People from out of town confuse Bronxville with the Bronx, but they couldn’t be more different. Today I rode the Metro-North from Bronxville to Grand Central. A mere thousand yards from Bronxville, a train village with Gilded Age charm, the press of the Bronx begins. While Fleetwood and Mount Vernon are not technically part of the
Bronx, they share the severe brick apartment buildings motif with that borough.
I love the train, because it cuts quietly through city like a knife. Everyone else is jammed into subway cars and buses, or dealing with traffic signals, insane drivers and construction. My train pauses at each station through the Bronx and I marvel at the curious location of the Bronx Zoo and Botanical Gardens amidst the poverty, at school districts and their magical power over the destiny of communities, at the invisible lines that dam the wealthy from the poor.
I briefly consider whether this system of gross inequity is sustainable in the long term, but then realize that inequity is what sustains the way things are. Who would make me a burger if it weren’t for these differences? Then I remember to check The Economist for the Big Mac index, because I was thinking of visiting Thailand and want to know how far the dollar goes there.
–AWall