Bronx River Houses is a low-income

public housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

project in the

Soundview Soundview is a neighborhood on the Clason Point peninsula, on the southern section of the borough of the Bronx in New York City. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are the Cross-Bronx Expressway to the north, White Plai ...

section of

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. It consists of nine buildings with 1,260 apartments. Completed February 28, 1951, the Bronx development is bordered by East 174th Street, Harrod, and Bronx River Avenues. Bronx River Houses is home to 3,025 residents. The project is patrolled by P.S.A. 8 located at 2794 Randall Avenue in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx. Bronx River Addition comprises two senior-only buildings, 6 and 12 stories tall with 225 apartments. Completed February 28, 1966, the Bronx development is bordered by East 172nd and East 174th Streets and Manor and Harrod Avenues. Bronx River Addition is home to 234 residents.

History

Bronx River Houses was built to provide temporary housing to working-class families. After a few years, crime and

urban decay Urban decay (also known as urban rot, urban death or urban blight) is the sociological process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. There is no single process that leads to urban deca ...

began to plague the development as more generationally poor families moved in. This eventually had an effect on the surrounding community and led to

white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...

and abandonment. Violent crime remains a serious problem in the Bronx River Houses and the surrounding community. Until the late 1990s, the Bronx River Houses served as the worldwide

ground zero In relation to nuclear explosions and other large bombs, ground zero (also called surface zero) is the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation. In the case of an explosion above the ground, ''ground zero'' is the point on the groun ...

for Hip-Hop culture. In the mid-1990s, the Giuliani administration used the NYPD to drive the drug gangs out of the houses. The Bronx River Houses were the first housing projects in the country to be put under 24-hour police watch and have their common areas redesigned so that the entire housing project would be watched by

cameras A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a ...

. Famous Hip-Hop musicians from the Bronx River Houses include Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Jazzy Jay, Martin Cofield, Sean Perry, Afrika Islam, Jamall Moss, the Soul Sonic Force, Kylik Clark "Alleymatill", Edwin Brown Jr (RIP aka Duardo aka Neph aka Special Ed... Brodie 4 Ever...), Fernando "Royal" Singleton, Eshawn Hall (DJ Mista Smoke) and Kareem Kennedo (NY$) Kill Bill Gang.

DJ Red Alert Frederick Crute (born November 27, 1956), known professionally as Kool DJ Red Alert, is an American disc jockey who rose to fame on WRKS 98.7 Kiss FM in New York City and is recognized as one of the founding fathers of hip hop music and cultur ...

also got his start in the Bronx River Houses.

Demographics

Tenants are mostly

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

, Dominican and Puerto Rican although there are also Asian, Mexican and

Ecuadorian Ecuadorians ( es, ecuatorianos) are people identified with the South American country of Ecuador. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Ecuadorians, several (or all) of these connections exist and are colle ...

tenants.

Notable residents

* Afrika Bambaataa (1957–), disc jockey, rapper, songwriter and producer. * Judy Craig (1946–), lead singer of the doo-whop group

The Chiffons :''The Chiffons also briefly recorded under the name The Four Pennies; for the British band of the latter name see The Four Pennies.'' The Chiffons are an American girl group originating from the Bronx, a borough of New York City, in 1960. Hist ...

, James Monroe High School graduate. *

Darren Carrington Darren Russell Carrington (born October 10, 1966) is a former safety who played 8 seasons in the National Football League for five different teams. He played college football at Northern Arizona University, where he averaged over 27 yards per kick ...

, NFL football player. * Daryl Brown, Actor.

References

External links

* http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nycha/downloads/pdf/Bronx%20River%20and%20Bronx%20River%20Addition.pdf {{Bronx Public housing in the Bronx Residential buildings completed in 1951 Residential buildings in the Bronx Soundview, Bronx

History

Demographics

Notable residents

See also

References

External links