It's the Brian Larry Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now a love letter to the Bronx from the writer

Ian Frazier. His latest book, which has been described as his

magnum opus, is Paradise Bronx, the Life and Times of New York's Greatest Borough. And it takes

readers on a journey through the borough's tapestry of history, culture, and resilience. To write

this book, Frazier actually embarked on a thousand mile trek across the Bronx, not easy, considering the actual size of the borough, and he weaves together the past and present in a beautiful, compelling way.

He spends a good chunk of time in the book in what he considers the Bronx's golden age around the early 20th century.

We get a picture of a thriving, diverse community where Jewish immigrants,

Caribbean newcomers, and migrants from the American South help create a sort of paradise,

as he describes it. And he gets into the unmaking of that paradise, but lots of contemporary

beauty, too. So here to present his love letter to the Bronx is Ian Frazier, frequent contributor to

the New Yorker, and the author of several previous books, including Great Plains, Travels in

Siberia, and now his latest book, Paradise Bronx, The Life and Times of New York's

Greatest Borough. Hi, Ian, welcome back to W of New York's greatest borough.

Hi, Ian, welcome back to WNYC.

Well, hi, how are you, and thanks for having me.

And we'll open up the phones in a minute for Bronxites or anyone with ties to the borough,

but I'll point out that you've written about various aspects of New York City in the past

and your books about the Great Plains in Siberia. Why did you decide to focus specifically

on the Bronx for this book and what made it an ideal setting for what has become your magnum

opus? Well, I thought it was an under a place that was not sufficiently reported on.

We hear about other parts of New York City, but the Bronx doesn't, didn't get as much attention as I thought I deserved.

And some of the attention that it got was negative and mistaken, I thought, and to some extent undeserved.

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