Bronx Fires, Part 1: Public Policy as Hate Crime (Annual Spring Lecture Series in Bronx History)
Channel: Bronx County Historical Society
Date: 2023-04-24

The Bronx County Historical Society presents its inaugural Annual Spring Lecture Series in Bronx History in April 2023 with the topic of "Bronx Fires", a two-part lecture series about the history and legacy of the 1970s fire epidemic in The Bronx by Drs. Deborah and Rodrick Wallace. In this first part, Drs. Wallace discuss the various circumstances that led to the devastating fires of the 1970s South Bronx, which destroyed up to 80% of the housing stock in some neighborhoods. According to the Wallaces, arson has been vastly overstated as a cause of these fires, which were instead caused primarily by severe building neglect by landlords, overcrowding, and drastic cuts in city services like building inspection and the FDNY. The Wallaces advance their argument that these various government policies especially are best viewed as a type of "ethnic cleansing", aimed specifically at reducing the political power and social fabric of communities of color in the South Bronx.