As far as we knew, they did not exist. As far as we knew, that public space we made memories on, was not public. As far as we knew, that space belonged to us.

It took me leaving the Bronx and observing the way others think about space, or, more often than not, don’t think about space, to realize that what my friends and I were doing was not unique to us, but perhaps unique to our home. For in a borough where the population amounts to 35,000 people per square mile, a borough in which apartments are hoarded together and homes or brownstones are few and far between, it is often necessary to turn what others would see as public space into personal space.

And, because it is the Bronx, after all, that is done with a certain unmatched flair.

In the Bronx, a seat on the Bx1 bus is not simply a seat. It is the scene for a romantic moment between young lovers before they part. In the Bronx, the sidewalk is not a sidewalk. On Fordham Road, where cars and people jostle for openings, the sidewalk doubles as a motorcycle parking spot. On a stretch of the Grand Concourse, the sidewalk serves as a double-dutch amphitheater.