What about the Bronx?

What about the Bronx? We talk so much about Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the other boroughs but what about the Bronx? The Bronx the city where just under 1.5 million New York dwellers call home. My city is the birthplace of Jennifer Lopez, Woody Allen, Al Pacino, and Tracy Morgan. The greatest baseball team of all time plays right here at Yankee Stadium, on the corner of East 161st Street.

What about the Bronx? We’re part of New York City too! I might have lived Upstate for the past ten years but I still represent the Bronx to the fullest. My borough, the Bronx may not have the glitz and glamour that Manhattan does or the blend of history and novelty that you look for in Brooklyn but what you may find is a bum in the subway asking you for spare change. You might see a hoodlum on 149th and Grand Concourse asking you to swipe him on the train. You might even get randomly searched by a cop on the way to school because he thought you were the burglar that was hitting all the houses on Magenta Street.  Yes, this all happened to me within the past week. All in all, I love the Bronx. I love the Golden Crust on White Plains Road because they have the best beef patties and cocoa bread of any restaurant I’ve ever been to. I love going to my old neighborhood, Marble Hill and seeing that it has not changed a bit since I left. I love walking from my house to my girlfriend’s on a cold windy winter day to get the food she had made for me. I love the Bronx.

To me, the Bronx is about community and family. I honestly feel as safe here as when I walk the streets of my quiet suburban neighborhood in Hopewell Junction, New York. It might not be the prettiest or most attractive place to live but the Bronx is cheap and resourceful. I pay $200 rent a month and I am an hour away from home, Upstate and an hour from school in the opposite direction. Living here on my own for this short period has allowed me to appreciate its simplicity. I pay cheap rent, I am a fifteen minute walk away from my girlfriend’s house, and all of my family are less than twenty minutes from where I stay. I am a train ride away from any of the other five boroughs.

I was born and raised here so the city will always be in my heart. The Forgotten Borough.