Photo by José A. Giralt
The transformation of the South Bronx continued Thursday, May 20, with a groundbreaking ceremony for a new museum which will memorialize the history of hip-hop in the borough, part of a $349 million development known as Bronx Point.
With shovels in hand and scooping dirt from a pile of earth, elected officials, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., joined hip-hop legends, Grandmaster Flash, Slick Rick, LL Cool J, Chuck D, Nas, and Fat Joe, in marking the ceremonial foundation of the museum’s construction.
The 22-story building is projected to accommodate 1,045 apartment units, 542 of which will be dedicated to affordable housing, while the Universal Hip Hop Museum will occupy the ground floor. Rising along the Harlem River at 50 E. 150th St., the development will include 2.8 acres of public space with access to a playground, BBQ area, and an esplanade along the shoreline. Housing units will be reserved for low to middle-income households.
The $349 million, mixed-use project is a public-private partnership between the City of New York, L+M Development Partners, Type A Projects, and BronxWorks. This type of investment in the South Bronx is a far cry from what Fat Joe remembers as a youngster growing up as Joseph Antonio Cartagena in the Morrisania neighborhood.
Addressing a crowd of over one hundred guests, assembled under a tent, he mentioned some of the common obstacles encountered by artists as they attempted to create art in a forgotten borough. “Hip-hop music came out of oppression. It came out of people suffering. It came out of the Bronx looking like Vietnam,” Fat Joe said. “The buildings were blown up, and people had to make something out of nothing.”
Photo by José A. Giralt
The early days of hip-hop are filled with stories of young Latinos and African Americans who became inventive at creating the then new musical genre with limited resources. Grandmaster Flash (born Joseph Saddler) grew up in the Bronx and has been described as part of the trinity of hip-hop music, along with DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa.
He paused briefly as he addressed the crowd during the ceremony, overcome with the emotion of the occasion. “Ladies and gentlemen, I must tell you, this is a really special … this is a really special time,” he said. “I say this in the name of [DJ] Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Breakout, Grand Wizzard Theodore, DJ Charlie Chase…. the names go on and on and on.”
From these humble beginnings in The Bronx, a global hip-hop movement was created. During 2020, for instance, over a fifth of songs streamed in the UK were rap and hip-hop and according to the BBC, the genres accounted for 22 percent of the singles market. Meanwhile, according to Billboard.com, a search online for hip hop in South Korea, Pakistan, or Vietnam brings up results for K-hip hop, rap in Urdu, and “Def Jam Launches a Vietnam Label to Meet Hip-Hop’s Growth in Southeast Asia.”
Closer to home, during the ceremony, the mayor thanked Grandmaster Flash for helping him to think about the world more deeply with his song, “The Message.” The mayor said, “In 1982, I was trying to make sense of the world as a young man. I was trying to find my purpose.”
De Blasio added, “Some things influence you powerfully, so I heard these words: ‘A child is born with no state of mind, blind to the ways of mankind,’ and it gripped me. It gripped me, and I listened to ‘The Message’ over and over…. Think about that, something so powerful that it can claim to be the message.”
In addition to the 52,000-square-foot space dedicated to the museum, the Bronx Point property will also include an early childhood space, run by BronxWorks. Collectively, the Bronx Point mixed-use development will comprise over half a million square feet, including more than 12,000 square feet of retail space.
Photo by José A. Giralt
Elected officials like De Blasio and Diaz Jr. are continuing their calls for more funding for the Bronx Point project. Microsoft is the museum’s strategic technology partner and is contributing $5 million towards the institute’s mission. On behalf of the Bronx, Diaz Jr. presented a check for $4.2 million to help with the $80 million total it will cost to build the museum.
Originally scheduled to open in 2023 to coincide with hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, the museum’s construction was delayed by the pandemic. It is now projected to open in 2024.
Rocky Bucano is the executive director of the Universal Hip Hop Museum and has high hopes for the institution once it opens to the public. He identified Joe Conzo Jr., Grand Wizzard Theodore, Melle Mel, and Afrika Bambaataa, among others, as the founding members of the museum. Photographer, Conzo Jr., was just recently honored with a place on the Bronx Walk of Fame during the recent Bronx Week 2021 celebrations.
“We started this journey not knowing where we were going. We didn’t even have a name,” Bucano said. “We came up with ‘Universal’ because we want this museum to represent the entire world of hip-hop. We love it so much that we’re putting our heart and soul into this museum,” he said.
As reported by Norwood News, a construction worker was tragically killed at the site of another waterfront development project in the South Bronx last week when an elevator collapsed on Wednesday, May 19, at 20 Bruckner Blvd in Port Morris, and a second man was seriously injured in the incident.
*Síle Moloney contributed to this story.
