The Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen And The Wide Divide
A Springsteen concert "created a civic space in which two antithetical sentiments could coexist and communicate with each other," writes A.O. Scott. The Boss turns 70 years old today.
On February 4, 1999, on Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview section of the Bronx, Amadou Diallo, an immigrant from Guinea, was killed by four plainclothes members of the New York Police Department's Street Crimes Unit. Diallo, who was unarmed, was standing on the front stoop of the building where he lived and reaching for his wallet when the officers started shooting. They fired forty-one bullets, nineteen of which hit Diallo.
In response to the shooting, Bruce Springsteen released "American Skin (41 Shots)," a minor- key ballad, more anguished than angry, which applied the balms of empathy and narrative economy to
