In the South Bronx of America

by Mel Rosenthal

"It was the 1970s. Inner cities all over the United States were disintegrating and no one could agree about what was happening. One of the worst hit areas was the South Bronx which was being burnt down at a staggering rate. During this period Mel Rosenthal worked in an area of the Bronx targeted by city officials to become an enterprise zone, an area where factories would be built and their owners given special tax privileges. It has now become clear that it was with these officials' tacit consent that the arsonists' torches were allowed to do work usually performed by bulldozers and wrecking crews -- and at a fraction of the financial cost. The human price was painfully high. When Rosenthal began to document this tragedy, he discovered that the people who lived in the area where he worked faced the dual epidemics of fire and disease, epidemics that were slowly but surely destroying their homes and their community." "Rosenthal also discovered that the people in the neighborhood did not