Boulevard of Dreams: Heady Times, Heartbreak, and Hope along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx - Softcover

Constance Rosenblum, most recently the author of the Habitats column published in the Real Estate section of The New York Times, was a longtime editor of the paper’s City section and a former editor of the Times’s Arts and Leisure section. She is the author of Boulevard of Dreams: Heady Times, Heartbreak, and Hope Along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx.

"Rosenblums book looks at the history of the Grand Concourse over its entire life, from a vibrant area dominated by upper middle-class Jewish families during the early and middle 20th century to the largely black and Latino communities who live there today." (The Berkshire Eagle)

"Rosenbaum has told a harrowing story of construction and destruction, ending with the realistic requirement for changes in attitudes to restore the happy days that once made the Bronx a desirable place to live." (National Jewish Post & Opinion)

"Boulevard of Dreams is a carefully researched and beautifully written work that reads with all the drive of a well-crafted novel. At once broad and detailed, Rosenblums descriptions will resonate with the diverse array of New Yorkers who have called the Grand Concourse home, and fascinate anyone with an interest in the evolution of American cities." (Thomas Mellins,architectural historian and author)

"She takes us through the different generations of immigrants who made Concourse neighborhoods their home, looking at the big picture and the changing details of peoples lives." (The New York Post)

"Rosenblum peels back the layers of time, grime and glory that have made this majestic boulevard all that it is and was to generations of immigrants . . . Each chapter unearths new thoughts and shares the fascinating history of the Grand Concourse and its passage through time." (Bronx Times-Reporter)

"Rosenblum has written with real thunder about the Grand Concourse and the wild dreamers who once lived there. Boulevard of Dreams is a passionate and deeply elegiac book." (The Wall Street Journal)

"Like the Grand Concourse itself, Rosenblums Boulevard of Dreams is stately and elegant, proud and poignant. Building by building, block by block, character by character, she leads us on what is not just a tour of an epic thoroughfare, but of a city, a culture, and an era. People who love New York will devour this bittersweet and beautifully written book. Then they will make a bee-line to the Bronx for a shpatzir along the Concourseto ponder how spectacular it once was, and to savor every bit of what remains." (David Margolick,author of Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink)

"The book is a beautiful act of re-creation, untainted by nostalgia, and too varied, too accurate to be only despairing . . . Rosenblum has a fine feel for the everyday people who walked the Grand Concourse." (Columbia Magazine)

"Pride in the Grand Concourse and West Bronx remains alive. This affectionate volume will help keep it that way by serving as a tangible reminded of what is very much saving and restoring in the Bronx. There was and still is something special about that & boulevard of dreams" (History News Network)

"Rosenblum, a writer at the New York Times, traces the earliest days of the Concourse and its surrounding neighborhood, its decay during the 1960s and '70s, and its current renewal." (Ihsan Taylor The New York Times Book Review)