Starting in the 1970s, the Bronx often symbolized violence, decay, and urban ruin. The wave of arson in the South Bronx in the 1960s and 1970s inspired the observation that "The Bronx is burning": in 1974 it was the title of both a New York Times editorial and a BBC documentary film. The line entered the pop-consciousness with Game Two of the 1977 World Series, when a fire broke out near Yankee Stadium as the team was playing the Los Angeles Dodgers. Numerous fires had previously broken out in the Bronx prior to this fire. As the fire was captured on live television, announcer Howard Cosell is wrongly remembered to have said something like, "There it is, ladies and gentlemen: the Bronx is burning". Historians of New York City frequently point to Cosell's remark as an acknowledgement of both the city and the borough's decline. A new feature-length documentary film by Edwin Pagan called Bronx Burning is in production in 2006, chronicling what led up to the numerous arson-for-insurance fraud fires of the 1970s in the borough.

Where was arson a big problem in the Bronx?