The history of the Bronx with writer Ian Frazier

Episode notes

(Photo: Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Ian Frazier, is a writer who, for lack of a better term, does the thing.

In the eighties, he was fascinated by the great plains – the broad swath of flat land that extends from the North of Texas all the way to Canada. So he got in a car and drove there. Talked to people, looked at monuments, read every book he could find on the place. And in 1989 he published a book about it called: Great Plains.

Then, in the late nineties, Siberia caught his eye. Frazier again got in a car, drove it from St. Petersburg to the Eastern edge of Russia, talked to everyone he could find there and checked out every book he could find. He also flew on a plane from Alaska to the Russian coast and had to fish dead mosquitos out of his oatmeal while camping. He called that book Travels in Siberia.

Frazier’s latest exploration is of the Bronx. And he writes about it in his new book Paradise Bronx. It’s about the New York City borough that’s home to the Yankees, the birth of hip-hop and many, many highways. Frazier writes about its history, its geography, its sights, sounds and smells – both past and present. 

Paradise Bronx took Frazier fifteen years to write. And in those fifteen years, he read about the Bronx, ate in the restaurants, talked to residents and historians and walked pretty much every block.

Ian Fraizer joins us to talk about the history of the Bronx. He even tells us how he mapped out the radius in which residents can smell cookies from a local bakery. Plus, he shares what items he brings with him when he goes out to explore a city.