baron ambrosia: the bronx is so multi-faceted, but for some reason, this is the first place i always take people because this just oozes and emanates, kind of, that flavor of the bronx. anthony: and he knows what i like places like this. 188 cuchifritos on 188th street and the grand concourse. old school new york puerto rican good stuff. get within 20 feet of this place and prepare to lose yo baron ambrosia: cuchifrito itself is basically fried pig. the ears, the tongue, chopped up and deep-fried. anthony: so off-cut pig parts, deep-fried? what s not to like about that? baron ambrosia: right. anthony: what s that, the shank there? baron ambrosia: yeah, they re cutting meat off the shoulder. we re got to get that in there. anthony: oh yeah. baron ambrosia: big piece of chicharrón with the skin just chopped up. anthony: so, skin baron ambrosia: skin, fat. anthony: skin and fat? baron ambrosia: yeah. it s almost like a little meat candy bar. anthony: it s
small business, internet providers promise you a lot. let s see who delivers more. comcast business offers fast gig-speeds across our network. at&t doesn t. we offer more complete reliability with up to 8 hours of 4g wireless network backup. at&t, no way. we offer 35 voice features and solutions that grow with your business. at&t, not so much. get internet on our gig-speed network and add voice and tv for $34.90 more per month. call 1-800-501-6000. lloyd: the first european settler to come to the bronx came in 1639. his name was jonas bronck. b-r-o-n-c-k. in 1874, all the area west of the bronx river was annexed to the city.
pastrami, some pickles, with a black cherry soda or a cel-ray of course to drink. lloyd: the world series is going on. howard cosell is on the air. suddenly you see a tongue of flame ricking up into the, uh, up into the sky. and he says, this is the kind of thing that jimmy carter saw, ladies and gentlemen. the bronx is burning. the old image of the bronx as middle class, perfectly mobile, healthy area had survived up until 1977. this shattered it. anthony: right. the bronx was burning like the story, and that stuck. politicians making the south bronx a poster child for what was hopelessly wrong. would always be wrong. would never, we were told, get any better. so we now have what you call a slumlord, essentially. lloyd: yes, right. anthony: who s snapping up large numbers of buildings. lloyd: yeah. first of all, he takes out a huge fire insurance policy. so as he goes to these junkies,
baron ambrosia: it s always morcilla. anthony: and then what else do we need? some, uh, plátano? baron ambrosia: yeah. anthony: puerto rico, i missed you. baron ambrosia: the bronx, to me, became a place where i could really engage my bacchanalian sensibility. anthony: right. baron ambrosia: you know, you could really just come here, eat, drink wine, women, song, and just indulge. anthony: this is pretty much the center of the pork universe as i ve ever seen it in new york. i don t know any place porkier than what i m looking at. this is exactly the kind of thing i thought we d lost in new york, that one after the other faded away in the neighborhoods i lived in. and all along, all along it was there, right underfoot a gusher of porky goodness. baron ambrosia: i mean, there s a thing there s a great line, which is, uh, they say in france, switzerland, c est le bronx. which is, you know, what do you think, this is the bronx? and, you know, this idea of just, y
and he says, listen, you see that empty apartment on the top floor? i m going to turn my back. you take all of the lead pipes that are in there, but i have one request please. before you leave turn on the water. and the water comes down, driving everybody else out. they then hire an arsonist, and sets fire to the building, they collect all the money, and they leave. anthony: i remember it well. i remember those few years. things were bad. are things, borough-wide, are things getting better? lloyd: is the bronx better? absolutely. there is more home ownership in the south bronx than had ever existed in history. that doesn t mean that we have reached utopia. we have not. how long it will take? i m a historian. i look in the other direction. uh, i would say my crystal ball is cracked. white castle employee: i got four cheeseburgers coming up! anthony: is it the best