South Bronx Rising:
The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City

Tue, Apr 4, 2023

Fordham University Press, 2022

Thirty-five years after this landmark of urban history – originally titled We're Still Here in a 1986 first edition – Jill Jonnes continues to chronicle the rise, fall, rebirth, and ongoing revival of the South Bronx. The once-thriving New York City borough, ravaged in the 1970s and ’80s by disinvestment and fires, then heroically revived and rebuilt in the 1990s by community activists, has been Jonnes's subject in three editions, expanding the first South Bronx Rising (2000) in 2022. Though now globally renowned as the birthplace of hip-hop, the South Bronx remains America’s poorest urban congressional district. In this new edition, Jonnes describes the present generation of activists who are transforming their communities with the arts and greening, notably the restoration of the Bronx River. For better or worse, real estate investors have noticed, setting off new gentrification struggles.

After her talk, Jonnes will be joined in conversation by Richard Eaddy, who from 1998-2001 served as the Deputy Borough President of the Bronx and until recently on the NYC Planning Commission.

Jill Jonnes

Jill Jonnes is the author of several books that explore the impact of new technologies, structures, and landscapes on modern cities and society, including Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World and Conquering Gotham: Building Penn Station and Its Tunnels. In 2016 she published Urban Forests: A Natural History of Trees and People in the American Cityscape. Jonnes holds an M.S. from Columbia Journalism School and a Ph.D. in American History from Johns Hopkins University.

Richard Eaddy

Richard Eaddy is an Executive Managing Director at Savills, New York. He recently stepped down from his seat on the NYC Planning Commission, where he served since 2002. Eaddy has more than 25 years of experience in real estate development and consulting, including holding state and city-appointed government offices. From 1998-2001, he served as Deputy Borough President of the Bronx. He also served as Executive Director/CEO of Harlem CDC and has held numerous positions in the private and nonprofit sectors, managing commercial projects and initiatives throughout New York City.

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