While in the late 1970s many Americans dismissed the cultural potential
of the Bronx by claiming that The Bronx is burning, this study
challenges that assumption. This first-ever study on The Bronx in
American popular culture shows how a wide variety of cultural
representations engaged in a complex dialogue on its past, present, and
future. Sina Nitzsche argues that popular culture functioned as a poetic
resurrection of The Bronx, an artistic and imaginative rebirth, which
preceded, promoted, and facilitated the spatial revival of the borough.
This poetic resurrection inspired the artistic rebirth of distressed
communities across the US until today.