As she walked across a Bronx intersection, Caprice Leocadio, 17, witnessed what she thought was a fatal car accident involving a young woman and a speeding vehicle. Seconds later, the victim rose from the pavement, looked up the street for her cell phone, found it, and continued on her way.

Caprice was relieved to see the stranger unharmed, but not surprised. To her, life in the Bronx was all about rising from the ground after a knockdown.

“When people think about the Bronx, they think parties, ghetto people, projects and bodegas,” says Caprice, who lives in Co-Op City, but “the Bronx is not as bad as it seems.”

Pelham Gardens resident Kayla Marte, 17, agrees. “Nothing measures up to the Bronx.” It has “everything you need,” she says.

Still, every community “has its faults,” says Nichelle Watkins, a 17-year-old from Parkchester. 

While the Bronx is guilty of holding the city’s highest violent crime rates, murder rates have dropped by 19 percent since 2001, according to police records.

A safer Bronx is good news for Nichelle and the rest of the 388,341 teens who live in the borough. With nearly 28 percent of residents under 18, the Bronx has the highest number of young residents in the city, according to the 2008 Census figures.

And Bronx youth aren’t shy about how they feel about their hometown – the good and the bad.

“I wish the Bronx was cleaner,” says Nichelle.

The Bronx Borough President, Ruben Diaz, Jr., agrees with her.

Diaz is making a push to support the “construction of green roofs, green school yards, cleaner transportation, and increased energy efficiency,” according to his Web site

The Bronx is also a leader in building green apartment buildings. Phipps Houses, for example, is constructing a 279-unit building – the Roscoe C. Brown, Jr Apartments – in Bathgate. It will be one of the largest green, affordable housing complexes in the nation.

The Bronx deciding to go green is not only enticing human visitors, but also some furry critters.

Jamisha Williams often sees skunks frolicking near her home in Throggs Neck. “People say they were here before us,” she says. 

Caprice and her peers hope that people “don’t believe all the bad things about the Bronx.” To them, it’s home.