In the 1970s the Bronx seemed to be vanishing amid fires, abandoned buildings and expressways that split whole neighborhoods. It lost more than three hundred thousand residents in a decade. And in that same landscape, teenagers with turntables, microphones and spray cans invented a culture now heard all over the planet. Twelve stops between the rowhouses of the Mott Haven ironworks, the museum that keeps hip-hop's memory, the site of the old ballpark that appeared on television with the borough in flames, the Yankees' new home, the fountain Germany refused, the grand boulevard inspired by Paris, the street two presidents visited, Robert Moses' expressway, the building of the 1973 party, the movie palace that imitated an Italian garden, the cottage where Poe wrote his last poems and the Jesuit university. Approximate audio duration: 22 minutes.
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El Bronx: el barrio que se incendiaba y la fiesta donde nació el hip-hop
En los años setenta, el Bronx parecía desaparecer entre incendios, edificios abandonados y autopistas que partían barrios enteros. Perdió más de trescientos mil habitantes en una década. Y en ese mismo paisaje, unos adolescentes con tocadiscos, micrófonos y latas de aerosol inventaron una cultura que hoy se escucha en todo el planeta. Doce paradas entre las casas de la fundición de Mott Haven, el museo que guarda la memoria del hip-hop, el terreno del viejo estadio que salió en televisión con el barrio en llamas, la nueva casa de los Yankees, la fuente que Alemania rechazó, el gran bulevar inspirado en París, la calle que visitaron dos presidentes, la autopista de Robert Moses, el edificio de la fiesta de 1973, el cine que imitaba un jardín italiano, la cabaña donde Poe escribió sus últimos poemas y la universidad de los jesuitas. Duración aproximada de audio: 22 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~22 min of audio · 16.41 km on foot (~4 h 5 min walking) · about 4 h 30 min in total
You are standing on Alexander Avenue in Mott Haven, the southernmost corner of the Bronx. Look at the brick and brownstone rowhouses with their front stoops. Many are more than a century old.
The Bronx is the only one of New York's five boroughs on the mainland. Its name comes from Jonas Bronck, a settler of Scandinavian origin who set up his farm beside a river in 1639. Going to the Broncks' became going to the Bronx, which is why the name still carries its article.
In the mid-nineteenth century Jordan Mott, a maker of iron stoves, built his foundry on the Harlem River. An industrial neighb…
2
The Museum of a Music Nobody Recorded
You are by the Harlem River, next to Mill Pond Park. Look at the Bronx Point complex, with apartments and cultural spaces. At its base rises the home of the Universal Hip Hop Museum.
The location makes sense. Hip-hop was not born in a studio or at a record label, but in community rooms, parks and courtyards of the Bronx in the early 1970s.
Its pioneers speak of four elements. The DJ, who plays and mixes the records. The MC, who talks and rhymes over the music. The dancing of the b-boys and b-girls. And graffiti, on walls and subway cars.
Three DJs are considered the founders, and all three …
3
The Old Ballpark and the Bronx Burning on Television
You are in front of Heritage Field, a park with grass baseball diamonds south of 161st Street. It looks like any neighborhood park. But from 1923 to 2008 this was the site of the old Yankee Stadium.
It opened on April 18, 1923, and that very day Babe Ruth hit a home run. People called it the House That Ruth Built, because the crowds he drew had paid for it.
On this grass, on July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig said farewell to baseball, struck by the disease that now bears his name. Before tens of thousands of people he called himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
But the image that matte…
4
The House of the Yankees
In front of you is today's Yankee Stadium, with its limestone facade and gold letters. Overhead runs the elevated subway, which for a century has brought fans from Manhattan in a few minutes.
It opened in 2009 and cost more than two billion dollars. Outside it imitates the 1923 stadium, and inside it reproduces the famous white frieze that crowned the stands of the old one.
The Yankees have won more World Series titles than any other club. Beyond center field is Monument Park, with plaques and monuments to their greats: Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle.
In the 1970s, while the neighborhood wa…
5
The Fountain Germany Refused
You are at the corner of 161st Street and the Grand Concourse. On one side stands the huge Bronx County Courthouse of 1934, with Art Deco reliefs. On the other is Joyce Kilmer Park. Look among the trees for a white marble fountain with a woman seated on a rock.
She is the Lorelei, the Rhine siren whose song wrecked boatmen. The fountain honors Heinrich Heine, the German poet who wrote the most famous poem about her.
It was carved in Germany for Heine's hometown, Düsseldorf. But Heine was born Jewish and had been a fierce critic of his country, and the city ended up rejecting it. German immig…
6
The Art Deco Boulevard and Its Museum
You are in front of the Bronx Museum of the Arts, at the corner of 165th Street. Look at the glass and metal facade folded like an accordion. It is a 2006 addition attached to an older building that was once a synagogue.
The museum was founded in 1971, right in the middle of the crisis, in the rotunda of the courthouse you just saw. In 1982 it moved here. It focuses mainly on artists from the Bronx and from Latino, African American and Asian communities, and admission is free.
Now look along the Concourse. Between the 1920s and the 1940s hundreds of Art Deco apartment buildings rose here, wi…
7
Charlotte Street, the Street Two Presidents Visited
You are on Charlotte Street. Look around: single-story houses with yards and fences, like any suburb. They look out of place in the Bronx. There is a reason for them.
In the 1970s this area was reduced to blocks of burned-out buildings and empty lots. On October 5, 1977, President Jimmy Carter stepped out of his car here and walked through the rubble. The photograph went around the world.
Why was the Bronx burning? The usual explanation is landlords torching their buildings for the insurance, and that did happen. But it was only one piece. Many owners stopped maintaining buildings that no lo…
8
The Expressway That Split the Bronx
Lean over and look down. Through a concrete trench trucks and cars run without pause, several lanes in each direction. This is the Cross Bronx Expressway, which cuts across the Bronx from east to west.
It was pushed through by Robert Moses, the man who for decades decided where New York's bridges, parks and highways would go, without ever winning an election. Work began in 1948 and was only finished in the early 1970s.
To dig the trench, crews blasted rock and tore down entire apartment buildings. In East Tremont, east of here, residents proposed an alternative route a couple of blocks to th…
9
1520 Sedgwick Avenue: The Party of August 11, 1973
You are in front of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a brick apartment building with nothing special to see, on the bluff above the Harlem River. Here, according to the story hip-hop itself chose to tell, it all began.
On August 11, 1973, Cindy Campbell threw a party in the building's community room. She wanted to raise money for back-to-school clothes. Her older brother Clive, eighteen, took care of the music.
Clive Campbell had arrived from Jamaica in 1967. Back there he had seen the great street sound systems, and in the Bronx they called him Kool Herc. That night he used a trick he had been testing…
10
Fordham Road and the Movie Palace That Imitated an Italian Garden
You are on the Grand Concourse, a few steps from Fordham Road, the busiest shopping street in the Bronx. Look for an ornate facade with the air of a baroque palace. It is the former Loew's Paradise.
It opened in 1929 with close to four thousand seats. It was designed by John Eberson, a specialist in so-called atmospheric theaters: inside, the walls imitated an Italian garden with statues and balconies, and the ceiling was a blue sky with twinkling stars and drifting clouds.
It was the other face of the Bronx: middle-class families going out at night to watch films in a palace. It stopped ope…
11
Edgar Allan Poe's Cottage
You are in Poe Park, in front of a small white wooden house with a porch, surrounded by apartment blocks. It looks like an object dropped from another era. It is: it was built around 1812, when all of this was countryside.
In 1846 Edgar Allan Poe moved here with his wife Virginia and her mother. They wanted clean air for Virginia, who was ill with tuberculosis. Poe was famous for The Raven, but still poor.
Virginia died in this house in January 1847. She was twenty-four. Poe was devastated.
Even so, he wrote some of his last works here, among them Ulalume, The Bells and Annabel Lee, the poe…
12
Fordham and the Bronx That Came Back
You are in front of the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University. Look at the Gothic tower of Keating Hall at the far end of the lawn, the grey stone buildings, the trees. It looks like an English university transplanted to the Bronx.
It was founded in 1841 by the Catholic bishop John Hughes as St. John's College. Soon afterwards it was entrusted to the Jesuits, who still run it. In 1907 it took the name of the neighborhood, Fordham.
Poe, who lived a few blocks away, would walk here and talk with the Jesuits. It is said that the bells of the college church inspired his poem The Bells. It is a …
How long does the "The Bronx: The Borough That Burned and the Party Where Hip-Hop Was Born" audio tour take?
It has about 22 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 16.41 km walking route (~4 h 5 min on foot). Plan roughly 4 h 30 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "Mott Haven, Where the Bronx Begins" (coordinates 40.8096, -73.924). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open New York and pick "The Bronx: The Borough That Burned and the Party Where Hip-Hop Was Born". No account required to start.
