This past summer, I spent seven days in Da Bronx, where I was born. These are the memories the visit revealed.

The little red car I received on my fifth birthday —the first memory my brain will acknowledge. 314 East 143rd Street, Patterson Projects, Mott Haven, South Bronx. Da Bronx.

The date in September 1971, the exact day my mind, overwhelmed by too many drugs, drama, and pain, can’t remember when I left 495 East 171st Street in the Da Bronx, New York, for good. Between those two dates, there are too many memories—good ones, vying for space alongside the bad, both competing for my attention amid the nostalgia they evoke. 

2025. Our parents are long gone. My siblings, Donnie, Margaret, Virginia, Joseph, and Susie, still live in New York. (Norma, my other sister, lives upstate New York) Cold stone New Yorkers to the bone. And I mean that in a good way. Virginia, Susie, and Donnie live in Da Bronx.

i remember little   a fogged memory
                south bronx
                coming from rican     dominican roots.
                the patterson projects   john adam houses
a child into a teenager
                dates	days  places   people  
                their names have faded away
	        like the clouds i would stare at 
                through my fifth floor       window
i was that kind of kid   daydreaming all the time   wondering
	        where are those clouds going	       i want to go there.

watching spanish tv with my mother		novellas
                my only chance to hold on to my dream 
                where everyone spoke 	spanish around me 	
                to me	from me.

Since that day in September 1971, fifty-four years and far too many memories ago, I’ve lived in Washington, D.C., Hartford, Connecticut, and the California cities of Inglewood, San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Long Beach. Although I’ve returned to New York and Da Bronx many times for work, family, and recreation since 1971, I’ve always felt like a visitor, even though in the early years of my exile, I yearned to feel that sense—once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker. Once a Bronxite, always a Bronxite.

Sadly, over the nearly fifty-four years since then, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t summon that feeling of belonging. My heart longed for the nostalgia to feel real. But the truth is, my spirit had moved on.

There is a sadness that comes with nostalgia—an emotion that wraps around you with memories so vivid you can almost smell them, touch them, and be there.

Long-forgotten memories of people and places tend to evoke nostalgia—emotions that can distort reality by emphasizing what you wish to remember rather than the truth. My recent twelve days in New York New York stirred up so many of those memories that I couldn’t tell if I was in the present or lost in a past that had no form, no truth—only sentiment, a romance with a fantasy I’ve written about growing up in New York, especially in Da Bronx.

in between the spanish radio station in the morning
	         there was plenty of time for america 
                 jumping up and down out of 
                 the black and white television		
                               bozo the clown 	        dead end kids
                               forties movies		james cagney 	
                               abbott and costello	bela lugosi
                               sci fi      	                        horror movies.

As I drove around the Bronx on my latest trip, the memories flooded back. The places sparked nostalgia from past moments. From 1948 until 1962, my childhood was as normal as it could be, from the Kelly Street tenement that no longer exists to the Patterson Projects (The Long Walk Home), the John Adams Houses, and the 171^st tenement that is also gone.

The Catholic elementary school (1954-1962), Saint Rita of Cascia, where I learned to love reading, writing, and daydreaming. The school no longer exists, even though the building still stands. The church, with a date proclaiming November 4, 1900, is where I served as an altar boy, often dreaming of becoming a Catholic priest.

The two years I spent at Saint Albert’s Junior Seminary (1962-1964) in Middletown, New York (American Pancho), followed my graduation from Saint Rita.  

Returning to the South Bronx and reflecting on my last two years at James Monroe High School (1964-1966), the building still stands, even if the high school no longer does. It was during the mid-sixties, a time of foundational, earth-shattering, and life-changing disruptions that would shake us all to the core. Idealism, rebellion, exploration, and an identity crisis defined that era. It was the best of times; it was hell on earth. 

A life in Da Bronx. 1966. Fordham University disrupted (A Distraction at 57th and Fifth Avenue). 1967-1968 (Purse Snatch). Wall Street. Summer of Love and Hate. United Bronx Parents. New York Teachers’ Strike. Protest. Arrest. Drugs. Phoenix House. Marriage. Enough.

Everywhere I went marked a flashback of loss and a new beginning, fifty-four years on. Cities evolve. The diehards stay, but they also change. When I left, I was replaced by the next wave of Bronxites who would call this land home, long after I stopped calling it anything but a memory. 

I was twenty-two when I left Da Bronx. Now, I’m seventy-six. Traveling across the borough from Mott Haven in the south to Riverdale, Orchard Beach, and Pelham in the north, Castle Hill and Throgs Neck in the east, Yankee Stadium in the west—neighborhood names that spark memories and nostalgia. Melrose, Grand Concourse, Longwood, Tremont, Parkchester—149^th and Third Avenue, where my mother used to take me as a kid to shops that no longer exist—Hearns, Alexanders. Everywhere, there’s a memory: Bronx Music Palace, where I spent many Sundays dancing to salsa bands; Willis Avenue, where my first girlfriend lived and where I overdosed for the first time; Public School 52, where I was beaten by police and arrested in 1968, earning the badge of a rebel with a cause.

The past always yields to the present, and I was thrilled by what I saw. Many call it gentrification—new high-rises rising where empty lots or industrial relics once stood, vacant and waiting for a future. 

I was inspired by the creative energy flowing through the veins of Da Bronx, The Bronx Museum of Art, the Bronx Council on the Arts, and the Bronx Documentary Center. Music. The Bronx Music Hall. Bronx Music Heritage Center. Hip Hop started in Da Bronx. Breakdance. Salsa. Celebrations of life and a people.

An energy. Folks hanging out in front of their tenement building. Not unlike every generation of Bronxites. Loud. Firing up “la barbacoa” right there on the sidewalk. It’s their beach and park on a hot summer day.

These are the people representing over seventy-five languages. The cultures. The Food. Always the food.

my mother cooking	
                  the sweet smell of arroz con habichuelas	
	          y bacalao	
                  that i could buy for a dollar across the street		
la bodega	
                   the salt rough over the single slab       of fish.

Da Bronx is alive with the sounds and people of the world. I returned to Southern California with respect for my past and appreciation for the rich present of Da Bronx.

it’s all faded away
	      like the clouds i would stare at 
              through my fifth floor window.

i was that kind of kid   daydreaming all the time   wondering
	        where are those clouds going	       
i want to go there.

Read more of my New York City and Bronx trip:

• New York New York: Loud
• New York New York: Driving Me Crazy
• The Art of the Bronx