Destruction of a Home, Birth of a Movement

East Tremont wasn’t just a white neighborhood, and, beginning in the 1930’s African Americans experiencing upward mobility began moving up to East Tremont from Morissania and accompanied by an influx of Puerto Ricans, East Tremont was 18% minority by 1950 (Caro 857). East Tremont’s minority population was welcomed by the primarily white residents, who didn’t move out of the community but rather enjoyed their integration into executive community organizations and local social scenes. The residents “‘all loved our (their) apartments,'” (Caro 855); the post-war apartment vacancy in NYC was at 1%, and the waitlist to get an apartment in East Tremont was years long. Affordable rent and a sense of community made East Tremont a desirable place for many second-generation immigrants and minorities coming from public housing. Neighborhoods like East Tremont were a middle ground. They were a stepping stone from the Lower East Side tenements or nearby public housing to the Pelham Parkway, LI, and Westchester communities where parents hoped their children would reside. In many respects, communities like East Tremont were integral to the “American dream”.

“It had been a ‘staging area’ a place where newcomers who had lived previously in America only in slums, successful at last in their struggle to find a decent place to live, could regroup, and begin to devote their energies to consolidating their small gains and giving their children the education that would enable them to move onward and upward…” (Caro 856)

“‘Either to move to apartments for the same rent they were paying - which meant for most of them moving to the slums - or to move above their means, which would be a great, great hardship for these people'” (Caro 881) - Lillian Edelstein, on the choice given to her and other East Tremont resident.

Within 10 months, the Nassau Management Company "relocated 90 percent of the 1,530 occupants of Section 2" (Caro 884). This officially emptied East Tremont before construction in the neighborhood ever began, and nearly 2 decades before the expressway would be complete. The 25-year-long project - what was at the time the most expensive road ever built - exasperated the discrepancies between the North and South Bronx, creating cultural divisions and suffering that would haunt the borough for decades.

"Lambert and Mrs.Silverstein lived blocks away from the blasting. People who lived closer felt as if they were at ground zero in an air raid" (Caro 886).

While the blasting came and went, the constant sound of drilling was deafening to nearby residents. This, in conjunction with the immense amounts of rock dust from the explosions that permeated walls, doors, and windows of apartments, made it extremely difficult to live anywhere near the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway. A lot of nearby stores on Southern Boulevard and Marmion were torn down due to the construction. It was extremely difficult to get to East Tremont Avenue, the neighborhood's bustling main street, from south of where the expressway was being built. Similarly, access to Crotona Park was severely limited for any residents north of the expressway's construction. The approximately 10,000 people who lived around the CBE's grand excavation quickly began to move out (Caro 887).

"Once East Tremont, while the expressway was being built had had the look of blitzkrieged London; now it looked as London might have looked if, after the bombs, troops had fought their way through it from house to house. It had the look of a jungle" (Caro 893).

As East Tremont's residents began fleeing, the vacant apartments were being filled by a new group of people. Many impoverished African Americans - different from the middle-class African Americans who previously moved up from Morrisania - fled to the Bronx from the slums of the Deep South. Landlords saw an opportunity here to benefit from higher turnover rates. They could aggressively increase rent and take advantage of the new residents' lack of "city knowledge" by shorting them on required services (Caro 888). The new residents didn't shop on East Tremont Avenue, and already struggling store owners had to look elsewhere, Muggings, robberies, and break-ins were increasing each year, causing insurance premiums to skyrocket for storeowners and prompting residents to stop using Crotona park. By the early 1960s, the remaining East Tremont residents were fleeing even more rapidly. The flight happened exponentially, and decay followed quickly (Caro 890).

"Faster and faster they left, and faster and faster, wider and wider, spread the urban decay" (Caro 890).

One could look at the downfall of East Tremont and highlight it as a single community whose destruction doesn't account for the deterioration of the entire borough. This downplays the expansive effects of the CBE's construction and misses the larger story of the Bronx's divide. East Tremont was an important glue connecting the more white, middle-class north Bronx to the more Black and Brown, working-poor South Bronx. It was a diverse community, a step up for Jewish immigrants in lower Manhattan and African-Americans trying to work their way out of Morrisania. Robert Moses deliberately ripped out this glue, exasperating the North and South Bronx divide. His construction of good quality, expensive housing in Co-Op city and Pelham Bay solidified white flight to the North Bronx (Caro). It also solidified the fate of the Bronx south of East Tremont. As businesses left, work declined, crime skyrocketed, and the state looked the other way. With people unable to pay rent, there was only one thing left to happen to the borough.

"'In housing, the final stage of capitalism is arson'" (Chang 14) - Journalists Joe Conason and Jack Newfield

Landlords preying on new, poor residents was not a long-term strategy, and the expedited urban decay was creating a profitability problem for them. Apartment buildings became utterly destroyed - pipeless, filled with garbage and shattered glass from windows, smelling of urine and feces, and with no heat: they were inhabitable. by 1965, the once attractive, solid housing was now a "ravaged hulk" for the "poorest of the working poor" (Caro 893). It became more profitable for landlords to hire arsonists to burn out the buildings and collect the insurance money, than it was to rent out the rooms. This would be the beginning of what came to be known as the "decade of fire" in the bronx.

"People in the South Bronx don't want housing or they wouldn't burn it down" - New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The Bronx - around and south of the Cross Bronx Expressway - was war-torn entering the 1970s. The slum clearance and neighborhood destruction that accompanied the CBE construction simply exasperated the deterioration of the already underfunded, impoverished South Bronx. In 1970, New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a memo to Richard Nixon referencing a Rand Corporation report on fires in the Bronx, as well as the rise of radical political groups. Moynihan and Nixon agreed that "the issuance of race could benefit from a period of 'benign neglect'" (Chang 14).

“The gangs were a vanguard of the rubble...The children of Moses’ grand experiment, and the fires had already begun” (Chang 48-49)

Accompanying the rampant fires and neglected neighborhoods of the South Bronx was the rise of youth gangs. With no jobs, poorly funded public schools, and an environment littered with robbers, drug addicts/dealers, and general violence - gangs were one of the only places for youths to turn. Gangs began popping up all over the Bronx, especially in the deteriorating South. In the neighborhoods around the Cross Bronx-Expressway, the Puerto Rican, African-American, and Afro-Caribbean children who moved into the formerly Irish, Italian, and Jewish neighborhoods were welcomed by beatdowns from the remaining white residents. In turn, they formed gangs “first in self-defense, then sometimes for power, sometimes for kicks” (Chang 12).

"Gangs structured the chaos...the gangs provided shelter, comfort, and protection. They channeled energies and provided enemies. They warded off boredom and gave meaning to the hours. They turned the wasteland into a playground" (Chang 49).

Gang prominence rose across the Bronx at the end of the 1960s into the early 1970s. The South Bronx - below Crotona Park - where the fires were most common, was dominated by primarily Puerto Rican gangs. Prominent gangs included the Ghetto Brothers, the Roman Kings, the Savage Nomads, The Seven Immortals, and the Mongols. Moving east of the Bronx River, the predominantly African-American Black Spades resided, accompanied by the Savage Skulls, arguably the most infamous gang in the Bronx (Chang). The remaining Italian-American gangs were north of East Tremont and stretching towards Fordham Road. Gangs formed as a means of protection, community, and stability for many children whose parents were estranged, addicts, abusive, or simply not around. People would go to the gangs for all types of assistance, and the Young Lords even ran a health care campaign in 1970. While the gangs were violent, they offered something to the suffering community that the state would not.

At the end of the 1960s, Benjy Melendez and his brothers moved south of Crotona Park and formed the Ghetto Brothers. Melendez was befriended by a former marine, Carlos Suarez, who would become the leader of the Ghetto Brothers - one of the most powerful gangs. Melendez had a passion for music and led the Ghetto Brothers' Latin-rock band that would perform at clubhouse parties. Referring to themselves as "the people's army," the Ghetto Brothers became more peaceful, cleaning abandoned tenements, criticizing the lack of social support from the city, and holding food programs and clothing drives. Manny Dominguez, a teacher from gang hotspot Dwyer Junior High School, noticed the leadership potential among gang members and held meetings where they discussed social issues plaguing their community. With the help of the Youth Services Agency, he eventually got them a "storefront clubhouse" where they were provided with musical instruments (Chang).

Melendez and his brothers were of the thousands of Moses’ lower manhattan refugees, who had to flee to the Bronx when Moses was building apartments and trying to ram an expressway through downtown NY (Chang)

Despite efforts to remain peaceful, territorial gang battles meant bloodshed would continue flowing in the Bronx. The Mongols, Seven Immortals, and Black Spades were jumping youths in the Ghetto Brothers' neighborhoods. The Ghetto Brothers sent their negotiator,"Black Benjie," to broker a truce, but rather than finding peace Black Benjie was beaten to death, prompting outrage amongst the Ghetto Brothers. To prevent more violence, Carlos Suarez and Benjy Melendez called a meeting of the South Bronx gangs on December 8th, 1971 at the Bronx Boys Club. Among those attending were leaders of all the major gangs, "including a young Black Spade named Afrika Bambaataa" (Chang 60).

The gangs established a 4-part truce that was signed and agreed to. Yet, many people felt the meeting was more performative than substantive, a way for the media and corrupt bureaucrats to credit-claim a superficial gang truce (Chang). Ultimately, in a private meeting away from the cameras, the gangs came to an understanding that peace was mutually-beneficial. However, inter-gang violence would be replaced by a new form of predation found in the NYPD's newly formed Bronx Youth Gang Task Force. The new unit accumulated over 3,000 dossiers on gang members from 1972-1973, and eliminated the 10-person gang mediation wing of the Youth Services Agency along with the Ghetto Brother's storefront clubhouse (Chang). The gangs were fragmented, but the budding exuberance and community-oriented spirit that persisted amongst the Ghetto Brothers and Black Spades would steer their members in a new direction.

"The peace treaty had been momentous. Change was sweeping through the Bronx. Youthful energies turned from nihilistic implosion to creative explosion" (Chang 64).

The Ghetto Brothers were at the forefront of directing their youthful zest towards something more productive. Their brief moment of fame prompted Salsa International/Mary Lou Records, a small Latin label, to offer them a $500 contract to record their original album - Ghetto Brothers Power Fuerza. In 1972, they recorded their 8-song, approximately 30-minute-long album. The album was written with a message from the Ghetto Brothers: "If the Ghetto Brothers dream comes true, the 'little people' will be 'little people' no more, and make their own mark in this world" (original album). The album is noted to have musical influence from Latin rock, Nuyorican blues, Santana, and of course, The Beatles (Hamilton). The album galvanized the gang's youthful energies, transforming them into creative pieces with themes of love and betrayal.

"Power - Fuerza is a sweetly loving and exuberantly joyous album, and its ramshackle amateurism boasts all the best reasons that kids start rock and roll bands. And after all, bands and gangs have always been more than a little alike: both provide a sense of belonging, a way to re-imagine yourself through other people, somewhere you can be yourself by being something bigger than yourself" - Author and American Studies Professor Jack Hamilton after the album's reissuance

The Ghetto Brothers' album was not a commercial relic, but still an integral turning point in the transfer of chaotic energies among youth gangs. The Ghetto Brothers began hosting block parties after the truce, where they would invite all of the other gangs and blast speakers that connected to nearby lampposts. The crowds were often rowdy, a reflection of the band's style and their expression of youth and freedom. Their main song, titled "Ghetto Brothers Power," is described as "a funky Joe Bataan-meets Sly Stone sure-shot" and when performed "launched into the kind of blazing drum-and-conga breakdown that drove the Bronx kids crazy" (Chang 65).

Approximately five years after gangs emerged from the destruction and decay of the Bronx, a new paradigm was forming. Past youths had been enthralled by the solidarity of radical ideological groups and gang membership. Now, the allure of style and individual expression made the block party the arena of youth participation and aspiration.

"Clive and the post-gang youths were a different breed, more interested in projecting individual flash than collective brawn, and they would soon render the gangs obsolete" (Chang 73).

The gang truce had ushered in new orthodoxies in the South Bronx. Block parties were the pinnacle of the youth social scene and musical creativity was rising from the urban blight that plagued the borough. Two young men who became particularly influenced by the new developments were Clive Campbell and Afrikaa Bambaataa. Both had emerged from the gang violence to take up a new hobby.

Clive Campbell, better known as DJ Kool Herc, moved to the Bronx from Jamaica in 1967. His family settled down at 611 East 178th Avenue, also known as the "Cross-Bronx Expressway's most contested mile" (Chang 72). Campbell initially joined the Colon Cats, the same gang Benjy Melendez was in before moving south. But after gaining respect from his American colleagues via athletics, Clive realized he didn't need the security of the gang anymore. Clive's family ended up being forced out of their apartment due to a fire, relocating temporarily to the Concourse Plaza Hotel on the Grand Concourse at 161st street before finally settling down west of the fires at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Clive's father, Kieth, was a record collector, enjoying music from reggae to jazz and even country, and his mother would frequently take him to house parties in the Bronx. Campbell recalled:

"I'm green, but I'm checking out the scene...I noticed a lot of the girls was complaining, 'Why they not playing that record?' How come they don't have that record?' 'Why did they take it off right there?'" (Chang) - Clive Campbell

Clive had taken an interest in music since his days as a young kid in Jamaica, inoculated by the local sound known as "Somerset Lane" and the selector, King George, who he admired. Back in the Bronx, Clive began refining his own musical skills, frequently returning to the Plaza Hotel to use the upstairs disco. He began DJ'ing sets at local house parties, using his friend's system and playing between breaks. Clive eventually got his hands on his father's Shure P.A. system, rewiring it to gain extra power: "Now I could control it from the preamp. I got two Bogart amps, two Girard turntables, and then I just used the channel knobs as my mixer. No headphones." After gaining his own sound system, Clive began making business cards and promoting himself, prompting a friend to ask him to host a back-to-school party in August 1973. At the party, Clive began giving people the breaks they enjoyed, and "dropping soul and funk bombs." The party was enthralled by the vibrating atmosphere, flashing lights, and shouts from James Brown. In many stories, this is where Hip-Hop began (Chang).

DJ Kool Herc became a phenomenon across the Bronx. He began experimenting with new songs that had groovy breaks, departing from the traditional melodic choruses that were popular at the time. He eventually developed the famous "Merry-Go-Round" technique, revolutionizing precisely what DJ'ing was. Herc's parties became so popular that he had to move them from Sedgwick Avenue up to Cedar Park, where Herc knew (from seeing construction workers connect large lights) that his sound system could be accommodated. These parties were a place to be for all the people of the Bronx. Eventually, Herc obtained new sound systems and performed for dances at the Webster Avenue P.A.L. and hosted parties at a club named the Twilight Zone (Chang). Clive Campbell had introduced a new era to the Bronx.

Clive Campbell wasn't the only youth interested in creative alternatives. A soon-to-be colleague of Campbell's named Afrika Bambaataa had grown up in the Bronx River Housing Projects, born to parents of Jamaican and Barbadian descent. As a youth, Bambaataa had immense exposure to gang activity, becoming a member of the Black Spades. His willingness to cross gang turfs gave him a reputation as a mediator, with the ability to approach and reason with rival gangs. Bambaataa was highly intelligent, helping expand the Spades across the borough. However, after the famous 1971 gang meeting, Bambaataa was moved and decided to channel his energies into a commitment to inter-gang peace. Searching for a way out, Bambaataa found one through "Herc's New Cool" (Chang 96).

"When I did become a DJ, I already had an army with me so I already knew that my parties would be packed" - Afrika Bambaataa

Two ex-spades and acquaintances of Bambaataa's had become DJ's, and Afrika was interested. He began learning under them before beginning to DJ himself, hosting parties at the nearby community center. Bambaataa began performing weekly at block parties, attracting large crowds due to his unique style and reputation across the borough (Chang). Contrary to his teachers, Bambaataa was more interested in Herc's break-oriented style than the song-oriented one. His noteworthy sound was representative of the way he approached life, it was an expression of peace and solidarity. Bambaataa's innovation and courage to cross musical boundaries led to his quick rise in popularity in the Bronx:

"He mixed up breaks from Grand Funk Railroad and the Monkees with Sly and James and Malcolm X speeches. He played salsa, rock, and soca with the same enthusiasm as soul and funk" (Chang 97).

Dj'ing certainly wasn't the end for Bambaataa, who soon yearned for something larger. He had been influenced growing up by his parent's radical ideologies, as well as the 1964 movie Zulu and its representation of black solidarity. After his cousin was fatally shot by the police and Bambaataa took a trip to India (courtesy of winning an essay-writing contest), he had new ideas on how Black people should approach their position in American society. Here, he formally changed his name to Afrika Bambaataa and founded the Zulu Nation, with the goal of ending the violence in the Bronx (Chang). Zulu featured many dancers at the start, as it emphasized movement, but soon extended to rappers, and then youths across the tri-state area. The Zulu nation was influencing an entire generation of kids, and it all centered around music, dancing, and partying.

"Bambaataa took Herc's party and turned it into the ceremony of a new faith, like he knew that this was exactly how their world was supposed to look, sound and flow" (Chang 107).

Bambaataa and Kool Herc were two of the most prominent DJs at the time, along with Grandmaster Flash. At a famous "DJ-off" at the Webster Avenue P.A.L., Herc's sound system bested Afrikaa Bambaataa's. During the period, Herc controlled the West Bronx, Bambaataa the Southeast, and Grandmaster Flash the South (Chang). In an area riddled with ruin, ash, and desperation, three talented DJs sowed the seeds of a new genre, and more importantly, a new culture. The story of Bambaataa, Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, and other DJs, is more expansive and in-depth than I could begin to detail here.

"It may be hard to imagine now but during the mid-1970s, most of the youthful energy that became known as hip-hop could be contained in a tiny seven-mile circle" (Chang 108).

"I raise my stein to the builder who can remove ghettos without removing people as I hail the chef who can make omelets without breaking eggs" - Robert Moses

Robert Moses previously hailed that nothing good would come from the Bronx. The inevitable progression of urban growth would make the "slums" of the Bronx a faint memory. In reality, the exact opposite happened. The schism, followed by decay, of the Bronx was initiated by Moses' construction. What was left in its path was despair, hopelessness, and desperation. In reality, the decay that politicians saw as the death of a borough facilitated residents' energies into one of the largest cultural movements in American History. In the late 1960s, Benjy Melendez, Clive Campbell, and Afrikaa Bambaataa all grew up around the Cross-Bronx Expressway. The glamour and popular appeal of Hip-Hop today can be traced back to the one place, The Bronx, that no one powerful thought was worth preserving.