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November 15, 2004, NY Times
Exodus Lacks Explanation on Trail of Bronx Mystery
By ALAN FEUER,

ANDOVER, N.Y., Nov. 10 - William Bosworth, a retired professor at Lehman College in the Bronx, made an odd discovery a few years ago while studying the latest census data. Much to his surprise, he determined that from 1995 to 2000 about 4,000 people moved to the Bronx from rural Allegany County, in the southwest corner of New York State.

This was strange. Allegany County, nestled in the woodlands along the Pennsylvania border, is as country as the country gets and has as much in common with the Bronx as a barnyard has with Billy's Sports Bar outside Yankee Stadium. The county covers more than three times the area of New York City, but with a population of only 49,950. In Allegany, people fish, drive pickup trucks and hunt deer come fall.

It is sometimes said that folks in Allegany County would not move next door to Cattaraugus County. So why would 4,000 of them suddenly pick up and migrate to the Bronx?

Dr. Bosworth, who used to teach political science and now runs the Bronx Data Center at Lehman, did not have a clue.

"I got the data and looked at it three times to make sure I wasn't misreading it," he said. "But there it was. You understand, I'm not making this up. It's in the census."

Still, he included a disclaimer in his findings, which he put on a page of his Web site, called "Discovering the Bronx," (www.lehman.cuny.edu/deannss/bronxdatactr

/discover/bxtext.htm).

"The large migration to the Bronx from little Allegany County is a mystery not yet explained," he wrote.

Unexplained mysteries can be the bread and butter of the news business, so a call was placed to John E. Margeson, the Allegany County administrator, in the hope that he could clear the air. But Mr. Margeson was utterly confused.

"Four thousand people?" he asked. "I don't know. That's news to me."

Mr. Margeson wondered aloud if the county's Hispanic population might account for the trend. However, he said, those of Hispanic origin made up fewer than 1 percent.

He wondered next if people might have fled the county to the Bronx in search of work.

"When natives graduate from high school or college," Mr. Margeson explained, "they often move for employment opportunities. There is a decline in family farms, but still. ..."

Were farmers really moving to the Bronx? Robert Heineman, a professor of political science at Alfred University in Allegany County and a county legislator, had a slightly different thought.

"The only thing that might explain it is that we have college students who come from the Bronx and register and become residents in the county," he said. "Maybe they return to the New York City area when they graduate and decide to leave."

At this point, however, Dr. Heineman began to laugh. It had occurred to him, he said, that, including Alfred, there were only a handful of institutions of higher learning in the county, with a total enrollment of 6,000 students.

"Four thousand people over five years - that's what?" he said. "Eight hundred a year? That's a pretty big chunk of people going from the colleges to the Bronx."

Joseph J. Salvo, the population director for the New York City Department of Planning, had yet another theory. The migrants, he surmised, might be prison inmates.

To that end, Mr. Salvo explained that, according to the census, 99 percent of these new Bronx residents were living in institutional group quarters, a category that includes prisons. Nearly 90 percent of them arrived in the Bronx, he said, to Community Districts 1 and 2, which includes Rikers Island. Furthermore, almost all of them were men.

It looks like a prison population transfer, he went on, but quickly added that there were not enough state prisons and holding facilities in Allegany County to account for more than 4,000 people. He mused aloud that it was conceivable that inmates from other upstate counties might have accidentally been counted in the mix, although he could not tell for sure.

It seemed the best way to understand this phenomenon for certain was to take a ride to Allegany County, following one possible route of the reported exodus in reverse. Depending on the presence of the State Police, the journey takes between five and six hours. One heads west on Interstates 95 and 80, north on Interstate 81 and then west again on Route 17, where the roadside clutter of motels and pancake houses is replaced by stubbly wheat fields and mournful, sagging barns.

Gorsuch's Tavern, on Main Street in the village of Andover, is the first place to grab a bite and a beer heading west into Allegany County on State Route 417. It is a dark and comfortable spot, fashioned as a mountain lodge and offering a tasty bowl of chili and a friendly clientele.

No one sitting in the tavern at the lunch hour had ever known of a soul from Allegany County who had moved to the Bronx. They seemed, in fact, to think the whole idea was some sort of joke.

"I know a few people who moved out here from there - they were New York City cops," said C. R. Jackson, a 75-year-old retired state trooper. "But I don't know anybody who moved down there from here. Sounds like hogwash to me."

Sitting next to Mr. Jackson at the bar was Mike Burdick, a slender fellow in a barn coat and a baseball cap. He was asked what image came to mind when he thought about the Bronx.

"Let's see," he said. "Uh, nothing."

John Lyday, a construction worker eating lunch, had passed through the Bronx on several occasions when he was a truck driver.

His friend, Dave Klink, turned to him and asked, "Yeah, but would you move there?"

Mr. Lyday shook his head. "No way,'' he said. "Too many people all together in one place."

It seemed the mystery was fated to remain unsolved until Mr. Jackson's son, Mike, entered the bar. Mike Jackson, a former state trooper like his father, had a theory. There were two Chinese restaurants in the nearby town of Wellsville. Maybe they accounted for the migration to the Bronx.

"They come and go," the younger Mr. Jackson said of the Chinese restaurateurs. "Not a lot of them, but it's a start."

Then his father said: "Wait, wait, wait. I think I do know one. What about Willie Monroe's daughter?"

It was recalled that she had indeed relocated to the Bronx, where she worked, in some capacity, for a professional soccer team, the MetroStars.

"All right, that's one," Mike Jackson said. "Now it's 3,999 to go."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |