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Next Stop: Growing Up Wild-Style in the Bronx
Beyond the safety of New York City's news headlines, Next Stop is a train ride into the heart of the Bronx during the late eighties and early nineties at the height of the crack epidemic, a tumultuous time when hip-hop was born and money-hungry slumlords were burning down apartment buildings with tenants still inside. From one stop to the next, this gritty memoir follows Ivan Sanchez and his crew on their search for identity and an escape from poverty in a stark world where street wars and all-night symphonies of crime and drug-fueled mayhem were as routine as the number 4 train.
In the game, the difference between riches and ruin was either a bullet or a lucky turn away. Almost driven insane by the poverty, despair, and senseless violence, Ivan left it all behind and moved to Virginia, but the grotesque images and voices of the dead continued to haunt him. This book honors the memories of those who died. At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Next Stop shares with a whole new generation the insights and hard lessons Ivan learned.
In the game, the difference between riches and ruin was either a bullet or a lucky turn away. Almost driven insane by the poverty, despair, and senseless violence, Ivan left it all behind and moved to Virginia, but the grotesque images and voices of the dead continued to haunt him. This book honors the memories of those who died. At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Next Stop shares with a whole new generation the insights and hard lessons Ivan learned.
- GenresNonfiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
6 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
About the author
Ivan Sanchez
33 books1 followerIvan Sanchez was born in the Bronx, New York City, in 1972 and is of Puerto Rican heritage. He left the inner city in 1993 and currently lives in Virginia Beach, Virgnia, where he works as a computer professional and volunteers in the state police department's anti-gang program. Still haunted by the grotesque images and voices of the dead, this memoir is his effort to honor their memories while painting the darkest days of street life in hopes of derailing young and would-be gang bangers from their fast track to the end of the line."
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 4, 2012
As I sit on this subway car and think of how to explain this experience, yes I called it an experience, this book was much more than just a book. It was an experience for me.
I struggle with putting this experience to words, there was so much emotion in this read. The whole time I was reading this book I was rooting for Ivan and his friends. When one of them got killed or jailed, I experienced deep sadness and disappointment.
The book was definitely an emotional roller coaster for me. I laughed at times, felt teary eyed at others, I experienced fear and suspense, anger and hatred, the whole read was an emotional roller coaster.
Perhaps it makes more sense to you if you know that I been to Creston Ave. I went to Junior High School 117 in the Bronx, some of the other kids came from the Kingsbridge area. In fact I rented an apartment in Kingsbridge, Grand Concourse for awhile in my early 20′s.
As a teen one of my friends used to mess with these twins that lived in kingsbridge. I used to come out once in awhile to chill with him and the girls.
I knew the area, though if you were smart you’d know to avoid it at all costs, especially Creston Ave. I can only recall passing by Creston itself once or twice. I usually stayed on the Concourse if passing by, walking through the inner blocks was always a risk. It wasn’t rare that I would either keep crossing the street on the Concourse to avoid some areas, or walk in the middle island for the same reasons until I made it to familiar yet not so safe territory of 170th street.
My dad used to work at church as a janitor. My friend George, who was from the area had acquired and sold me a goose down coat. He lived in the Creston area so we met up and headed over to my dad’s job to collect the $40 for the coat, and $5 I owed him from a bet we had made. You can call me a pussy, but in those days, we paid our debts, especially when dealing with these guys.
After reading this book I feel like I know author Ivan Sanchez. I feel like he was one of my homeboys growing up, and I’m glad he’s still around to tell this amazing tale. I’ve never met Ivan, but one cannot help but feel connected to him and his friends while reading this book.
Truth be told, had we run into each other back in the 80′s or early 90′s, Ivan and his boys probably would of kicked my ass. Had I lived on the same block, maybe they’d take pity on me, and just pick on me from time to time yet protect me from outsiders. Guys like these dudes never welcomed me into their ranks. I was always looked at as a nerd. Even when I carried a butcher knife, a rambo knife, a box cutter, and a razor blade in my mouth.
There were rules in the hood. They could mess with me and they did, but never too badly, however outsiders could not touch us. As the little kids we were treated as bitches by the older dudes, but we were their bitches. Outsiders messing with kids from their block would be seen as a disrespect on the neighborhood itself. So in the block, we’d be protected from outsiders, but we were abused by insiders. LOL. Classic lesser of 2 evils situation.
Like I said before, I never met Ivan, and things could have gone quiet differently than my description above. Maybe if these dudes were my homies I would of turned out different? But my experience in Clarke Place, was exactly what I described above when it came to dealing with the really bad dudes on my block. At least while I was a little dude.
It wasn’t until I became 14 years old or so that I started hanging out with latino gang members and eventually joined a crew. “Papichulo, PC”, we had Latin King backing so long as we stayed in line and obeyed their rules. I got jumped into this crew, about 10 guys kicked my ass as I tried to make it from one spot of a line to another. Eventually when they proved unable or unwilling to back up it’s members against some local thugs, I pulled out and started hanging out with Latin Kings proper.
I can and I will share some of my stories from this later time, but I’ll say that not even my most daring, dangerous of experiences compared to some of the author’s tamer, more relaxed days. These guys took it to the next level.
If you want to take a look into what life was like for some of us growing up in the Bronx, pick up this book, it’s an amazing tale.
Shoutout to Ivan Sanchez, to making it out of that life, and to being a real father. Respect.
Peace to all the men and women that lost their lives back then. From personal experience I can say that not only the victim is the victim. Rest in peace, and peace to those left behind.
I struggle with putting this experience to words, there was so much emotion in this read. The whole time I was reading this book I was rooting for Ivan and his friends. When one of them got killed or jailed, I experienced deep sadness and disappointment.
The book was definitely an emotional roller coaster for me. I laughed at times, felt teary eyed at others, I experienced fear and suspense, anger and hatred, the whole read was an emotional roller coaster.
Perhaps it makes more sense to you if you know that I been to Creston Ave. I went to Junior High School 117 in the Bronx, some of the other kids came from the Kingsbridge area. In fact I rented an apartment in Kingsbridge, Grand Concourse for awhile in my early 20′s.
As a teen one of my friends used to mess with these twins that lived in kingsbridge. I used to come out once in awhile to chill with him and the girls.
I knew the area, though if you were smart you’d know to avoid it at all costs, especially Creston Ave. I can only recall passing by Creston itself once or twice. I usually stayed on the Concourse if passing by, walking through the inner blocks was always a risk. It wasn’t rare that I would either keep crossing the street on the Concourse to avoid some areas, or walk in the middle island for the same reasons until I made it to familiar yet not so safe territory of 170th street.
My dad used to work at church as a janitor. My friend George, who was from the area had acquired and sold me a goose down coat. He lived in the Creston area so we met up and headed over to my dad’s job to collect the $40 for the coat, and $5 I owed him from a bet we had made. You can call me a pussy, but in those days, we paid our debts, especially when dealing with these guys.
After reading this book I feel like I know author Ivan Sanchez. I feel like he was one of my homeboys growing up, and I’m glad he’s still around to tell this amazing tale. I’ve never met Ivan, but one cannot help but feel connected to him and his friends while reading this book.
Truth be told, had we run into each other back in the 80′s or early 90′s, Ivan and his boys probably would of kicked my ass. Had I lived on the same block, maybe they’d take pity on me, and just pick on me from time to time yet protect me from outsiders. Guys like these dudes never welcomed me into their ranks. I was always looked at as a nerd. Even when I carried a butcher knife, a rambo knife, a box cutter, and a razor blade in my mouth.
There were rules in the hood. They could mess with me and they did, but never too badly, however outsiders could not touch us. As the little kids we were treated as bitches by the older dudes, but we were their bitches. Outsiders messing with kids from their block would be seen as a disrespect on the neighborhood itself. So in the block, we’d be protected from outsiders, but we were abused by insiders. LOL. Classic lesser of 2 evils situation.
Like I said before, I never met Ivan, and things could have gone quiet differently than my description above. Maybe if these dudes were my homies I would of turned out different? But my experience in Clarke Place, was exactly what I described above when it came to dealing with the really bad dudes on my block. At least while I was a little dude.
It wasn’t until I became 14 years old or so that I started hanging out with latino gang members and eventually joined a crew. “Papichulo, PC”, we had Latin King backing so long as we stayed in line and obeyed their rules. I got jumped into this crew, about 10 guys kicked my ass as I tried to make it from one spot of a line to another. Eventually when they proved unable or unwilling to back up it’s members against some local thugs, I pulled out and started hanging out with Latin Kings proper.
I can and I will share some of my stories from this later time, but I’ll say that not even my most daring, dangerous of experiences compared to some of the author’s tamer, more relaxed days. These guys took it to the next level.
If you want to take a look into what life was like for some of us growing up in the Bronx, pick up this book, it’s an amazing tale.
Shoutout to Ivan Sanchez, to making it out of that life, and to being a real father. Respect.
Peace to all the men and women that lost their lives back then. From personal experience I can say that not only the victim is the victim. Rest in peace, and peace to those left behind.
February 16, 2015
yeah.. The writing is so bad I had to stop reading it.
One page says He didn't know what cocaine was when he was 10.. and the NEXT page says he was introduced to cocaine around 9 or 10. It is all dowhill from there.
One page says He didn't know what cocaine was when he was 10.. and the NEXT page says he was introduced to cocaine around 9 or 10. It is all dowhill from there.
January 18, 2016
Okay book filled with a back and forth timeline and contradictory statements and stores. There are even some second-hand accounts which felt like they were trying to amp up the word count. Definitely has a street vibe and if anyone is curious about running the streets, you should read this book.
December 14, 2023
Everybody loves to read stories of gang-banging and the ultimate redemption of the young thug who makes it out alive. However, in this book, it really seems like the thug in question sold drugs, ran guns, beat the shit out of a lot of people (including his girlfriends), got (by his own repeated admission) very, very lucky, many, many times, not to end up dead or in jail, and then just - aged out of the game. That's not redemption. In the epilogue, he states, of he and his crew, "I don't want to glorify our actions", but damn, it sure does seem like that's what he spends 200 pages doing...
March 2, 2018
Life in the Bronx in the '80's and '90's. Way too real.
I lived in a different part of the city during those years and had a completely different experience of growing up. I was afraid of the Bronx - apparently for good reason.
Ivan's story is a window into the harsh reality of growing up poor and underprivileged in a city that ate its young. His story is a series of memories that sometimes go all over the place and may contradict each other but that's the way memory works.
I lived in a different part of the city during those years and had a completely different experience of growing up. I was afraid of the Bronx - apparently for good reason.
Ivan's story is a window into the harsh reality of growing up poor and underprivileged in a city that ate its young. His story is a series of memories that sometimes go all over the place and may contradict each other but that's the way memory works.
May 19, 2025
It brings you back to the urban life. We or lives
August 2, 2014
Street tales from a Bronx boy, details about the Creston Avenue Crew. Testosterone-driven bildungs-roman moves from good clean fun with fruit (launch your Halloween, apples, oranges and watermelons from a tenement roof, see street erupt in colors!) to the blossoming of real blood and near misses as his gang moves from fists to guns. The memoir, broken into short anecdotal chapters, shows how desperately young boys cling to family, and yet how little influence their mostly single mothers exercise compared to the lure of adventure and status won on the street. Sanchez details the tight geography of loyalties, how cousins and occasional friendships cross boundaries, and how proving oneself is a constant mortal game. Although his mother struggles to send him to the better Catholic school, time spent learning in school seems like just so much training for prison time to these restless and mischievous boys -- soon to turn into the tide of wasted youth heading to Rikers Island. Education carries so much stigma in their code, it seems large portions of the kids have an immunity to it from an early age. Next Stop is a personal story that does not explain larger phenomenon but does humanize the individuals who are living the rules of the hood.
September 8, 2011
The book is an autobiographical story about how Ivan Sánchez grew up in the Bronx during this neighborhood's roughest decade and how he passed from being a juvenile delicuent to a professional thug. He writes about how his life was in New York at the time and tells several stories which happened to both him and his crew and the events which lead to him deciding to leave the Bronx for good. The book is filled with murders, heists, beatings, and the intrigues which occured back then. The book is easy to read and feels like you are having a conversation with the writer in which he tells all the annecdotes he remembers and what happened to the people which were involved. My only complaint about this book is that it's too short, it gripped me from the start and I couldn't put it down until I finished it.
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November 9, 2008Reading this selection enabled me to envision myself as the fly on the wall during the many events that occured in this story. I felt sad, angry and hopeful as I took this train ride through the streets of the Bronx. This crack epidemic that took place
November 10, 2008
I Praise Ivan Sanchez for writing this Book and Advocating on it, we need this in our trouble times with our youth.
Whats Your Next Stop... I am advocating to our youth there is more to life then these Mean Streets!!!
STOP blaming do SomeThing!!!!
A must read!
Whats Your Next Stop... I am advocating to our youth there is more to life then these Mean Streets!!!
STOP blaming do SomeThing!!!!
A must read!
March 12, 2018
EXCELLENT BOOK I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT
July 27, 2009
A good account of the hard life in the BX. His ability to straighten up and his natural wittiness to escape the narrow way downwards is inspirational to many of our lost youths today
January 29, 2009
love it so much that wasz one of the best books ive read so far
Currently reading
February 13, 2009Just started to reading this book so still trying to get into it
July 22, 2010
Oh, I wanted to be in the book club in my local library, but less so once I read this.
January 15, 2014
I love this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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September 9, 20132 copies
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews