The Bronx, New York

The Bronx, a borough of New York City, is the setting for Dropsie Avenue. It is a melting pot of different peoples and races, emerging from quiet farmland to a chaotic and crime-riddled cityscape.

Dropsie Avenue

Dropsie Avenue, located in the Bronx, is the main setting for nearly all of the novel. Once land specifically owned by the Dutch Von Dropsie family, the farmland is later turned into private home lots, which are then compacted and made into smaller and smaller homes, which are in turn torn down for tenement buildings. With them come crime, drugs, and vice, and ultimately, the area resembles a war zone. It is ultimately purchased by Rowena, an old millionaire resident of Dropsie, and turned into a quiet neighborhood for single-family homes.

55 Dropsie Street

55 Dropsie Street is the tenement building where most of the first part of the novel...