05/06/2026
In honor of BRONX WEEK join us for a screening of a DECADE OF FIRE.
In the 1970s, the Bronx was on fire. Abandoned by the city government, nearly a half-million people were displaced as their close-knit, multi-ethnic neighborhood burned, reducing the community to rubble. While insidious government policies caused the devastation, Black and Puerto Rican residents bore the blame. In this story of hope and resistance, Bronx-born Vivian Vázquez Irizarry exposes the truth about the borough’s untold history and reveals how her embattled and maligned community chose to resist, remain and rebuild. DECADE OF FIRE tells the story of the South Bronx that you’ve never heard before, and offers us a roadmap for building the American communities we want and truly deserve. (75mins)
The New York Times | Press Quotes
"[Co-director] Vázquez interweaves memories of her upbringing with a rundown of civic practices that, in combination, led to the Bronx’s decline. Some, like Robert Moses’s partitioning of the Bronx with the Cross Bronx Expressway or 'redlining' — the systematic denial of investment to neighborhoods dominated by racial minorities — will be familiar to any student of urban planning or New York history." DECADE OF FIRE offers the emergence of a new narrative for the South Bronx and places like it across the nation.
Registration link: https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2026/05/14/person-documentary-screening-decade-fire
