The Bronx used to be burning, but now, it's booming. The latest evidence of the borough's comeback is a new effort to make the Bronx a tourist destination. 

There's more to the Bronx than Yankee Stadium and the Botanical Gardens. Like the Grand Concourse...all four miles of it.

"It was designed by Louis Risse. He was a French immigrant, and he designed it after the Champs-Élysées in Paris," said Angel Hernandez, education director at the Bronx County Historical Society. "The Grand Concourse has the second-highest percentage of Art Deco buildings in the country. It's been landmarked in 2009."

The Bronx, long a symbol of urban decay, is enjoying something of a renaissance, with rising property values and gentrifying neighborhoods. Some Bronx boosters believe the time is ripe to market the borough as a tourist destination.

"There are so many hidden gems here and wonderful, wonderful things to see that a lot of people may not know about it," said Olga Luz Tirado, executive director of the Bronx Tourism Council.

"Many people don't know that we have a nautical community in the same way that Massachusetts has Martha's Vineyard," said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

So the Bronx Tourism Council on Wednesday released its first Bronx Visitors Guide, a 44 page booklet of just what to do in the borough and where to stay, such as the Andrew Freedman Home, a boutique hotel and art space on the Grand Concourse.

The guide is being placed at visitor centers and hotels and posted online. (You can view it online here.)

There's an emphasis in the guide in promoting businesses in areas that might have not had the best reputation in the past.

The guide announcement was made at the Port Morris Distillery in the southernmost neighborhood of the borough, an area of factories that's now being compared to trendy Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

"A lot of people are definitely starting to know about us, and like you said, the stigma, I believe, is going away slowly but surely," said Rafael Barbosa, co-owner of the Port Morris Distillery.

Not everyone thinks the Bronx is ready for more visitors, though.

"It's a good idea at one point and a bad idea at another point because people come in the neighborhood and nobody know you, they're going to try to rip you off," said one person in the neighborhood.

But that can happen anywhere, and crime in the borough is down while tourism is up 14 percent in the last year, officials say. They think the new tourism guide is a good way to keep the visitors coming.