Editor's Notebook
Funhouse Mirror on the Bronx

We in the Bronx media tend to be a little obsessed with how the rest of our profession, especially those who never make it across the Willis Avenue Bridge, portray our borough.

An informal survey of magazines and newspapers in February reveals a kaleidoscope of perceptions:

Exhibit 1: . In the March issue of glossy, perfume-soaked Jane magazine, a reader discovers supermodel Cindy Crawford sporting a "Bronx Stars" t-shirt. So here's hip-hoppin' Crawford, playfully tugging at the top of her shirt with her teeth, promoting a sports team that doesn't exist.

Typical, right? We'll bet some stylist who never set foot in the borough dreamt this up, thinking Jane readers wouldn't know the difference anyway. We're sick of downtown fashion types claiming uptown style as their own -- and then selling it back at an obscene price. This skimpy shirt can be yours for just $32! Act now!

Exhibit 2: In the Manhattan-centric New York Press, the Listings page plugs a Bronx dancehall without stooping to visit: "Trek to the Bronx, just for music? If you've grown tired of the Manhattan scene, it's not a stretch of the imagination. And if rumors are true, the Warehouse blows most island-life clubs away."

Give them credit for a willingness to stretch, though not as far as West 140th Street itself since they're relying on "rumors." (Maybe Jane and NY Press staffers could arrange a joint field trip?)

Exhibit 3: The front page of the Times' Arts section features four women who religiously catch every play at the Belmont Italian American Playhouse. Nice piece, but enough about Arthur Avenue, already. We think some reporters are issued maps of the Bronx that resemble that old cartoon of the New Yorker's view of the world: Riverdale, Belmont and City Island with an amorphous mass in between.

Exhibit 4: The meatiest cut in this Bronx butcher shop was a recent 3,000-word cover story on the South Bronx's comeback in the New York Times Real Estate section: "A South Bronx Very Different From the Cliche." Overheating with the lust to gentrify, our guide pants over the surge in construction and renovation, the drop in crime, and other neighborhood-friendly developments like the emergence of The Point, a cultural and economic development center in thriving Hunts Point.

Again, it's hard to complain about a positive portrayal of one of the most maligned communities in the country (though some locals worry that the Williamsburg treatment won't make already-high South Bronx rents any lower). The piece was informative and substantive.

That said, it's time for the second act. Let's get past the wide-eyed thing ("Went to the Bronx ... and lived!") and on to the routine news and profiles that are everyday fare for Manhattan in our paper of record.

To our colleagues in the field, a simple message. This is New York City. Not some exotic jungle or war zone that you visit once in a while. In any other borough, for instance, the decision to rip up parkland for a billion-dollar filter factory would receive exhaustive coverage in the dailies. Yet the papers have barely touched the issue, save for a couple of inches of ink in the Times City Section or the Daily News Bronx page.

Get the whole story. Or we'll keep our 60 cents, thanks.

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