Nancy Quinn should be living in a warm home with her husband and children. Instead, this 39-year old mother of three has opted to live by herself under a small bridge in the Bronx...
Like the mythical troll of folklore, she wears ragged clothing plucked from the trash and sleeps on a discarded mattress that she rescued from a trip to the dump. According to the journalist Robert Kokler, whose article about homelessness appeared in the March 24, 2008 issue of New York Magazine,* Nancy is a "lifelong" drug addict and was a victim of "sexual abuse."
Driven into the streets by the demons of Crack and Cocaine, Nancy has made a home for herself surrounded by piles of rubbish alongside the meandering Bronx River. This is a mostly narrow body of water which snakes its way up the entire borough. I know the river well. I've ventured along its banks and I rode my bicycle over its many bridges.
I grew up in the Bronx. And now Nancy is fighting her personal war in the same place where I, as an adolescent, once played Navy with my friends. Years earlier I stood alongside this river, near the same bridge, and chucked small rocks at imaginary boats which were really glass soda bottles that we tossed into the murky water. My friends and I tried to sink each bottle before it had the chance to float away. An occasional water rat would dash from under piles of garbage, and we'd throw rocks at it, too.
According to the article, Nancy lived on the streets for the past three years. Disconnected from society, Nancy sells her body for money which she mostly uses to buy more Crack. Mr. Kokler wrote that Nancy has been arrested 39 times, the last time for a class-A misdemeanor for drug possession. I assume, however, that all her other arrests were for various misdemeanors, too, such as prostitution, criminal trespass, possession of small amounts of drugs, like her last arrest, or for having drug paraphernalia. All the ingredients which make for a wasted life that's on its way to an early grave.
The overpass under which Nancy lives is located near the intersection of Bryant Avenue and East 180th Street in what's known as the West Farms section of the Bronx. It's and intersection which has a lot of vehicular traffic. I traveled over this small nondescript bridge many times. Years ago, back in the 1970s, much of the neighborhood consisted of burned out vacant buildings and still occupied older wooden homes. In addition, there were a lot of bland looking commercial and industrial structures. West Farms was a showcase for urban gloom with a struggling underclass stuck in low paying factory jobs, and a lot of people on Welfare. It was a hardscrabble world of poor adults trying hard to make ends meet while armies of kids played in the streets past midnight. Graffiti was splashed on just about everything but people's cars. And heroin ruled the minds of its victims while crime hardened the hearts of the law-abiding. Crack, as Nancy knows it today, was yet to come.
When I was a kid the narrow Bronx River that creeps below the 180th Street bridge was a graveyard for abandoned cars. And piles of discarded tires lined its banks. I remember the river as a rancid mix of mud and sewage, and pungent smelling oil. There were floating globs of black sludge, and an array of junk poked above the water's surface half submerged in the mud. The river was a dumping ground for everything form rusty washing machines to rotting railroad ties. At least this was the way much of the southern portion of it was.
But the river is much cleaner now. Or so it's been claimed. For I recall an article, which I think as in the New York Times about a year ago, or longer, saying that the Bronx River was making a come back. However, looking at a recent photo of Nancy in her surroundings, I'm not so sure. Because, while the photo shows a forlorn Nancy sitting under the overpass encircled by a pile of dirty clothes and broken furniture, all of it arranged in such a way that it reminds me of the small forts kids would crate from whatever discarded items they could find, I could also see an endless line of litter strewn haphazardly along the water's edge. Frankly everything looks as ugly as I remember it.
Nevertheless, I was so touched and disturbed by Nancy's story that I took the article with me to church. I read some of it to the congregation. Then we prayed for her. "Nancy, wherever you are at this moment, Jesus loves you." Next we prayed for her three children. Nothing is impossible for those who believe.
D.B.
See article in the New York Magazine.
Driven into the streets by the demons of Crack and Cocaine, Nancy has made a home for herself surrounded by piles of rubbish alongside the meandering Bronx River. This is a mostly narrow body of water which snakes its way up the entire borough. I know the river well. I've ventured along its banks and I rode my bicycle over its many bridges.
I grew up in the Bronx. And now Nancy is fighting her personal war in the same place where I, as an adolescent, once played Navy with my friends. Years earlier I stood alongside this river, near the same bridge, and chucked small rocks at imaginary boats which were really glass soda bottles that we tossed into the murky water. My friends and I tried to sink each bottle before it had the chance to float away. An occasional water rat would dash from under piles of garbage, and we'd throw rocks at it, too.
According to the article, Nancy lived on the streets for the past three years. Disconnected from society, Nancy sells her body for money which she mostly uses to buy more Crack. Mr. Kokler wrote that Nancy has been arrested 39 times, the last time for a class-A misdemeanor for drug possession. I assume, however, that all her other arrests were for various misdemeanors, too, such as prostitution, criminal trespass, possession of small amounts of drugs, like her last arrest, or for having drug paraphernalia. All the ingredients which make for a wasted life that's on its way to an early grave.
The overpass under which Nancy lives is located near the intersection of Bryant Avenue and East 180th Street in what's known as the West Farms section of the Bronx. It's and intersection which has a lot of vehicular traffic. I traveled over this small nondescript bridge many times. Years ago, back in the 1970s, much of the neighborhood consisted of burned out vacant buildings and still occupied older wooden homes. In addition, there were a lot of bland looking commercial and industrial structures. West Farms was a showcase for urban gloom with a struggling underclass stuck in low paying factory jobs, and a lot of people on Welfare. It was a hardscrabble world of poor adults trying hard to make ends meet while armies of kids played in the streets past midnight. Graffiti was splashed on just about everything but people's cars. And heroin ruled the minds of its victims while crime hardened the hearts of the law-abiding. Crack, as Nancy knows it today, was yet to come.
When I was a kid the narrow Bronx River that creeps below the 180th Street bridge was a graveyard for abandoned cars. And piles of discarded tires lined its banks. I remember the river as a rancid mix of mud and sewage, and pungent smelling oil. There were floating globs of black sludge, and an array of junk poked above the water's surface half submerged in the mud. The river was a dumping ground for everything form rusty washing machines to rotting railroad ties. At least this was the way much of the southern portion of it was.
But the river is much cleaner now. Or so it's been claimed. For I recall an article, which I think as in the New York Times about a year ago, or longer, saying that the Bronx River was making a come back. However, looking at a recent photo of Nancy in her surroundings, I'm not so sure. Because, while the photo shows a forlorn Nancy sitting under the overpass encircled by a pile of dirty clothes and broken furniture, all of it arranged in such a way that it reminds me of the small forts kids would crate from whatever discarded items they could find, I could also see an endless line of litter strewn haphazardly along the water's edge. Frankly everything looks as ugly as I remember it.
Nevertheless, I was so touched and disturbed by Nancy's story that I took the article with me to church. I read some of it to the congregation. Then we prayed for her. "Nancy, wherever you are at this moment, Jesus loves you." Next we prayed for her three children. Nothing is impossible for those who believe.
D.B.
See article in the New York Magazine.
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