The Bronx Gets Its First Independently-Owned Cultural Venue In Five Decades

In the 1970s, the Bronx burned. Literally.

While urban historians don’t have a definitive answer as to why so many buildings were set ablaze, it’s long been suspected that landlords, burned their properties for an insurance payout rather than pay for building upkeep or high mortgages in “risky” redlined neighborhoods.

The borough had already been devastated by decades of highway construction, white flight, and policies of “urban renewal” and “slum clearance.” With the borough’s main industries moving out, serious revenue deficits impacting the city’s essential services, and a recession underway nationwide, much of the Bronx was left to went up in flames. A quarter of a million people were displaced, and in seven of the borough’s census tracts, 97% of buildings were burned or abandoned.

Most of the damage was done in the South Bronx, which lost 80% of its housing stock. Today, two dozen grassroots organizations focused on housing justice trace their roots back to post-fire activism.

Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation, or WHEDco, saw the need for housing, too. But the nonprofit also saw that the fires didn’t just burn down homes — it nearly took the entire music industry with it. In 2008, they saw a chance to bring both back to the South Bronx.

They successfully bid on a request for proposal on a city-owned lot in the heart of the South Bronx neighborhood of Melrose. Their winning idea: build mixed-income housing and preserve the musical legacy of the Bronx for future generations.

Now, with the Oct. 18 opening of the Bronx Music Hall, the borough is getting its first independently-owned cultural venue in over 50 years. The performance venue and cultural center anchors the new Bronx Commons, which offers 305 affordable studio units and apartments.

Putting the “boogie” back in the Boogie Down Bronx

With its dense population of working-class Black, Puerto Rican and Jewish communities, the South Bronx was one home to a unique hyper-local music and performance arts culture.

“There was once a time when musicians could make a living playing music,” says Grammy-nominated musician and South Bronx native Bobby Sanabria. “But today, people all over the world have two images of the Bronx, hip-hop culture … and the fires.”

All 24 of the South Bronx music venues were shuttered, abandoned or burned, Sanabria says. With it went the Jewish, German, Caribbean, pan-African and pan-Asian music that inspired doo-woop, jazz and other genres.

WHEDco Vice President of Community Development Kerry A. McLean says the nonprofit’s research and community surveys showed that South Bronx residents wanted the rich cultural tapestry of music, theater, and dance back. From there, their mission was clear: Fill the city’s housing gap while giving residents a cultural center.

“They said we don’t just want housing. We want homeownership units,” McLean says. “We want an educational institution in the neighborhood, and colleges that are now across the street. And they also said we want places for the arts and culture.”

The Bronx Commons is by far the largest of WHEDco’s properties. It features 6,500-square-feet of retail space, a 150-seat 3-K and pre-K school, and is home to the Melrose Community Access Support and Training Center. Sandwiched between 163rd and 162nd Street along Elton Avenue, it was built on the last available affordable housing site in the Melrose Urban Renewal Plan — an ambitious plan to repopulate and attract businesses and people back to the neighborhood.

In 2020, its affordable housing development, the Bronx Commons, officially opened. Located right below the residential area, the Bronx Music Hall — the part of the project meant to preserve the historic music legacy — opened to the public last week.

Taking up about 14,000 square feet on the first floor, the Bronx Music Hall is the crowning jewel of the Commons. For over 40 years, the Bronx was without a major performance arts center. The only one that survived the decade of fire remains Lehman Center for the Performing Art, owned by Lehman College, and opened in 1980.

Although the Bronx Music Hall is smaller than Lehman, it’s specifically catered to the local community. It features a recording studio, green room, dressing rooms for actors and musicians, a dance studio, and a performing arts center that can seat 350 people. All spaces can be rented.

It will also be the new home for the Bronx Musical Heritage Center, which was founded in the 2010s. The Bronx Music Heritage Center will run the programming for the music hall, which will provide free and low-cost art classes for the community.

Sanabria, who serves as the Bronx Music Heritage Center’s co-artistic director, has big plans for the new performance venue. He plans on making use of the cultural diversity that ebbs and flows through the Bronx with various types of ballroom dancing classes and even training a youth orchestra.

“We have people from the Pan African diaspora, Pan Asian diaspora, Latin America, the Caribbean,” Sanabria says. “All people from all over the world have come and called the Bronx home, and the music that we’re curating here will certainly represent that diversity.”

In their research prior to conceptualizing the music hall, McLean says, residents didn’t just talk about missing music and dancing in the past. They longed for a place for their kids and grandkids to interact with and create it, too.

“There’s no one teaching kids about this history anymore, or to play this kind of mix of music anymore. It used to be that schools were where you could get that kind of education, but art and music classes are not a guarantee anymore,” McLean says. “We’re just really glad we can provide a space and really continue the cultural legacy here.”

Art as anti-displacement

From the outside, the Bronx Music Hall and the mixed-use development in which it’s housed are are a shiny, new, and towering building, standing taller than most of the older prewar brick buildings and even some of the newer developments in the neighborhood.

For some critics, it is an uneasy visual and a possible sign of gentrification. And their concerns are well-founded.

Just south of Melrose are the Mott Haven and Port Morris neighborhoods. About a decade ago, they had the last few lots with direct access to the Harlem River Waterfront. Private developers descended on the lots and built what were labeled as “affordable luxury” apartments.

These newly erected apartment complexes start at just over $3,000 monthly, with three-bedroom units going for more than $6,000 monthly. By law, a portion of the units were made available through the city’s highly competitive affordable housing lottery. (The median household income in 2023 for renters in the South Bronx is $29,640 and a third of its population experiences poverty, according to the Furman Center.)

The law also ensured developers who bought the coveted lots would build up the waterfront as a public park. They technically made good on the promise and the waterfront is now the Port Morris Public Waterfront at Bankside. Grassroots group South Bronx Unite marched along the waterfront in protest after apartment security told one member that the waterfront was “for residents only.”

Native South Bronx residents remained skeptical about the benefits of the apartment buildings, particularly when real estate developers also tried to rebrand the neighborhood as the so-called “Piano District” – a nod to the area’s history as a piano manufacturing hub.

As a nonprofit developer, WHEDco is beholden to residents. All of its properties are affordable housing units; a portion of units are reserved for families transitioning out of the New York City shelter system. WHEDco also practices what the Urban Insitute calls “place-based development.” Instead of seeing empty lots or redevelopment opportunities as a source of profit, place-based development sees what’s already in the community — public schools, commercial and residential spaces, and resident mobilization — as elements for responsible growth and preservation.

WHEDco President Davon Russell says he understands concerns about gentrification. But unlike using South Bronx history as a marketing technique, he says, they’re using it to galvanize the community.

“This is about people who have lived here, and will continue to live in this hall, and call it their home,” Russell says. “Part of living and thriving in this community is having access to the arts. It’s not all about daily crime, food, work and housing. We believe the arts have a vital role in community building. That’s why we’re here.”