White Flight from the Bronx – 1950 to 1980:
> The borough saw an explosive increase in crime, drug traffic, and arson during its demographic transformation.
🧵1/9 (h/t @Steve_Sailer )
The advent of NYC public transportation transformed the borough from farmland to a “streetcar suburb.” The population exploded with ethnic immigrants – Mainly Jews, but also Irish and Italians. Even during hard economic times The Bronx had been a safe place for families. 2/9
As late as 1950, The Bronx was still about 90 percent White, and the residents were enjoying life in their tranquil neighborhood. But The Bronx residents saw a rapid increase in crime and drugs as demographic change transformed life in the borough. 3/9
Rising crime in The Bronx was not just a matter of perception - As the demographics changed, crime did indeed skyrocket.
> Assaults, for example, increased at a frightening rate.
> Burglaries, meanwhile, increased from 1765 in 1960 to an incredible 29,2765 by 1969. 4/9
By the 1970s, the South Bronx was ravaged by gang warfare and arson. A nurse at a South Bronx hospital recalled gunshot victims in the ER, and a rehab center where rival gang members were still trying to attack each other from their wheel chairs. 5/9
The extent of the collapse of the South Bronx was shocking – gangs seemed to have taken control of the streets, and apartment buildings began to burn throughout the area. Vast sections of the borough were literally being burnt to the ground by arsonists. 6/9
The apocalyptic vibes were captured with the iconic “The Bronx is Burning” sequence during the 1977 World Series. 7/9
Violence and disorder spread to other formerly-safe neighborhoods. Residents remembered mothers being mugged, a sister being harassed until she had to escape to private school. They suffered robberies, break-ins, stolen bikes, stolen tires. Nearly half a million Whites fled. 8/9
Tougher law enforcement and mass-incarceration (as well as other factors), eventually helped to dramatically reduce crime in the 1990s. But it was far too late for the residents who had fled their once-safe and tranquil neighborhood in the 1970s. 9/9 city-journal.org/article/how-ne…
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Public Housing and the Rise and Fall of Columbia Point:
From cow pasture, to unlikely working-class Shangri-La, to near “Escape from New York”-level apocalyptic urban wasteland, to demolition, and rebirth.
🧵/22
Columbia Point was the historic landing-site of Puritan settlers in 1630. Later, the area was used as a cow pasture, a dumping ground, and then as a WW II POW camp. Isolated and nearly contaminated, it seemed like a less-than-ideal site for a massive public housing project.
2/22
During the Depression, Public Housing programs were focused on creating jobs. But after WWII the emphasis had shifted to “slum clearance” and the need to alleviate the acute the post-war housing shortage.
3/22
On January 14, 1940 the FBI announced the arrest 18 men alleged to be members of the Christian Front.
They were charged with plotting to overthrow the U.S. government. At trial, the men argued that they were actually patriots, opposing the threat of Communism in America.🧵1/24
The origins of the Christian Front could be traced to Arnold Lunn, a British Catholic incensed by anti-Catholic atrocities in the Spanish Civil War. As a defense against Communist “Popular Fronts” Lunn envisioned a “ecumenical” Christian Front of Catholics and Protestants.
2/24
The idea of an ecumenical Christian Front battling against murderous atheistic Communism was picked-up by Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, the Vatican secretary of state (and future Pope Pius XII), and then by “radio priest” Father Charles Coughlin in the U.S.
3/24
The U.S. arms embargo of the Spanish Civil War, and FDR’s Illegal, bumbling attempt to send covert military aid to Spanish Reds in 1938.
🧵1 /17
As Spain was engulfed by civil war, both the American people and FDR’s State Department were firmly opposed to any U.S. intervention in the conflict. Secretary of State Cordell Hull was a strong advocate for an arms embargo. 2/17
FDR’s Ambassadors in Europe were suspicious the radicalism of Spain’s Loyalists, and their ties to the USSR. Many in the State Department believed that a victory by the Loyalists would be a victory for the Bolsheviks in Europe. 3/17
The “De Mau Mau” gang terrorized the Chicago area in 1972: They murdered at least nine Whites - Including with home-invasions that drew comparisons to the Manson Family murders. 🧵/20
The origins of broader “Mau Mau” movement are somewhat murky. But it seems clear that several of the Chicago Mau Mau killers were disgruntled Vietnam veterans. This included Marines Ruben Taylor, Michael Clark, and Nathanial Burse.
2/20
Several of the Chicago Mau Maus met at Malcom X College. They managed to get expelled for intimidating and beating up teachers and fellow students.
3/20
Yankee-Irish conflict and the Boston Draft Riot of 1863: Refugees from the Great Famine caused Boston’s Irish population to explode - rising from a mere handful, to over a third of the city’s population.
One Yankee complained that Boston had become the “Dublin of America." 🧵/26
The city simply could not cope with the deluge. Poverty stricken and unskilled, the new arrivals were packed into crowded tenements. Disease and unsanitary conditions took a terrible toll. During a cholera epidemic, the life-expectancy of Irish males fell to fourteen years. 2/26
Not surprisingly, this tidal-wave of poverty-stricken Catholic immigrants did not receive a warm welcome from the Puritan-descended Yankees of Boston. The “shattering of Boston’s ethnic homogeneity” created an intense anti-Irish, anti-Catholic backlash. 3/26
Historian William Henry Chamberlin discussing the post-WWII ethnic cleansing of ethnic-German civilians from Eastern Europe: “some fourteen million in all … driven from their homes … where their ancestors had lived for centuries …”
Short 🧵
"... perhaps as many as three million may have perished either as a result of outright massacre or from cold, hunger, and disease."
The horrific experience of an East Prussian woman was typical: Expelled from her home, and then robbed of food and clothing; traveling in train cars “littered with corpses.”