New York City The Bronx

A neighborhood that has toughed it through a tumultuous history, the Bronx is an unmissable part of New York City. For four decades and running the borough has been the boogeyman of the American city, and it is still synonymous in the public imagination with urban blight, crime, the drug trade, poverty, and gang warfare. The Bronx was literally “burning” in the 1970s and 1980s as post-white-flight tenants set unwanted buildings aflame to collect on the insurance. The 42nd Precinct of the NYPD, who patrolled the string of vacant lots and ugly, burned-out shells of apartment buildings in the South Bronx, was nicknamed “Fort Apache.”

Today the situation has improved tremendously. An influx of government aid and community building has led to a plummet in crime rates in the South Bronx. Poverty, crime and gangs are still problems (some 50% of the population lives below the poverty line), and you should exercise caution when traveling around the borough at night. But more visitors are noticing the draws of this much-maligned area. For one thing, a lot of it isn't that urban; between the Bronx Zoo, the New York Botanical Garden, Van Cortlandt Park, Woodlawn Cemetery, and Pelham Bay Park, nearly 4000 acres of green space liven up the gray cityscape. The tiny Little Italy area of the Bronx in Belmont, west of the Bronx Zoo, gives Manhattan's a run for its money (and food). City Island, by Pelham Bay Park in the borough's easternmost corner, is at once a small seaside town and part of the city. The Grand Concourse, running south to north along the borough's western side, is the Bronx's main thoroughfare and packed with shops and restaurants. The Hub, a retail center at the meeting point of East 149th St., 3rd, Willis, and Melrose Ave., is a bustling center of activity. And let's not forget the borough's cultural contributions: hip-hop was born in the South Bronx in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.