A Visual Tour of The Bronx, New York City in 1970

In 1970, the best days of the Bronx were long departed. To quote PJ O’Rourke, this is where dedicated New Yorkers from other boroughs could go to experience life in the wilderness. Camilo Jose Vergara was there to record the view. And what we see above all else is poverty. How can a city as rich as New York fall into such a derelict state?

 

Poverty is not caused by men and women getting married; it’s not caused by machinery; it’s not caused by “over-production”; it’s not caused by drink or laziness; and it’s not caused by “over-population”. It’s caused by Private Monopoly. That is the present system. They have monopolised everything that it is possible to monopolise; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolised the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it.

If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air – or of the money to buy it – even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless they had the money to pay for it.

Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it’s right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: “It’s Their Land,” “It’s Their Water,” “It’s Their Coal,” “It’s Their Iron,” so you would say “It’s Their Air,” “These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?” And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on “Christian Duty” in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of the gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you’ll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to “justice” in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.”

– Robert Tressell, The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, 1914

 

Bronx Queen and number 6 subway, Bronx River at Westchester Ave., 1970

By the Cross Bronx Expressway east, 1970

Social club sign, South Bronx, 1970

South Bronx, 1970

Entrance, abandoned building, 1970

Hunts Point, 1970

Mott Haven, South Bronx, 1970

Store window display, South Bronx, 1970

Restaurant, Mott Haven, 1970

Boy, Morrisania, S. Bronx, 1970

East 172nd St. at Hoe Ave. South Bronx, 1970

Melrose Section, South Bronx, 1970

Botanica, Bronx, 1970

Boy looking up, South Bronx, 1970

Catholic Priest and homeless man, Bronx, 1970

Dolls, South Bronx, 1970

South Bronx, 1970 girls

Girls, Bronx, 1970

65 East 125th St., Harlem 1980

Cauldwell & Westchester Ave., Bronx, 1970

Bronx, 1970

Bronx, #2 IRT subway, 1970

John Lindsey Poster, Bronx, 1970

Honeywell at 178th St. S. Bronx, 1970

Eagle Ave. at Westchester Ave., Bronx, 1970

Hoe Avenue at 172nd St., Bronx, 1970

1148 Longwood Ave, Bronx, 1970

Bruckner Blvd., Bronx, 1970