Hanging from tree branches?

Pit bulls drove my family from the Bronx. My pregnant wife and I had moved to Bedford Park, off Mosholu Parkway, late in 1997. Though the neighborhood had rough edges, we got used to it, at least for a while. After our son was born, however—and as spring blossomed, and we ventured outside more often—we found ourselves growing ever more frightened of dangerous dogs. Pit-bull owners had converted the little park in front of our apartment building into a dog-training ground, where they goaded their animals into attacking one another or taught them to hang from tree branches to strengthen their jaws and their tenacity. Not surprisingly, when the dogs were running wild, the neighborhood's young mothers gathered up their children and fled. Seniors cowered together on a few benches. Like the mothers, owners of small dogs waited until the park was pit-bull-free before taking them for a walk. The park had been lost as a public space, impoverishing the neighborhood.


Read the rest of Brian C. Anderson's 1999 article here. As I recall, Rudy Giuliani personally shot all of the pit bulls in that neighborhood.