The Bronx was burning… and Breaking

By Jose Corpas

Back in the 1970s, because of all the fires – many of them the result of arson – the expression “The Bronx is burning” became a popular saying.

As many as 40 houses per day caught fire with many of them left to smolder for days because, too often, the fire department never arrived. Nearly half of the South Bronx was abandoned during the decade and of the homes that remained intact, most were without heat or hot water during the winters.

The residents were prematurely aging, Dr. Harold Wise told the New York Times in 1973. “There’s a very rapid deterioration of the body in many people here after the age of 25,” Dr. Wise said. In between the rubble and the ashes, stray dogs chased mailmen and nearly 20,000 residents injected themselves daily with drugs.

Another 9,000 loitered on the street corners like broken bottles, members of any the numerous gangs that called the Bronx home. “The South Bronx is a necropolis – a city of death,” according to Dr. Wise, founder of the Martin Luther King Jr. Health Center. Amid the empty lots and abandoned Buicks, there was a movement growing that eventually led to the birth of Hip-Hop and Breaking.

August 1973 is the accepted birthday of the genre. That summer, and the summers that followed, there were parties in the playgrounds, the neighborhood parks, in tenement buildings, and just about anywhere else that had a power source to tap into. It was the birth of a subculture and an art movement that was comprised of Emceeing, DJ’ing, Graffiti, and Breaking. Suddenly, and without the help of government agencies, the neighborhood teens had an alternative to gang life.

According to the 1980 Law and Order Journal, gang-related homicides dropped significantly in 1974. By 1983, an NYPD report had the total number of gang members city wide down to about 5,000 compared to the estimated 19,000 just ten years earlier. “The dance and the competition,” a 1983 NY Times article informed, “evokes the spirit but not the malevolence of gang warfare.”

Instead of fighting over turf, gangs turned into dance crews and “battled” with dance moves. Large cardboard boxes, which were pulled from garbage piles and flattened, became dance floors. Cotton sweatshirts were traded for nylon windbreakers, which made the dancers spin faster on the cardboard. Crews borrowed moves from gymnastics and Kung Fu flicks and the ones with the best moves, and freezes, would be declared the winners of the “battles.”

In just a few years, Breaking had moved into the clubs of Manhattan, most notably, The Roxy’s on West 18th Street. There, dancers like Frosty Freeze performed, hoping to get noticed by a talent scout or choreographer. “For many black and Hispanic youths,” the Times feature added, “Breaking, like basketball and boxing, carries with it the promise of a career. The clubs and discos are their union halls. They go to the clubs, hoping that the purveyors of popular culture – producers, directors, agents and stars – will spot them.”

Fifty years and a few generations later, Breaking is an official competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics. This summer, 16 B-Boys and 16 B-Girls will “face off in spectacular solo battles” using a combination of “power moves – including windmills, the 6-step, and freezes – as they adapt their style and improvise to the beat of the DJ’s tracks,” according to the 2024 Olympics press release. In a special series, Unanimo Deportes will follow the games and the athletes, including Sunny Choi and Victor Montalvo, in their quests for Gold. We will cover the rules, explain the “battles” and the “throw downs,” which thankfully, no longer involves throwing left and right crosses to an opposing gang member.