Growing up in the Bronx in the 80s and 90s meant living by a different set of rules, or maybe no rules at all. We did things back then that would make any reasonable adult today stop cold. Looking back at some of it now, I honestly can’t believe we made it out in one piece.
Take climbing light posts. You’d wrap your arms and hands around the pole, plant your feet against it, and work your way up by rocking your body until you built enough momentum to keep going. Nobody was filming anything back then, so I can’t prove it, but I made it up those poles more than once. These days at 48, that’s a completely different story. The strength isn’t there, the coordination isn’t there, and I’m carrying a lot more than I was at twelve years old. One bad grip and the fall could have been serious.
Then there was surfing the outside of subway doors. The door frame had a narrow ledge where water would drain off, just enough to get your fingers around. You’d hold on, wait for the train to start moving, and ride the outside until you had to jump off before it disappeared into the tunnel. The timing had to be right. A friend of mine didn’t get it right one day, and his foot ended up caught between the train and the platform edge. That moment stayed with him, and honestly it stayed with me too.
Bus riding had its own version of stupid. The rear vents gave you just enough to grip, so when a bus rolled by packed with people, you’d jump on the back and hold on for the ride. One afternoon the fire department pulled up right behind us, lights and sirens going, and we scattered in every direction. Some guys also hung off the outside of the back doors, which was its own level of reckless. Someone I knew went down doing exactly that and came up with a broken arm. There was something about all of it though, the nerves mixed with the rush, that kept pulling us back. A lot of us were quiet kids, bookish even, and this was one of the few ways we got to feel like we were living on the edge.
Highbridge Pool was a whole mission just to reach. Getting there meant crossing an abandoned bridge, and the only way up was to drag shopping carts over and stack them as a makeshift step. Once you crossed, there was a rope on the other side to climb down the wall. I can still picture myself hanging upside down from that rope like I thought I was some kind of action hero, head pointing straight at the ground, completely unbothered by the fact that nobody had checked whether that rope was actually anchored to anything solid. No phones, no easy way out if something went wrong, and not a single thought about any of it.
Roof jumping was its own chapter. Buildings had broken glass set into the ledges specifically to keep people from doing what we were doing, and we worked around it anyway. One afternoon somebody came up to the roof and the vibe shifted fast. We were convinced he had something on him, so we went over the edge without hesitating, dropping from one roof to the next. One of my boys actually fell from a roof during those years. He made it, but his body has been reminding him ever since.
The Metro North tracks were another spot we had no business being near. We’d put rocks on the rails, get behind some boards, and wait. When the train hit them, those rocks would go flying. We thought it was something to see. It never crossed our minds what was happening on the other side of that.
The underpass was the last thing we got into, and probably the most dangerous when you really think about it. We’d drop things onto the highway from above. Water balloons, snow, whatever was around. Drivers doing full highway speed had no idea what was coming. One of them figured out where we were, got off at the next exit, and came looking for us. He was beyond angry, and at the time we genuinely didn’t understand his reaction. We knew every alley and shortcut in the area though, so we disappeared.
A lot of the guys I grew up with are still carrying pieces of those days around with them, some of it physical, some of it the kind you can’t see. The Bronx back then didn’t offer a whole lot of structured outlets, and we filled that space with whatever gave us a charge. I get now what we were actually doing to ourselves and to the people around us. And if that driver from the highway ever came across this, I’d want him to know that I’m sorry. We had no idea what we were putting people through
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