The Bronx: It Was Only Yesterday, 1935-1965 (Life in The Bronx Series)

My mom and dad have a wonderful gift coming to them this week. Yesterday evening I read The Beautiful Bronx 1920-1950 and The Bronx: It Was Only Yesterday, 1935-1965. Well - I mostly looked at the pictures and read the descriptions of the pictures, as that was the meat of each book, but the intro sections were also very cool.My parents were each born in the Bronx and lived there until they moved to Blytheville, Arkansas in 1965 for a year. Growing up, my brother Daniel and I visited the Bronx periodically, as that's where our grandparents lived (until my dad's parents moved to Ft. Lauderdale) and we often heard tales of their time growing up in the Bronx.I discovered these books a few weeks ago at my close friend Len Fassler's house. Len is key mentor of mine who has had a profound influence on me both personally and professionally. I was scanning his bookshelves during a break in the evening and noticed these two books. He noticed me noticing them and told me to borrow them. Instead, I emailed myself their names and bought them later that night on Amazon.They are beautiful books about a different time in America. The Bronx was growing fast during the time period and was a magical place to live. It was close enough to Manhattan to get to use the New York, NY mailing address, yet far enough away to be its own place. It has huge ethnic diversity that was integrated in many ways, but also organized around the notion of neighborhoods. I recognized some of the street names, neighborhoods, and buildings from conversations with my parents and the few times that I've been through the Bronx in recent years. But mostly I just tried to transport myself back to a different time in our country.I've encouraged my dad to write more about his childhood in the Bronx on his blog. He's written a few, like Punch Ball In Claremont Park, The Bronx (NY) 1945-1953, Jake the Pickle Man, Summer of '47, and StrikeOuts: A New York City Street Game. But he's got a ton more in him so I hope these books inspire him.

My Dad loved this book. He lived in the Bronx from 1928, the year he was born, to 1946 when he went to college, but he visited his parents until they moved about 1960. Dad has frontal temporal dementia, but as this book has a lot of pictures he was able to remember a lot of the places and recall many memories. This book meant a lot to him, and he spent many hours perusing it and sharing it with his family members. This is a great idea - to get a pictoral history book of a city/town for an older person as a gift.

Got this for my 80 yr old mom she loved it it took her back to the good old days I highly recommend this book to anyone who is from the boogie down Bronx!!!!

Unfortunately this book lacks one major thing - clear documentation. I'm a 60+ year old who grew up in the Bronx (lived my first 21 years at 883 Kelly St.). While the pictures are excellent-- many were of places I had known well or streets within a few blocks of where I lived (e.g. lower Prospect and Westchester Avenues and Bruckner Blvd.) the lack of citation documentation was disappointing. I looked forward to using this book and others in the "Life in the Bronx" series resources for my current writing but alas much of it is an anecdotal, albeit a delightful, trip down memory lane.

I bought this book as a gift for a relative. I browsed through it and thought it was great. It brought back a flood of memories of when I lived in the Bronx during the '40s. I was disappointed that there was little or no mention of my old neighborhood, Woodlawn and the schools I attended )P.S.19 and Evander Childs High school

This book is similar to another book about the Bronx which I recently reviewed. "Not having lived in the Bronx since entering Military Service 50 years ago, it was nostalgic to review my youth in the Bronx. To see where I lived, went to school, enjoyed different neighborhoods, was a way to rekindle good memories. The book was comprehensive enough to cover most of my youth, yet not so detailed as to become tedious."

If you grew up, or lived in the Bronx during this time period, this will be a wonderful and nostalgic trip down memory lane. If you are a newcomer to the Bronx, you will be captivated to see what your borough looked like, back in the day. Highly recommended.

The pictures in this book brought back a lot of old memories! It's a great book for those seeking a little bit more about their families history and a nice little look into what it was like to be a Bronxite! You can take us out of The Bronx but you'll never take The Bronx out of us! Lived it!