The Bronx
—  Borough of New York City  —
Bronx County
The Bronx is the home for the world-famous Yankee Stadium
Location of the Bronx shown in yellow.
Coordinates: 40°50′14″N 73°53′10″W / 40.83722, -73.88611
Country	United States
State	New York
County	Bronx
City	New York City
Borough created	1898  (County in 1914)
Government
- Type	Borough (New York City)
- Borough president	Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Area
- Total	57.43 sq mi (148.7 km²)
- Land	42.03 sq mi (108.9 km²)
- Water	15.40 sq mi (39.9 km²)
Highest elevation	280 ft (85 m)
Population (April 1, 2000 U.S. Census)
- Total	1,332,650
- Density	31,709/sq mi (12,242.9/km²)
Time zone	Eastern Standard Time (North America) (UTC-5)
- Summer (DST)	Eastern Daylight Time (North America) (UTC-4)
ZIP Code	104 + two digits
Website: www.ilovethebronx.com—Official website of the Bronx Borough President

The Bronx is the northernmost of New York City's five boroughs and the newest of New York State's 62 counties. It is located northeast of Manhattan and south of Westchester County. The Bronx is the only borough situated primarily on the North American mainland (while the other four are on islands). In 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the borough's population on July 1, 2007 was 1,373,659,^[1] ranking fourth of the five boroughs in population and area, and third in density.^{[2] [3]}

The Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, closer to Manhattan, and the flatter East Bronx, closer to Queens and Long Island. The towns of Kingsbridge, Morrisania and West Farms in the West Bronx were annexed to New York City (then confined to Manhattan) in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895.^[4] The Bronx first assumed a distinct legal identity when it became a borough of Greater New York in 1898.

Although the third-most-densely-populated county in the U.S.,^[3] about a quarter of the Bronx's land is open space,^[5] including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Gardens and the Bronx Zoo in the north and center, on land deliberately preserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed northwards and eastwards from Manhattan with roads, bridges and railroads.

After 1643, Dutch and English settlers gradually displaced the original Lenape (Delaware) American Indians. The Bronx received many Irish, German, Jewish and Italian immigrants as its once-rural population exploded between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. They were gradually succeeded after 1945 by African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, and immigrants from West Africa and the Caribbean, especially Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. In recent years, this cultural mix has made the Bronx a wellspring of both Latin music and Hip Hop (rap music).

The Bronx, especially the South Bronx, saw a sharp decline in population, livable housing and quality of life in the late 1960s and the 1970s, culminating in a wave of arson, but has seen a significant revival in recent years.^[6]

History

Origins and name of the Bronx

The Bronx was called Rananchqua^[7] by the native Siwanoy^[8] band of Lenape ( "the Delawares" to Europeans), while other Native Americans knew the Bronx as Keskeskeck.^[9] It was divided by the Aquahung River.

Jonas Bronck (died 1643), a Dutch sea-captain born in Sweden (about 1600), entering New Netherland in 1639, became the first recorded European settler in the area. He leased land from the Dutch West India Company on the neck of the mainland immediately north of the Dutch settlement in Harlem, and bought additional tracts from the local tribes. He eventually accumulated 500 acres (about 200 hectares, 2 square km, or 3/4 of a square mile) between the Harlem River and the Aquahung, which became known as Bronck's River, or "the Bronx". Dutch and English settlers referred to the area as Bronck's Land.^[10]

• The Bronx is referred to, both legally,^[11] and colloquially,^[12] with a definite article, as The Bronx. (The name of the coterminous Bronx County, or more formally the County of Bronx, does not include a the, nor does the United States Postal Service in its database of Bronx addresses.^[13]) The name for this region, apparently after the Bronx River, first appeared in the Annexed District of the Bronx created in 1874 out of part of Westchester County and was continued in the Borough of the Bronx, which included a larger annexation from Westchester County in 1898. The use of the definite article is attributed to the style of referring to rivers.^[14][15] Another explanation for the use of the definite article in the borough's name is that the original form of the name was possessive: The Bronck’s or The Broncks’ (referring to the family).^[16]

Before 1914

The development of the Bronx is directly connected to its strategic location between New England and New York (Manhattan). Control over the bridges across the Harlem River plagued the period of British colonial rule. Kingsbridge, built in 1693 where Broadway reached the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, was a possession of the lords of Philipse Manor. The tolls they charged were resented by Bronx farmers with crops and cattle to sell in New York. It was angry farmers who built a "free bridge" across the Harlem River which led to the abandonment of tolls altogether.

The territory now contained within Bronx County was originally part of Westchester County, one of the 12 original counties of the English Province of New York. The present Bronx County was contained in the town of Westchester and parts of the towns of Yonkers, Eastchester, and Pelham. In 1846, a new town, West Farms, was created by division of Westchester; in turn, in 1855, the town of Morrisania was created from West Farms. In 1873, the town of Kingsbridge (roughly corresponding to the modern Bronx neighborhoods of Kingsbridge, Riverdale, and Woodlawn) was established within the former borders of Yonkers.

The consolidation of the Bronx into New York City proceeded in two stages. In 1873, the state legislature annexed Kingsbridge, West Farms and Morrisania to New York, effective in 1874; the three towns were abolished in the process.^[18][19] In 1895, three years before New York's consolidation with Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, the whole of the territory east of the Bronx River, including the Town of Westchester (which had voted in 1894 against consolidation) and portions of Eastchester and Pelham, were annexed to the city. ^{[4][18][20][21][22]} City Island, a nautical community, voted to join the city in 1896.

On January 1, 1898, the consolidated City of New York was born, including the Bronx as one of the five distinct Boroughs. (At the same time the Bronx's territory moved from Westchester County into New York County, which already contained Manhattan and the rest of pre-1874 New York City.)

On April 19, 1912, those parts of New York County which had been annexed from Westchester County in the past decades were newly constituted as Bronx County, the 62nd and last county to be created by the state, effective in 1914. ^[18][23] 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).^[24]

Since 1914

At the end of World War I, the Bronx hosted the rather small 1918 World's Fair at 177th Street and DeVoe Avenue.^[25][4]

The Bronx underwent rapid growth after World War I. Extensions of the New York City Subway contributed to the increase in population as thousands of immigrants flooded the Bronx, resulting in a major boom in residential construction. Among these groups, many Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans and especially Jewish-Americans settled here. Author Willa Cather, tobacco merchant Pierre Lorillard, and inventor Jordan L. Mott were famous settlers. In addition, French, German, and Polish immigrants moved into the borough. The Jewish population also increased notably during this time. Many synagogues still stand in the Bronx, but most have been converted to other uses.

In Prohibition days (1920-33), bootleggers and gangs ran rampant in the Bronx. Irish, Italian and Polish immigrants smuggled in most of the illegal whiskey. By 1926, the Bronx was noted for its high crime rate and its many speakeasies.

After the 1930s, the Irish immigrant population in the Bronx decreased. The German population followed suit in the 1940s, as did many Italians in the 1950s and Jews in the 1960s. As the generation of the 1930s retired, many moved to southeastern Florida, west of Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach. The migration has left a Hispanic (mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican) and African-American population, along with some non-Hispanic white areas in the far southeastern and northwestern parts of the county.

During the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, the Bronx went into an era of sharp change in the residents' quality of life. Historians and social scientists have put forward many factors. They include the theory (elaborated in Robert Caro's biography The Power Broker)^[26] that Robert Moses' Cross-Bronx Expressway destroyed existing residential neighborhoods. Another (unintended) factor in the Bronx's decline may have been the development of high-rise housing projects. Yet another may have been a reduction in the real-estate listings and property-related financial services (such as mortgages or insurance policies) offered in some areas of the Bronx — a process known as redlining. Others have suggested a "planned shrinkage" of municipal services, such as fire-fighting.^[27][28] There was also much debate as to whether rent control laws had made it less profitable (or more costly) for landlords to maintain existing buildings with their existing tenants than to abandon or destroy those buildings.^[29]

In the 1970s, the Bronx was plagued by a wave of arson. The burning of buildings was mostly in the South Bronx, concentrated especially along Westchester Avenue and in West Farms. The most common explanation of what occurred was that landlords decided to burn their buildings and take the insurance money as profit.^[30] Competing explanations blamed the insurance companies —since their non-renewals of policies might have encouraged the landlords— or the residents themselves. After the destruction of many buildings in the South Bronx, the arsons slowed significantly in the later part of the decade, but the after-effects were still felt into the early 1990s.

Since the mid-1980s, significant residential development has occurred, stimulated by the city's "Ten-Year Housing Plan" ^[31][32] and community members working to rebuild the the social, economic and environmental infrastructure by creating affordable housing. Groups affiliated with South Bronx churches erected the Nehemiah Homes with about 1,000 units. The grass roots organization Nos Quedamos' endeavor known as Melrose Commons ^[33][34][35] began to rebuild the South Bronx. The ripple effects have been felt borough-wide. As a result of the growing population, the IRT White Plains Road Line has had an increase in riders. Chains such as Marshalls, Staples and Target have opened stores in the Bronx. More bank branches have opened in the Bronx as a whole (rising from 106 in 1997 to 149 in 2007), although not primarily in poor or minority neighborhoods, while the Bronx still has fewer branches per person than wealthier boroughs.^{[36][37][38][39]}

In 1997, the Bronx was designated an "All America City" by the National Civic League, signifying its comeback from the decline of the 1970s. In 2006, The New York Times reported that "construction cranes have become the borough's new visual metaphor, replacing the window decals of the 1980s in which pictures of potted plants and drawn curtains were placed in the windows of abandoned buildings."^[40]. The borough has experienced substantial new building construction since 2002. Between 2002 and June 2007, 33,687 new units of housing were built or were under way and $4.8 billion has been invested in new housing. In the first six months of 2007 alone total investment in new residential development was $965 million and 5,187 residential units were scheduled to be completed. Much of the new development is springing up in formerly vacant lots across the South Bronx.^[41]

Geography

Location and physical features

New York Times 1896 map of parks and transit in the newly-annexed Bronx. Marble Hill is in pink, cut off by water from the rest of Manhattan in orange. Parks are light green, Woodlawn Cemetery medium green, sports facilities dark green, the not-yet-built Jerome Park Reservoir light blue, St. John's College (now Fordham University) in violet, and the city limits of the newly-expanded New York in red.^[42]

The Bronx is almost entirely situated on the North American mainland.^[43] The Hudson River separates the Bronx on the west from Alpine, Tenafly and Englewood Cliffs in Bergen County, New Jersey; the Harlem River separates it from the island of Manhattan to the southwest; the East River separates it from Queens to the southeast; and, to the east, Long Island Sound separates it from Nassau County in western Long Island. Directly north of the Bronx are (from west to east) the adjoining Westchester County communities of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Pelham Manor and New Rochelle.

• (There is also a short southern land boundary with Marble Hill in the Borough of Manhattan, over the filled-in former course of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek. Marble Hill's postal ZIP Code, telephonic Area Code and fire service, however, are shared with the Bronx and not Manhattan.)

The Bronx River flows south from Westchester County through the borough, emptying into the East River; it is the largest freshwater river in New York City. A smaller river, the Hutchinson River (named after the religious leader Anne Hutchinson, killed along its banks in 1641), passes through the east Bronx and empties into Eastchester Bay.

The Bronx also includes several small islands in the East River and Long Island Sound, such as City Island and Hart Island. Although part of the Bronx, Rikers Island in the East River, home to the large jail complex for the entire City, can be reached only by water, by air, or—since 1966—over the Francis Buono Bridge from Queens.

See also: List of smaller islands in New York City#The Bronx

The Bronx's highest elevation—about 280 feet or 85 meters—is in the northwest corner, west of Van Cortlandt Park and in the Chapel Farm area near the Riverdale Country School.^[44]

As a part of New York City, Bronx County contains no other political subdivisions. It is located at 40°42′15″N, 73°55′5″W (40.704234, -73.917927).^[45] According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 148.7 km² (57.4 sq mi). 108.9 km² (42.0 sq mi) of it is land and 39.9 km² (15.4 sq mi) of it (26.82%) is water.

Parks and open space

See also: Category:Parks in the Bronx

Although, in 2006, it was the third most densely populated county in the United States (after Manhattan and Brooklyn),^[3] about one-fifth of the Bronx's area, and one-quarter of its land area, is given over to park land: about 7,000 acres or 11 square miles (2,800 hectares or 28 square km).^[5]

Woodlawn Cemetery, one of the largest cemeteries in New York City, sits on the western bank of the Bronx River near Yonkers. It opened in 1863, at a time when the Bronx was still considered a rural area.

The northern side of the borough includes two of the largest parks in New York City, Pelham Bay Park and Van Cortlandt Park. Pelham Bay Park, in the northeast giving onto Eastchester Bay and Long Island Sound, includes Orchard Beach, a large man-made public beach. Van Cortlandt Park, directly west of Woodlawn Cemetery and bordering Yonkers, contains the Bronx's oldest standing house and largest freshwater lake.

Nearer the borough's center, and along the Bronx River, is Bronx Park. Its northern end houses the New York Botanical Gardens, which preserve the last patch of the original hemlock forest which once covered the entire City, and its southern end the Bronx Zoo, the largest urban zoological gardens in the U.S.^[47]

Farther south is Crotona Park, home to a 3.3 acre (1.3 hectare) lake, 28 species of trees and a large swimming pool.^[48]. The land for these parks, and many others, was bought by New York City in 1888, while land was still open and cheap, in anticipation of future needs and future pressures for development.^[49]

The Northern tip of Hunter Island in Pelham Bay Park.

Just south of Van Cortlandt Park is the Jerome Park Reservoir, surrounded by two miles (3.2 km) of stone walls and bordering several small parks in the Bedford Park neighborhood. It was built in the 1890s to store New York City's drinking water, on the site of the former Jerome Park Racetrack (1866-1889), the birthplace of horse-racing's Belmont Stakes.^[50]

Wave Hill, the former estate of George W. Perkins — known for a historic house, gardens, changing site-specific art installations and concerts — overlooks the New Jersey Palisades from a promontory on the Hudson in Riverdale.

In 2006, a five-year, $220-million program of capital improvements and natural restoration in 70 Bronx parks was begun (financed by water and sewer revenues) as part of an agreement that allowed a water-filtration plant under Van Cortlandt Park's golf course.^[51]

Neighborhoods and commercial districts

See also: List of Bronx neighborhoods

A Department of City Planning map names 49 neighborhoods in the Bronx. Notable Bronx neighborhoods include the South Bronx, Little Italy on Arthur Avenue in the Belmont section, and Riverdale.

Customary divisions into regions

Generally speaking, there are two major systems of dividing the Bronx into regions which often conflict with one another. The older of the two systems, which is arguably a more accurate reflection of the area's history, divides the Bronx into two major sections:

• West Bronx: all parts of the Bronx west of the Bronx River (NOT Jerome Avenue - this street is simply the "east-west" divider for designating numbered streets as "east" or "west." As the Bronx's numbered streets merely continue from Manhattan, on which the street numbering system is obviously based, Jerome Avenue actually represents a longitudinal halfway point for Manhattan, not the Bronx.)
• East Bronx: all parts of the Bronx east of the Bronx River (not Jerome Avenue)

The Bronx River divides the borough roughly in half, putting the earlier-settled, denser, and hillier sections in the western lobe and the later developed, lower density sections in the eastern lobe. It is an accurate reflection on the Bronx's history considering that the towns that existed in the area prior to annexation to the City of New York generally did not straddle the Bronx River. In addition, what is today the Bronx was annexed to New York City in two stages: areas west of the Bronx River were annexed in 1874, while areas to the east of the river were annexed in 1895-96.^[4]

During the Bronx's economic decline in the late 20th century, a second system came into more common usage:

• South Bronx: south of Fordham Road and west of the Bronx River
• Everything else: all areas not in the South Bronx (Southwest Bronx) - i.e. remaining areas of the West and East Bronx

The term South Bronx encompassed many neighborhoods. As high poverty rates and urban decay extended into other parts of the borough, the name no longer clearly divided the poorest parts of the borough from the rest; however it is still in use.

Individual regions and neighborhoods

West Bronx

Main article: West Bronx

The western parts of the Bronx are hilly and are dominated by a series of parallel ridges, running south to north. The West Bronx has older apartment buildings, low income public housing complexes, multifamily homes in its lower income areas as well as larger single family homes in more affluent areas such as Riverdale. It includes New York City's fourth largest park: Van Cortlandt Park along the Westchester-Bronx border. The Grand Concourse, a wide boulevard runs through it, north to south. Neighborhoods include: Port Morris, Mott Haven, Melrose, Morrisania, East Morrisania, Longwood, Hunts Point, Concourse, Highbridge, West Farms, East Tremont, Tremont, Mount Hope, Morris Heights, University Heights, Belmont, Fordham, Fordham-Bedford, Bedford Park, Norwood, Kingsbridge Heights, Kingsbridge, Riverdale, and Woodlawn.

East Bronx

Main article: East Bronx

The neighborhood of Co-op City is the largest cooperative housing development in the world.

East of the Bronx River, the borough is flatter, and includes four large low peninsulas or necks of low-lying land that jut into the waters of the East River and were once saltmarsh: Hunts Point, Clason's Point, Screvin's Neck (Castle Hill Point) and Throgs Neck. The East Bronx has older tenement buildings, low income public housing complexes, and multifamily homes, as well as smaller and larger single family homes. It includes New York City's largest park: Pelham Bay Park along the Westchester-Bronx border. Neighborhoods include: Harding Park, Soundview, Castle Hill, Parkchester, Westchester Square, Van Nest, Pelham Parkway, Morris Park, Throgs Neck, Country Club, City Island, Pelham Bay, Williamsbridge, Eastchester, Baychester, Edenwald, Wakefield, and Co-op City.

City Island

Main article: City Island, Bronx

City Island is located in Long Island Sound, and is known for its seafood restaurants and waterfront private homes. City Island's single shopping street, City Island Avenue, is reminiscent of a small New England town. It is connected to the mainland by the City Island Bridge. The Long Island Sound is to its east.

South Bronx

Yankee Stadium is located on 161st and River Avenue

Main article: South Bronx, New York

The South Bronx has no official boundaries. The name has been used to represent poverty in the Bronx. The informal designation has moved northward in recent decades so that by the 2000s the name, the South Bronx, has come to be applied to the area roughly bound by Fordham Road to the north and the Bronx River to the east. Today neighborhoods outside of this area are economically distressed, as well. The South Bronx is filled with high-density apartment buildings, low income public housing complexes, and multi-unit homes. The South Bronx is home to the Bronx County Court House, Borough Hall, and other government buildings, as well as Yankee Stadium. The Cross Bronx Expressway bisects it, east to west. The South Bronx has some of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, as well as very high crime areas. Neighborhoods include: the Hub (a retail district at Third Avenue and East 149th Street), Mott Haven, Melrose, Morrisania, East Morrisania, Hunts Point, Longwood, Highbridge, Concourse, West Farms, East Tremont, Tremont, Morris Heights, University Heights, Belmont, and Fordham.

The Hub on Third Avenue

Shopping districts

Prominent shopping areas in the Bronx include Fordham Road, Bay Plaza (in Co-op City), The Hub, 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.

Transportation

See also: Transportation in New York City

Roads, streets, bridges and tunnels

Roads and Streets

The Bronx street grid is irregular. The west Bronx's hilly terrain leaves a relatively free street grid that closely resembles that of extreme upper Manhattan which has similar terrain. Much of the west Bronx follows the Manhattan street grid, and some of the streets are numbered. Because the street numbering carries over from upper Manhattan, the lowest numbered street in the Bronx is East 132nd Street. However, the numbering does not match the Manhattan grid exactly. This dates from the mid-nineteenth century when the southwestern area of Westchester County west of the Bronx River, was incorporated into New York City and known as the Northside.

The east Bronx is considerably flatter, and the street layout tends to be more regular. Only the Wakefield neighborhood picks up the street numbering.

Three major north-south thoroughfares run between Manhattan and the Bronx: Third Avenue, Park Avenue, and Broadway. Other major north-south roads include the Grand Concourse, Jerome Avenue, Webster Avenue, and White Plains Road. Major east-west streets include Mosholu Parkway, Gun Hill Road, Fordham Road, Pelham Parkway, Boston Road and Tremont Avenue.

Most east-west streets are prefixed with either East or West, to indicate on which side of Jerome Avenue they lie (continuing the similar system in Manhattan, which uses Fifth Avenue as the dividing line).

Mosholu and Pelham Parkways, with Bronx Park between them, Van Cortlandt Park to the west and Pelham Bay Park to the east, are also linked by bridle paths.

Highways

Several major expressways and highways traverse the Bronx. These include:

• the Bronx River Parkway
• the Bruckner Expressway (I-278/I-95)
• the Cross-Bronx Expressway (I-95/I-295)
• the New England Thruway (I-95)
• the Henry Hudson Parkway (NY-9A)
• the Hutchinson River Parkway
• the Major Deegan Expressway(New York Thruway) (I-87)

Bridges and tunnels

Aerial View of the Throgs Neck Bridge

Many bridges and tunnels connect the Bronx to Manhattan and Queens. These include, from west to east:

To Manhattan: the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge, the Henry Hudson Bridge, the Broadway Bridge, the University Heights Bridge, the Washington Bridge, the Alexander Hamilton Bridge, the High Bridge, the Concourse Tunnel, the Macombs Dam Bridge, the 145th Street Bridge, the 149th Street Tunnel, the Madison Avenue Bridge, the Park Avenue Bridge, the Lexington Avenue Tunnel, the Third Avenue Bridge (southbound traffic only), and the Willis Avenue Bridge (northbound traffic only).

To Manhattan or Queens: the Triborough Bridge

To Queens: the Bronx Whitestone Bridge and the Throgs Neck Bridge

Mass transit

Middletown Road subway station on the 6.

NYC Transit bus operating on the Bx40 line in University Heights.

The Bronx is served by six lines of the New York City Subway:

• IND Concourse Line (B D)
• IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line (1)
• IRT Dyre Avenue Line (5)
• IRT Jerome Avenue Line (4)
• IRT Pelham Line (6 <6>)
• IRT White Plains Road Line (2 5)

Two Metro-North Railroad commuter rail lines (the Harlem Line and the Hudson Line) serve 11 stations in the Bronx. (Marble Hill, between the Spuyten Duyvil and University Heights stations, is actually in the only part of Manhattan connected to the mainland.) In addition, trains serving the New Haven Line stop at Fordham Road.

The People

Main article: Demographics of The Bronx

Poverty concentrations within the Bronx, by Census Tract.

Population and housing

As of the United States Census^[52] of 2000, there were 1,332,650 people, 463,212 households, and 314,984 families residing in the borough. The population density was 12,242.2/km² (31,709.3/sq mi). There were 490,659 housing units at an average density of 4,507.4/km² (11,674.8/sq mi). There were 463,212 households out of which 38.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.4% were married couples living together, 30.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.0% were non-families. 27.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.78 and the average family size was 3.37.

The age distribution of the population in the Bronx was as follows: 29.8% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 30.7% from 25 to 44, 18.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.1% 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 87.0 males.

Individual & household income

The 1999 median income for a household in the borough was $27,611, and the median income for a family was $30,682. Males had a median income of $31,178 versus $29,429 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $13,959. About 28.0% of families and 30.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 41.5% of those under age 18 and 21.3% of those age 65 or over.

While the Bronx as a whole is one of the poorest areas in the United States, there is wide variation between neighborhoods, including affluent areas such as Riverdale and Country Club.

Racial concentrations within the Bronx, by block. (Red indicates Hispanic of any race; Blue indicates non-Hispanic White; and Green indicates non-Hispanic Black or African-American.)

Ethnicity, language and immigration

The racial makeup (in Census terminology) of the borough was 29.87% Black or African-American, 35.47% White (14.53% White non-Hispanic), 0.85% Native American, 3.01% Asian, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 24.74% from other races, and 5.78% from two or more races. Also 48.38% of the population was Hispanic or Latino of any race. (The 2005 U.S. census estimates that the percentage of Latinos has increased to a majority: 51.3%.) The Bronx has one of the highest percentages of Dominicans and Puerto Ricans in the U.S. with 20.0% and 24.0%, respectively.

West Africa is the most frequent region of origin for immigrants to the Bronx. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service data show that in 1996, about two-thirds of those Ghanaians arriving in the United States, and nearly three-fourths of those naturalized, live in the Bronx. Many have clustered in Bronx communities along the Grand Concourse.^[53]

Based on sample data from the 2000 census, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 47.29% of the population five and older speak only English at home. 43.67% speak Spanish at home, either exclusively or along with English. Other languages or groups of languages spoken at home by more than 0.25% of the population of the Bronx include Italian (1.36%), Albanian (1.07%), Kru, Ibo, or Yoruba [West Africa] (0.72%) and French (0.54%).

The main European ancestries of Bronx residents, 2000 (percentage of total borough population):

• Italian : 5.67%
• Albanian : 5.49%
• Irish : 3.69%
• German : 1.50%
• English : 0.53%

Government and politics

Main article: Government and politics of the Bronx

Local government

Main article: Government of New York City

Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, the Bronx has been governed by the New York City Charter that provides for a "strong" mayor-council system. The centralized New York City government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in the Bronx.

The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. In 1989 the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional on the grounds that Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island, the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" decision.^[54]

Since 1990 the Borough President has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York state government, and corporations. The Borough President of the Bronx is Adolfo Carrión Jr., elected as a Democrat in 2001 and re-elected in 2005. (For his predecessors, see the List of Bronx Borough Presidents.)

The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. Local party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Controversial political issues in the Bronx include environmental issues, the cost of housing, and annexation of parkland for New Yankee Stadium.

Since its separation from New York County on January 1, 1914, the Bronx, has had, like each of the other 61 counties of New York State, its own criminal court system^[24] and District Attorney, the chief public prosecutor who is directly elected by popular vote. Robert T. Johnson, a Democrat, has been the District Attorney of Bronx County since 1989. He was the first African-American District Attorney in New York State.

Eight members of the New York City Council represent districts wholly within the Bronx, while a ninth represents a Manhattan district (8) that also includes a small area of the Bronx. (All of them were Democrats in 2008.) One of those members, Joel Rivera (District 15), has been the Council's Majority Leader since 2002.

The Bronx also has twelve Community Boards, appointed bodies that field complaints and advise on land use and municipal facilities and services for local residents, businesses and institutions. (They are listed at Bronx Community Boards).

Representatives in the U.S. Congress and New York state legislature

In 2008, three Democrats represented almost all of the Bronx in the United States House of Representatives.

• José Serrano (first elected in March 1990) represents New York's 16th congressional district, which covers much of the South Bronx. It was, in 2000, the poorest of the nation's 435 districts (42.8% below the poverty line); it was also the most Hispanic of New York state's 29 congressional districts (62.8%) and the youngest (34.5% under 18 years old; 6.7% over 65).

• Eliot Engel (first elected in 1988) represents the 17th District which includes parts of the northwest Bronx as well as parts of Westchester and Rockland counties.

• Joseph Crowley (first elected in 1998) represents the 7th District which spans the east Bronx and includes Co-op City, City Island, Pelham Bay, Morris Park, Pelham Parkway, Parkchester, Castle Hill and Throgs Neck, as well as parts of northwest Queens.

• (Riker's Island, the city's main jail complex, is included in the 15th District, which covers Upper Manhattan and utilities facilities in Astoria, Queens. It is represented by Charles B. Rangel, first elected in 1970. In 2006, the Congressional election returns in this district included no votes from the Bronx or Queens.)

All of these Representatives won over 75% of their districts' respective votes in both 2004 and 2006. National Journal's neutral rating system placed all of their voting records in 2005 and 2006 somewhere between very liberal and extremely liberal.^[55][56]

Eleven out of 150 members of the New York State Assembly (the lower house of the state legislature) represent districts wholly within the Bronx. Six State Senators out of 62 represent Bronx districts, half of them wholly within the County, and half straddling other counties. All these legislators are Democrats who won between 65% and 100% of their districts' vote in 2006.^[57]

Votes for other offices

In the 2004 presidential election, Senator John F. Kerry received 81.8% of the vote in the Bronx (79.8% on the Democratic line plus 2% on the Working Families Party's line) while President George W. Bush received 16.3% (15.5% Republican plus 0.85% Conservative).

A year later, the Democratic former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer won 59.8% of the borough's vote against 38.8% (35.3% Republican, 3.5% Independence Party) for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who carried every other borough in his winning campaign for re-election.

In 2006, successfully-reelected Senator Hillary Clinton won 89.5% of the Bronx's vote (82.8% Dem. + 4.1% Working Families + 2.6% Independence) against Yonkers ex-Mayor John Spencer's 9.6% (8.2% Republican + 1.4% Cons.), while Eliot Spitzer won 88.8% of the Borough's vote (82.1% Dem. + 4.1% Working Families + 2.5% Independence Party) in winning the Governorship against John Faso, who received 9.7% of the Bronx's vote (8.2% Republican + 1.5% Cons.)

In the Presidential primary elections of February 5, 2008, Sen. Clinton won 61.2% of the Bronx's 148,636 Democratic votes against 37.8% for Barack Obama and 1.0% for the other four candidates combined (John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson and Joe Biden). At the same time, John McCain won 54.4% of the borough's 5,643 Republican votes, Mitt Romney 20.8%, Mike Huckabee 8.2%, Ron Paul 7.4%, Rudy Giuliani 5.6%, and the other candidates (Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter and Alan Keyes) 3.6% between them.^[58]

After becoming a separate county in 1914, the Bronx has supported only two Republican Presidential candidates. 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).

Since then, the Bronx has always supported the Democratic Party's nominee for President, starting with a vote of 2-1 for the unsuccessful Al Smith in 1928, followed by four 2-1 votes for the successful Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Both had been Governors of New York, but Republican former Gov. Thomas E. Dewey won only 28% of the Bronx's vote in 1948 against 55% for Pres. Harry Truman, the winning Democrat, and 17% for Henry A. Wallace of the Progressives. It was only 32 years earlier, by contrast, that another Republican former Governor who narrowly lost the Presidency, Charles Evans Hughes, had won 42.6% of the Bronx's 1916 vote against Democratic President Woodrow Wilson's 49.8% and Socialist candidate Allan Benson's 7.3%.) ^[59]

The Bronx has often shown striking differences from other boroughs in elections for Mayor. The only Republican to carry the Bronx since 1914 was Fiorello La Guardia in 1933, 1937 and 1941 (and in the latter two elections, only because his 30-32% vote on the American Labor Party line was added to 22-23% as a Republican).^[60]. The Bronx was thus the only borough not carried by the successful Republican re-election campaigns of Mayors Rudolph Giuliani in 1997 and Michael Bloomberg in 2005. The anti-war Socialist campaign of Morris Hillquit in the 1917 mayoral election won over 31% of the Bronx's vote, putting him second and well ahead of the 20% won by the incumbent pro-war Fusion Mayor John P. Mitchel, who came in second (ahead of Hillquit) everywhere else and outpolled Hillquit city-wide by 23.2% to 21.7%.^[61]