In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Bronx received many immigrant and migrant groups as it was transformed into an urban community, first from European countries particularly Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Eastern Europe, and later from the Caribbean region (particularly Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Haiti, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, and the Dominican Republic), and immigrants from West Africa (particularly from Ghana and Nigeria), African American migrants from the Southern United States, Panamanians, Hondurans, and South Asians.

[13][14][15] Parts of the Bronx saw a steep decline in population, livable housing, and quality of life starting from the mid-to-late 1960s, continuing throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, ultimately culminating in a wave of arson in the late 1970s, a period when hip hop music evolved.

[11][21][22][23][24][25] Bronck became the first recorded European settler in the present-day Bronx and built a farm named "Emmaus" close to what today is the corner of Willis Avenue and 132nd Street in Mott Haven.

[27] Much work on the Swedish claim has been undertaken by Brian G. Andersson, former Commissioner of New York City's Department of Records, who helped organize a 375th Anniversary celebration in Bronck's hometown in 2014.

[39] Local farmers on both sides of the creek resented the tolls, and in 1759, Jacobus Dyckman and Benjamin Palmer led them in building a free bridge across the Harlem River.

Faster transportation enabled rapid population growth in the late 19th century, involving the move from horse-drawn street cars to elevated railways and the subway system, which linked to Manhattan in 1904.

[62] Yet another factor may have been a reduction in the real estate listings and property-related financial services offered in some areas of the Bronx, such as mortgage loans or insurance policies—a process known as redlining.

[84] In addition there came a revitalization of the existing housing market in areas such as Hunts Point, the Lower Concourse, and the neighborhoods surrounding the Third Avenue Bridge as people buy apartments and renovate them.

[90] Despite significant investment compared to the post war period, many exacerbated social problems remain including high rates of violent crime, substance abuse, overcrowding, and substandard housing conditions.

[98] The bedrock of the West Bronx is primarily Fordham gneiss, a high-grade heavily banded metamorphic rock containing significant amounts of pink feldspar.

Directly north of the Bronx are (from west to east) the adjoining Westchester County communities of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Pelham Manor and New Rochelle.

The Bronx's highest elevation at 280 feet (85 m) is in the northwest corner, west of Van Cortlandt Park and in the Chapel Farm area near the Riverdale Country School.

[109] Also in the northern Bronx, Wave Hill, the former estate of George W. Perkins—known for a historic house, gardens, changing site-specific art installations and concerts—overlooks the New Jersey Palisades from a promontory on the Hudson in Riverdale.

[111] Over the next 40 years it spread throughout eastern North America and killed back essentially every American Chestnut (Castanea dentata), causing ecological and economic devastation.

[149] The Yankees have won 27 World Series titles, more than any other team, and their roster has featured players like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle.

One of the genre's pioneers, DJ Kool Herc, held parties in the community room of an apartment building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where he experimented with turntablist techniques such as mixing and scratching of funk records, as well as rapping during extended instrumentals.

Its permanent collection features more than 800 works of art, primarily by artists from Africa, Asia and Latin America, including paintings, photographs, prints, drawings, and mixed media.

After Heine's German birthplace of Düsseldorf had rejected, allegedly for antisemitic motives, a centennial monument to the radical German-Jewish poet (1797–1856), his incensed German-American admirers, including Carl Schurz, started a movement to place one instead in Midtown Manhattan, at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street.

Until March 1, 2009, the Borough President of the Bronx was Adolfo Carrión Jr., elected as a Democrat in 2001 and 2005 before retiring early to direct the White House Office of Urban Affairs Policy.

In 2021, Rubén Díaz's Democratic successor, Vanessa Gibson was elected (to begin serving in 2022) with 79.9% of the vote against 13.4% for Janell King (Republican) and 6.5% for Sammy Ravelo (Conservative).

[196] The Bronx also has twelve Community Boards, appointed bodies that advise on land use and municipal facilities and services for local residents, businesses and institutions.

As part of Penn Station Access, the 2018 MTA budget funded construction of four new stops along the New Haven Line to serve Hunts Point, Parkchester, Morris Park, and Co-op City.

The sound can be heard, for example, on the Spike Jones and His City Slickers recording of "Der Fuehrer's Face" (from the 1942 Disney animated film of the same name), repeatedly lambasting Adolf Hitler with: "We'll Heil!

In the 1979 film The Warriors, the eponymous gang go to a meeting in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, and have to fight their way out of the borough and get back to Coney Island in Brooklyn.

This theme lends itself to the title of The Bronx Is Burning, an eight-part ESPN TV mini-series (2007) about the New York Yankees' drive to winning baseball's 1977 World Series.

[228] In Jacob M. Appel's short story, "The Grand Concourse" (2007),[229] a woman who grew up in the iconic Lewis Morris Building returns to the Morrisania neighborhood with her adult daughter.

By contrast, Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities (1987)[231] portrays a wealthy, white protagonist, Sherman McCoy, getting lost off the Bruckner Expressway in the South Bronx and having an altercation with locals.

No Thonx" and his subsequent blessing are mentioned in Bronx Accent: A Literary and Pictorial History of the Borough, edited by Lloyd Ultan and Barbara Unger and published in 2000.

The book, which includes the work of Yiddish poets, offers a selection from Allen Ginsberg's Kaddish, as his Aunt Elanor and his mother, Naomi, lived near Woodlawn Cemetery.

There is a selection of works from poets such as Sandra María Esteves, Milton Kessler, Joan Murray, W. R. Rodriguez, Myra Shapiro, Gayl Teller, and Terence Wynch.