From my study, I am looking at Lago di Lugano, where the lake makes a hard right turn. The shimmering sky-blue water is surrounded by lush green mountains, with stunning homes featuring orange-tiled roofs, dotting both sides of the lake. I could have lived anywhere on earth that didn’t allow extradition to the United States, but I chose Lugano, Switzerland, as my forever home.
Lately, I have been thinking about my days growing up in the Bronx and how much I loved that place, every bit as much as Lugano.
Growing up in the old neighborhood on Clinton Avenue and 180th Street in the early 1950’s was fabulous. Until it wasn’t.
At the risk of sounding prejudiced, which I am not, Clinton Avenue went from a melting pot of German, Irish, Italian, and Jewish families who lived in harmony, to Puerto Rican in the blink of an eye.
I remember moving vans coming down the street daily, moving our friends to other sections of the Bronx, Westchester County, and Long Island.
First the Palmari’s, then the Schwartz’s, the Katz’s, the Halper’s, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and so many other families are emptying our building quickly.
They were replaced by people who were so different than anyone we ever knew. They didn’t speak English; the men didn’t seem to have jobs, and multiple families would live in one apartment. And there were lots of kids.
The hallways went from the familiar aroma of Italian sauces, stuffed cabbage, potato pancakes, and savory stews to a pungent smell that would make me gag. I used to hold my breath as I tried to run up to our third-floor apartment without inhaling. The building had only five floors.
The Latin music was incessant. All day, all night until almost sunrise, with the boom-boom-boom-boom heavy base sound forcing us to cover our heads with pillows to get some sleep.
The long-time superintendent of 2076 Clinton Avenue had built a large wooden bin with a metal top on the side alley of the building. Mr. Taylor, a friendly and delightful black man, would fill the bin every day with the building's garbage that we all sent down to the basement in a dumbwaiter. He would transfer the neat paper bags into grey metal garbage cans, carrying them out to the sidewalk for pickup.
The dumb waiter stopped working, and instead of bringing their garbage bags down to the side yard to the bin, the new people would throw everything out of their kitchen windows. The bin was covered with what appeared to be a small mound of garbage.
One day, I was looking out our kitchen window. I saw what I thought were fat cats on top and the sides of the garbage pile. Then I realized they weren’t cats at all but rather enormous gray and black rats. I had never seen a rat until that day.
My parents were calling everyone they knew to try to find an apartment for us outside of our beloved neighborhood. The Deegan’s had surrendered to the white flight that decimated the area.
One afternoon after school, I took some empty soda bottles to the store to collect the deposit money. I got 2 cents for small bottles and a nickel for the larger ones.
I was unaware of the three Puerto Rican kids who followed me from the store. They stopped me in front of our building, surrounded me, and took the 45 cents out of my pocket. One of three punched me in the stomach, doubling me over before they calmly walked away. I didn’t understand a word they had said to me.
The word spread like wildfire on the block. John Deegan was robbed by the Puerto Ricans at knifepoint. I don’t remember a knife, but that was how the story developed.
In a week, the big Seven Santini Brothers moving truck took the Deegan Family, lock, stock, and barrel to better digs on Grand Avenue and Fordham Road, vacating our once idyllic block.
Soon after we left, everyone else whom we left behind followed. The landlords eventually abandoned the buildings, the stores in the neighborhood were closing two at a time, and streets were strewn with refuse.
I can discuss the socioeconomic reasons for the rapid decay of the Bronx, but I haven’t the stomach.
From what I understand, sitting here in Lugano, in the lap of luxury, new people are coming into New York who will make the Puerto Rican influx of the 1950’s look like a Boy Scout Troop.
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* This blog is fiction
