I would prefer just to call it the trench, because that’s exactly what it is, but, you can’t deny it as a symbol that has become much bigger than the Cross Bronx Expressway itself, covered or not. And, i’ll yell ya, right now, covering it or spending that amount of money that would cost is stupid, trending and unrealistic. I’m talking culture wars that have spread even, internationally, so that the CBE is the biggest and best example of something called racist infrastructure A long time before the wokeness, political correctness and identity politics, that led to this Trench warfare approach, the eviction of residents for an imminent domain project was attacked and protested against by the largely Jewish working-class population that were forced into displacement, along with Italian and Irish of the same social stripe who lived in the same neighborhoods.
The person who built it, during this time, coincidentally, had racist thoughts affecting his as work. The Manhattan Riverside Drive monkeys being the best example of what i’m saying, with a much more openly racist atmosphere than it is today. All things relative. But, in the case of the Cross Bronx Expressway, his project displaced whites.
Being the Cross Bronx Expressway, i’m ignoring the Manhattan trench that’s “covered” coming off the GW Bridge. Concentrating on the deepest segment of the Bronx trench, the area that also displaced the most residents, which begins around University Avenue after crossing the Harlem River in very open fresh air, and extending to the large ridge supporting the grand Concourse that it crosses under, and emerging in a less deeper trench that quickly begins to spread out and level off as it approaches the Bronx River Parkway.
Below we look at the deepest segment of the trench looking towards the east and west and running east from University Avenue and the Grand Concourse. After that the trench is much shallower and gets less deep as you go along it, it becomes trenchless and elevated for a distance, until, at Arthur Avenue in the Tremont section, it returns to a trench, though not as deep, as between University Avenue and the Grand Concourse. In Tremont there is also a section where it is covered by a playground and a school, which tells you what a covered CBE could be. Just go to google maps and you can see, and i can get some rest from picturte-taking.There are obvious improvements including new flat space to build and all the cross streets restored. But if it looks like what they did in Manhaatan where I-95 cuts through Manhattan with a huges row of high-rise apartments, dingyn and sooty from being above the covered highway, and extrmely cramped and crowded. But if you covered the CBE from Artur Avenue on, and kept the street level loaded with parks and six story apartments, the enormous expense is more justified by that fact alone, but i’m opposed to spending such money because it’s the best example of what certain folks have come to call racist infrastructure. In other words fund it for a better Bronx, leaving the victim angle or metaphors and symbols out. Largely because the folks who went through vicious displacement in the first place don’t qualify in the “people of color” category, or the secular morality of the left side of the street.
CBE LOOKING EAST
CBE LOOKING WEST
