Constance Rosenblum’s latest book, “Boulevard of Dreams: Heady Times, Heartbreak and Hope Along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx”, is a valentine to the neighborhoods around the Grand Concourse, whose distinctive Art Deco buildings were a sought-after address for upwardly mobile families during the first half of the 20th century. A long-time editor of The New York Times City Section, who currently writes the Habitats column for the Sunday real estate section, Rosenblum chronicles the evolution of this iconic boulevard, modeled after the Avenue Champs-Elysees by its French-born engineer Louis Risse, up to its decline in the 1960s. “To talk about what it had been and then what became of it, in subsequent years, seems to be the perfect metaphor to speak about urban change,” Rosenblum said in an book talk at the CUNY Graduate Center.
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