Bronx needs to capitalize all that it has going for it.  A partner in the exclusive real estate marketing and development firm Seventh Art Group, David Williams, is giving a new look to The Plaza, 995 5th Ave., four seasons and some of the best condominiums from Dubai to Dallas.  He is helping to give the Bronx and image overhaul because he thinks image is everything in New York City.  He is attempting to overcome the lingering stigma to borough has had for many years and bringing out its strong points like outdoor space.  Those who know the borough love it and Williams has suggested revamping it will make it better.

Working with his team, Williams came up with this slogan:  “If you think you know the Bronx – Think again.”  For those that don’t know, the Bronx has some of the best first-home opportunities in the five boroughs. It offers the optimism and dreams associated with home ownership, with prices starting at $129,000 for some one-bedroom condos.

“Opportunity is what the pride of the Bronx hinges on, and opportunity is what this economic downturn ultimately means,” Williams said. “The Bronx is a place to thrive. A place to step off from. It’s where many successful people came from.”

Woody Allen, George Carlin, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Jennifer Lopez, Mary J. Blige and Cuba Gooding Jr. Edgar Allan Poe and Sonia ­Sotomayor. They are just a few of the notables who grew up or lived in the borough.

“You have three generations of great celebrities coming from the Bronx,” Williams said. “It’s not just a blip in time. It’s something that has a great history. It’s a breeding ground for all these great people.”  Williams finds it ironic that while so many Hollywood types come from the Bronx, Hollywood presents a skewed view of the borough.

“The television show ‘M.A.S.H.’ made South Korea seem like a place that was constantly at war,” he said. “The same problems happen with the Bronx. Right now, you have ‘The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3’ in the theaters, and that’s not even remotely close to the true Bronx.”

He also points to “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” the well-regarded novel by Tom Wolfe that portrays the Bronx as crime-ridden, dangerous and dirty, which at the time of the book, a couple of decades ago, it was. But that scene is well in the past.

“Wolfe takes the Bronx down to a stereotype,” Williams said. “The media has given the Bronx a bad rap. I don’t necessarily mean the news, but literature, Hollywood features and television.”

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The Bronx’s dozens of neighborhoods tend to lack identity, said Williams. While those neighborhoods are some of the most diverse in the world, Williams said people who don’t live there don’t differentiate among them, and those who are from the Bronx often downplay their borough, saying they are from “New York City.”

“We need to get to the point where people recognize that if you are from the Bronx, then that is something to be proud of,” he said. “People recognize the charm of [Brooklyn’s] Cobble Hill, the cutting edge of Williamsburg and the brownstone culture of Park Slope. There are between 44 and 69 different neighborhoods in the Bronx, depending on whom you ask, that most people don’t even know the names of … one quarter of the entire borough is open space. It has the highest elevation of any land in the five boroughs. It has some of the best education in the boroughs.”

When will the Bronx know that it is had “made it” as a brand?

“We have to get to the point where being Bronx born and raised is something that people are going to wear on their baseball caps,” Williams said.  Or when J.Lo wants to move back.

The 7th Art was initially founded 10 years ago by two architects, David Williams and Michel Mein. The 7th Art puts emphasis on the benefits of being involved with developments from their conception and throughout their life cycle, giving them a total understanding of the project. This results in a communications plan that will maximize the clients’ profits through effective and timely sales.

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My Take: I understand what David Williams is saying about the Bronx having a certain stigma about it.  Movies and series have made the Bronx that be the birthplace of gangsters and criminals and some of the worst games in the country.  However, it is also made Bronx a very well known place for the actors, authors and heroes that have come from the Bronx.

I know if I ever get a chance to visit New York, the Bronx is one place I would like to see because I have seen so much of it in the movies, like the Bronx Zoo.  Of course, you have to admit that movies and TV studios have a tendency to show the bad side of the Bronx.

That is like the Haight-Ashbury District in San Francisco.  It sets right off of the Golden Gate Park.  In the 60s, it was the place to be if you were a hippie.  However, at one time it was like a small town where everybody knew everybody else.  However, because of the “make love not war” era, it got a bad reputation just like the Bronx did.

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