWII Era and the great South to North Migration that took place when poor southern blacks came north to take jobs left vacant by whites serving in the war.
As this "changing of the guard" took place, from Jews and Italians to blacks and Latinos, property values plummeted. Hoping to recoup imminent losses, property owners began burning their buildings to gain the insurance pay off. By the 1970s a Jew in this area was a rare sight.
My mother's relatives, whom I considered my granparents (my mum's family was exterminated in the Holocaust), had gained entry to City Housing ("Projects") when they were built in the post-WWII Era Refugees, like my mum, they were placed in Housing which had been primarily created for returning soldiers and their families. At that time Housing didn't accept people on the dole (Welfare), and families had to be intact, no single family households, except widows with a source of income. Refugees were given a very limited quota system and thus my "family" gained their flat, in Millbrook Houses, and others in Webster Houses in the larger Claremont Village complex, one of the largest "Projects" in the US.
As I discussed in "My Life" entries, I came to the South Bronx when I was about 11, because I had begun "assimilating" in Brooklyn, becoming Americanised in the worst way, cutting school, smoking cannabis. Of course the South Bronx only made this worse but that is neithere here nor there since I have covered this in the afore mentioned entries.
I am here, on this bench, because I came out to wire some cash back to Manila, to Jackie. If it was Rizza, my wife, she would have gone to a Jewish man we use for private cash transfers. I will not let Jackie get near that because IF I did, she could simply go to him on the basis of her friendship with me and borrow up to 10,000 US. Imagine that...
Her rent is due on the 9th but she ran short on her food and spending money so I sent 200 US, about 9400 Pesos, enough for this rent, utilities, food and savings.
When I came to do that I decided to see about modifying my data plan on my cellulars (I use 3, 1 for internet, this Sidekick, 1 for phone, my Nokia, and 1 strictly for my business affairs, a 2nd Nokia). The store hadn't opened yet so I came to this Farmer's Market they have on the Grand Concourse and E161 St, every Tuesday. I ended up spending 40 US, go figure.
Enough for now.