Hostos Community College is presenting a panel presentation on the “Battle Days of the Bronx” tomorrow afternoon, Thursday, March 1 at 2 p.m. at the Savoy Multipurpose Room. Savoy is located at 149th Street and Walton Avenue, one block West of the Grand Concourse at 149th Street. Take 2,4,5 trains to 149th Street Grand Concourse. The presentation is free and open to the public. RSVP to ctl@hostos.cuny.edu.

The presentation is part of the Hostos Legacy Series, which aims to bring historical context to school’s founding and how the school has contributed to the Bronx community. Tomorrow’s event will include three presentations on (1) “Bronx Fires and Mayor Lindsay, 1966-1977” by Hostos Prof. William Caspari; (2) “‘Fort Apache’: The South Bronx Battles Hollywood” by Prof. Matthew Flaherty; and (3) “Public Policy and the Shaping of the Bronx, 1934-1968” by NYC DOE Teacher (Urban Institute for Mathematics) Matthew Foglino.

For more details on the presentations, see below:

Bronx Fires and Mayor Lindsay, 1966-1977
Prof. William Casari, Archivist and Instruction Librarian at Hostos Community College, presents his research on how policies that came out of the Lindsay administration impacted the urban swirl of the Bronx in the late 1960s and set the stage for the worst of the Bronx fires that followed. New York City was dubbed “Fun City” by the new mayor on his first day in office which coincided with a transit strike that shut down bus and subway service. The media portrayals of the Bronx, along with “number crunching” schemes suggested by the RAND Corporation and enforced by the mayor, proved devastating for the South Bronx, already struggling with post-war changes to its demographics, housing abandonment and redlining by the financial community. The combination of these factors has had a lasting impact on the Bronx to this day.

Fort Apache: The South Bronx Battles Hollywood
Prof. Matthew Flaherty, Reference Librarian and Assistant Archivist at Hostos Community College, will present his research on the controversy surrounding the film Fort Apache, the Bronx (1981). The film was shot on location and the film-makers went through great pains to create a sense of otherness by focusing on the borough’s blight, poverty, violence, and addiction. The community argued such conditions were the exception and not the norm. Thus members organized a formal resistance. The ensuing battles between movie makers and the community dominated the press which perpetuated the Bronx’s image as an urban disaster. The presentation will also examine the lasting impact of both the film and the movement against it.

Public Policy and the Shaping of the Bronx, 1934-1968
Mr. Matthew Foglino, New York City Department of Education. Matthew J. Foglino is a Social Studies Teacher for the New York City Department of Education and teaches at the Urban Institute for Mathematics in the Bronx. His research shows how public policy and new housing laws transformed not only the Bronx, but perceptions of what a middle class life should be. New Deal programs like the Public Works Administration began experiments in government funded housing projects and federal housing laws such as the Housing Laws of 1934 and 1937 made home mortgages more affordable and attainable for middle class Americans. He will explore how these legal avenues combined to take middle class residents out of the Bronx while concentrating impoverished citizens in the wake of the Post-War housing crisis.

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