The Burning of the Bronx: Reconstructing a Decade of Abandonment, Arson, and Reform

Benjamin Holtzman — 2026-05-26T05:00:00Z

Between 1970 and 1981, the Bronx lost one out of every five units of housing to abandonment and arson. But why did the Bronx burn? Bench Ansfield reconstructs this largely forgotten period in the borough's history and its relevance to enduring struggles for housing, racial, and economic justice.
Bronx landlord Carmine Lanni knew that even amid New York City's 1970s fiscal crisis you could still make money off of the poor. Lanni began purchasing cheap, low-income buildings and collecting rent

- Reviews / housing, Bronx, New York, United States, displacement, FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate), fires, arson

Whose Bronx?: Decade of Fire Looks Back at a Complicated History of Neighborhood Abandonment and the Rise of Community Control in the South Bronx

Aly Hassell — 2019-07-02T05:05:00Z

Decade of Fire, a new documentary film by lifelong South Bronx resident and first-time filmmaker Vivian Vázquez Irizarry and co‑director Gretchen Hildebran, revisits the South Bronx of the 1970s, when a series of unchecked fires destroyed block after block of the neighborhood, displacing hundreds of thousands of residents.
Decade of Fire investigates the root causes of the fires and attempts to set the record straight about the complex confluence of events that let such flagrant neglect

- Reviews / New York, Bronx, housing, displacement, gentrification, fires, arson, United States

Metropolitics

The Burning of the Bronx: Reconstructing a Decade of Abandonment, Arson, and Reform

Whose Bronx?: Decade of Fire Looks Back at a Complicated History of Neighborhood Abandonment and the Rise of Community Control in the South Bronx