Dominoes and dancing on the streets of the west Bronx.
“This is the home of hip-hop where it all began—the boogie-down Bronx!”
That’s a common sentiment according to our exclusive NY1/Baruch College City Poll.
Some 40 percent of Bronx residents say “the boogie down Bronx” is the best nickname for the northern-most borough. The runner up, “El Bronx” comes in with 16 percent, followed by “the borough of salsa” at 11 percent and “the borough that Ruth built” at five percent. Twenty-six percent were undecided.
The name dates back decades to a building on Sedgwick Avenue.
“Of course, this is the boogie down Bronx. It all started here. Hip hop started here,” one woman says.
Hip hop parties started in the community room in 1973 and the rest is history.
“We are the innovators of what’s happening and what makes things happen. It’s the boogie down Bronx,” says one man.
So we know what Bronx residents say about their own borough but what do they say when they leave and head to other parts of the city?
“When I am heading to Manhattan, I say the city,” one man says.
Seventy-four percent of Bronx residents think of traveling to Manhattan as traveling to the “city.”
“It’s different over here. It’s more like home, and Manhattan is more like a place to go see and to go visit,” says another Bronx resident.
A third of Bronx residents travel outside of the borough daily—18 percent say a few times a week and another 18 percent say once or twice a week. Twenty-seven percent say less than once a week.
As for their own sites, the most popular is the Bronx Zoo. Eighty-six percent of Bronx residents say they have been there.
Dancing there was probably not included.