Fordham Road, The Bronx

Fordham Road split the borough in two. North semi-safe, south a hellhole.
I told my friend Keith there were some great Irish bars up there. Instead, there were wizened old-man bars whose sparse occupants told us one main thing: It's all gone to shit.
The hood had turned unequivocally Hispanic. The Irish youth had, believe it or not, decided to stay in the newly emergent Celtic Irish Tiger, and were staying over on their side of the pond.
Before, when I visited the Fordham campus, I was blown away by the hard Bronx landscape giving away instantly to manicured, rolling lawns, tall trees, and mock-Gothic architecture. The bars were cheap, absurdly so, but it was felt that the students were easy marks for mugging.
But I had been to Belmont Ave, Italian-American inspiration to Frankie and The Belmont's doop-wop's of the early 60s. Still a few old birds up those apartments whose existence was to tell you to shut up or leave in the courtyards.
Believe it or not, we did. On to Yankee Stadium, then the Sunnyside area of Queens. An entire world in one place.
After the Irish beat Milan 1-0, the entire bar went outside in the Queens street and jumped around and broke pint glasses.
My partner in crime is not around anymore, at lease not to me; but tell me in NYC, are there no new worlds to conquer?