It’s the Cross Bronx Expressway as seen from the Grand Concourse, one of the many streets that the highway in a trench goes under. Lately it’s become more of a symbol than it originally was, which was a sort of demarkation line from the terrible Sounth bronx of the 1970s. As far as a borderline and symbol thhat line was constantly shifting, untiol it settelded way north at Fordham Road. Actually the term “South Bronx” as synonymous with poverty, began as a description of just one block of poverty in Mott Haven along Browns Place, just south of East 138th Street.
Honestly, if you would just break it down, historicall, and, factually, and realtively, the term, “racist” doent work – at all, to the point i cannot locate thatidea anywhere outside the inexperienced, short-term-thhinking mind. Notice all the newer larger aprtment buildings built since the expreesway came into existence. Its six lanes lie in a trench with tress that nhave grown very large since the 1960s that bline the highway. Doesn’t look like it’s difficult to rent herer, particularly up on the Concourse where that shot was taken and has the largest collextion of art deco aprtment buildins in America. In 2023 i looked at an apartment, top floor, up near University Avenue the high point due west. It hd a tremendous view of the Bronx and the Cross-Bronx Expressway, and, would have been that much better where i am living, directly above the Deegan, another six lane Bronx expressway heading noth and south along the Harlem River.
A forced irony is that my home, i had a contract on, for life, in Brooklyn, was taken. Forced out of, in 2013, the place i lived the longest, by far, there, i happily lived three blocks from another expressway, the six lane BQE, in, what was, by far, the most polluted neighborhood in the entire city.
I never thought about living next to expressways. It’s what you can afford. But, i’ll tell you what’s far worse than sucking up pollution, is losing your home, when you were due to die there, regardless of the pollution, that helped keep the rents down. Racist infrastructure is beautifully put into a trending buzzword, only really functioning symbolically, for people who never have been here, or lived this.