Conzo: A Look Back at The Bronx, 1977-84 at the Bronx Documentary Center is an exhibition of one of the great hip hop and salsa photographers who took candid pictures of his friends and family friends while growing up once upon a time in the South Bronx.
Conzo: A Look Back at The Bronx, 1977-84
Conzo: A Look Back at The Bronx, 1977-84, an exhibition of Bronx, hip hop, and salsa photography by Joe Conzo Jr, opens with a reception at The Bronx Documentary Center in Melrose, The Bronx; on Friday, March 22, 2024 from 6-9pm. On view through April 21, 2024. FREE. 🇺🇸 🇵🇷
The time frame is important because 1977 was the bottom for New York City. It was the Summer of Sam. It was the summer of the Blackout. That was an important event. Before the Blackout there were three hip hop crews in The Bronx: DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, and Afrika Bambaataa. Microphones, turntables, and speakers were expensive and the kids didn’t have any money. The week after The Blackout, there were a hundred hip hop crews because everybody geared up. The first hip hop record was 1980’s “Rapper’s Delight.” So Joe Conzo Jr was right in the middle of the birth of hip hop. He provides an insider’s view into both worlds.
Joe Conzo Jr
Joe Conzo Jr is a New York Puerto Rican born in the South Bronx in 1963, so he came of age in 1970s New York City. It was the worst of times. It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times because The City was bankrupt and the building of the Cross Bronx Expressway destroyed once vibrant middle-class neighborhoods. The Bronx really was burning then (it’s fine now). It wasn’t the people’s fault. The New York City government wanted to get rid of the people who lived there so it could redevelop and allowed landlords to burn their own buildings for the insurance money.
It was the best of times because New York City’s “anything goes” attitude of the time birthed disco, hip hop, salsa, and punk rock.
Joe Conzo Jr started his photography career, when he was ten years old, by taking pictures of his friends and classmates at South Bronx High School. They were creating hip hop. Joe’s dad, Joe Conzo Sr, was one of Tito Puente’s closest friends, so Jr got to hang out with salsa and Latin jazz royalty too. Jr’s grandmother Evelina López Antonetty was a community activist known as the “Hell Lady of The Bronx” so Joe has community activism in his blood.
Jr went on to military service and then became a New York City first responder. His photography archive is the core of Cornell University’s Hip Hop Collection, which is almost a time capsule of that important era when the kids did great things.
Bronx Documentary Center
This is an amazing organization. Everyone has a phone now, so everyone has a camera. Learn how to use it in workshops at the Bronx Documentary Center. You never know where it will take you. Follow your eye!
More Information
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