The 1970s South Bronx building fires, often referred to as simply the Bronx fires, were a series of fires that severely damaged the South Bronx and destroyed more than 80% of the buildings in the area. The Bronx fires were the most damaging case of the high rates of fire and arson afflicting cities across America during the 1970s.
Most fires were the result of arson, usually caused by landlords recruiting Bronx residents to start them, but the South Bronx fires were not a singular, coordinated event; rather, the fires were the result of multiple socioeconomic factors and trends spanning several decades. These factors included but were not limited to redlining and housing segregation, the economic crises of the 1970s, newly available property insurance programs, poor fiscal management by the city of New York, budget cuts targeted towards poor communities, the overcrowding of already-neglected areas due to gentrification, and many others.
Background
Demographic changes By the end of World War II, many middle-class black and stateside Puerto Rican families had moved into the South Bronx from Harlem, as the Bronx was less populated and also legally integrated. However, many white Bronx residents left when non-white people moved in, fearing their properties would drop in value. The construction of Co-op City motivated further white flight by housing middle-class black and Puerto Rican residents in family-sized apartments. Finally, policies like Section 8 and rent control gave poorer Americans greater access to housing, with a majority of black and Latin Americans at that time previously not having had this access. As a result, the South Bronx went from being two-thirds non-Hispanic white in 1950 to being two-thirds black or Puerto Rican ten years later. Nationwide perception of the Bronx began to change from one of industry to one of slum, despite many other parts of New York also needing renovation; this perception was brought into the policy world in 1938, when maps published by the FHA designated the buildings as deteriorating.
As a result of these demographic changes, the South Bronx began to see reduced economic activity, as well as a decrease in funding for municipal services such as hospitals and public utilities. As more middle-class Jewish and Italian Americans left the area in response to increased black and Latin residency, many landlords began to lose higher-paying tenants, seeing less profit due to more and more of their units being rent-controlled. Businesses soon followed, as many of these businesses were owned by people who lived and then fled the area. Business-owners were also known to burn down their buildings. Withdrawal of insurance policies in so-called high risk areas for commercial buildings made it hard for firms and factories to survive. Rapidly, market-rate housing was sold off, jobs disappeared, and former investors in the area sought to get rid of their assets before they further declined in value.
Many began to see the area as an economic drain, because despite holding jobs, many new South Bronx residents relied on some form of welfare. By the 1960s, many landlords had begun to completely neglect their buildings, and the area had been substantially redlined. The completion of the Cross Bronx Expressway in 1963 caused further inconvenience for the area, in some cases displacing entire neighborhoods. Combined with Robert Moses's urban renewal projects, the value of buildings in the Bronx dropped dramatically, businesses left, income levels dropped, and crime began to rise.Wallace, Roderick (October 1988). "A synergism of plagues: 'planned shrinkage', contagious housing destruction, and AIDS in the Bronx". Environmental Research, Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 1–33. Retrieved July 18, 2022.Wallace, Roderick (1990). "Urban desertification, public health and public order: 'planned shrinkage', violent death, substance abuse and AIDS in the Bronx", Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 37, No. 7 (1990) pp. 801–813. Retrieved July 18, 2022. "Empirical and theoretical analyses strongly imply present sharply rising levels of violent death, intensification of deviant behaviors implicated in the spread of AIDS, and the pattern of the AIDS outbreak itself, have been gravely affected, and even strongly determined, by the outcomes of a program of 'planned shrinkage' directed against African-American and Hispanic communities, and implemented through systematic and continuing denial of municipal services—particularly fire extinguishment resources—essential for maintaining urban levels of population density and ensuring community stability."
Population growth Despite economic challenges, the South Bronx's population grew rapidly during the 1960s. Some of this was due to childbirth, but the majority of this growth was caused by the "urban renewal" project displacing residents from other parts of the city. Notably contributing to this push was Columbia University's rapid buy-up of low-income housing in Harlem, from which they evicted residents in order to create university dorms and housing. The rapid influx of displaced New Yorkers caused the South Bronx's population to surge by over 100,000 in just a few years, putting a massive strain on the area's resources, which had already started to be cut and defunded by the city.
City planning After the production boom of World War II began to wane, New York City faced financial trouble. The city was described as "so broke" by the 1970s, with neighborhoods that had become "so desperate and depleted," that municipal authorities had to scramble for a solution. Some policymakers believed the process of population decline was inevitable, and instead of trying to fight decline, searched for alternative approaches; in many cases, this resulted in attempts to have the greatest population loss in the areas with the poorest and non-white populations.
Planned shrinkage Roger Starr, former head of New York City's Housing and Development Administration, proposed a policy for addressing the economic crisis, which he termed planned shrinkage. The plan's goal was to reduce the poor population in New York City and better preserve the tax base; according to the proposal, the city would stop investing in troubled neighborhoods, and divert funds to communities that could "still be saved." Starr suggested that the city "accelerate the drainage" in what he called the "worst parts" of the South Bronx, and encouraged the city to do so by closing subway stations, firehouses, and schools.Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx By Heidi B. Neumark According to its advocates, the planned shrinkage approach would encourage so-called "monolithic development," resulting in new urban growth at much lower population densities than the neighborhoods which had existed previously. However, the policy was seen by many as ultimately failing to address the underlying systemic causes responsible.
The ethics of this approach also came into question, with former mayor Abraham Beame disavowing the idea, and City Council members calling it "inhuman," "racist," and "genocidal." Abraham Beame soon dismissed Starr from his role in the HDA. On top of depriving the South Bronx of adequate fire service and protection, planned shrinkage heavily hurt public health as well. While the implementation of planned shrinkage policy was relatively short-lived, the impact of the policy changes would last for the next two decades.
RAND study
In the early 1970s, a RAND study examining the matter concluded that many of the alarms in the Bronx were simply arson or false alarms. In order to justify the goal of planned shrinkage, the report therefore painted these fires as a "social pathology". This ideological justification built on existing prejudices established by reports such as the Moynihan Report, which argued that social issues facing black Americans were not systemic, but rather the result of black social and family organization in America.Moynihan, Daniel P., The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, Washington, D.C., Office of Policy Planning and Research, US Department of Labor, 1965.
The RAND report further accelerated the growing cultural trend of blaming individuals affected by policy for their poverty, rather than criticizing policies themselves. The RAND report in particular suggested that neighborhood fires were predominantly caused by socially- and ideologically-driven arson, despite substantial evidence that non landlord-driven arson was not the major cause. If arson was a primary cause, according to the RAND viewpoint, the city should not invest any further funds into improving fire protection. The RAND report allegedly influenced then-Senator Daniel Moynihan, author of the aforementioned report blaming minority groups for their financial circumstances. Moynihan used the report's findings to make recommendations for urban policy, arguing that arson was one of many social pathologies caused by large cities, and suggested that a policy of "benign neglect" was the most appropriate response.
The fires The first true "headline" of landlords committing arson would likely be the arrest of 8 landlords, detailed in the New York Times in 1975. Among these were the highly-publicized case of Imre Oberlander and Yishai Webber, two Brooklyn-based landlords who were caught driving to one of their buildings while wearing blackface, explosives in tow.Critically, none of these landlords were black or Latino. The landlords profited greatly off their insurance policies; Oberlander, for example, had collected $125,000 (over $750,000 in 2026) in payouts from twenty-one separate fires between 1970 and 1975.
Timeline
1960s: First wave of fires. Landlords sold their buildings to new people who chopped them up into smaller and smaller sections, and then neglected them, did not do necessary renovations, or even fill water boilers. Also, new electronics came into the home during this time, for which the buildings weren't built. 1968: First large fire. 1969: New York City begins targeting poor and dense areas for service reduction. 1972: Fires every 45 minutes. 1974–1976: 12 fire companies are closed in the South Bronx due to budget cuts and the near-bankruptcy of the city. Mid-1970s: the Bronx had up to 130,000 fires per year, or an average of 15 fires every hour. 40 percent of the housing in the area was destroyed, and the response time for fires also increased, as the firefighters did not have the resources to keep responding promptly to numerous service calls. According to one report, of the 289 census tracts within the borough of the Bronx, seven census tracts lost more than 97% of their buildings, with 44 tracts losing more than 50% of their buildings, to fire and abandonment. 1976: Investigators assigned to determine which fires were "natural" and which were arson. Late 1970s: More than 40 fires a day. 1977: A Bronx fire is accidentally televised during the 1977 World Series. 1977: President Jimmy Carter visits the Bronx. 1979: Anti-arson unit is developed. 1981: Fort Apache, The Bronx is released, further pushing negative stereotypes blaming Bronxites for the fires. 1982: A dedicated Bronx arson unit is finally created. Late 1982: The Anti-Arson Act of 1982 is signed into law by Ronald Reagan. 1986: Mayor Ed Koch funds a $4.4 billion dollar program to rehabilitate 100,000 housing units.
Attitudes of involved persons