The Bronx

I’ve lived in New York City since the mid ‘70s.

I was, for all of that time, aware of the Bronx. It was up there — and over there — a vast, unexplored land you drove through to get to Yankee Stadium. I had been to Arthur Avenue. Visited friends from time to time. I’d driven the Cross Bronx Expressway — whose very name tells you its purpose: to cross you through the Bronx without actually visiting it. Once upon a time, it was considered funny if you were a Manhattanite, to claim you never crossed the bridges, never left the borough — that you didn’t “have a passport”. A famous New Yorker cover reflects this attitude, one that has changed enormously since. Now, you feel like a boob if you haven’t explored Queens, if you are unaware of the many and fast growing delights of Brooklyn. But the Bronx? They haven’t been receiving a lot of love. While it’s known very well and appreciated by its fiercely proud residents, many of us who live elsewhere still, unforgivably, see it as a relatively unknown territory.

At risk of inspiring a trickle and then a gush of annoying foodies to invade pristine neighborhoods as yet untouched by hipster baristas, I thought I’d do my tiny part to correct this glaring omission.

The Bronx, as it turns out, is a paradise of delicious food. A sprawl — like LA in the best possible sense — where lots and lots of people from somewhere else came — either recently, or a long time ago — and brought their food and their culture with them. We visited enclaves Honduran, old school Puerto Rican, Bangladeshi, Jamaican, Eastern European Jewish — and explored the shameful delights of White Castle.

Along the way, I talked with Bronx cultural icons like Afrika Bambaata, Kool Herc, Melle Mel, Futura 2000 and Handsome Dick Manitoba — as well as the Master of Twitter, “Desus” (follow him: @desusnice).

It’s a show about where we are, where we were — and where many of the things we love and take for granted come from.

Originally published on October 4, 2014

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