How Well Do You Know Bronx Landmarks?

Designated in 1966 as the Bronx’s first individual landmark, this home of a world-renowned 19th-century poet was saved after public outcry over its proposed demolition led to its preservation in the early 20th century. Whose home was it?

 

Poe Cottage, as it is called, was the home of Edgar Allan Poe, his wife Virginia, and Virginia’s mother Maria Clemm from 1846 to 1849. Poe Cottage was acquired by the City and moved to its present site within Poe Park on the Grand Concourse in 1913. During his time here, Poe wrote the poems “Eureka,” Annabel Lee,” and “the Bells,” said to have been inspired by the bells of nearby Saint John’s Church, which was built in 1841-45, enlarged in 1928-29, and designated a New York City landmark as Fordham University Chapel in 1970.

 

Perhaps the city’s most unusual subway station, this mock Florentine villa opened in 1912 as the headquarters of the short-lived New York, Westchester & Boston Railroad. Do you know which subway station it is?

 

It is the East 180th Street stop on the 2 and 5 lines. Designed by Fellheimer & Long and Allen H. Stem (one of the designers of Grand Central Terminal), this individual landmark is the now the subway system’s East 180th Street station. The New York, Westchester & Boston Railroad never extended past Westchester County and folded in 1937; among the first mainline railroads built as an all-electric line, portions of its system were later incorporated into the No. 5 subway line between East 180th Street and Dyre Avenue.

 

One of the city’s earliest historic districts, Mott Haven straddles the South Bronx thoroughfare of Alexander Avenue. Which of these was a popular early-20th-century nickname for this street?

 

Alexander Avenue’s nickname of “the Irish Fifth Avenue” recognized its prominence as the elite residential street of its largely Irish American community. First proposed for designation by the Commission in 1966, the Mott Haven Historic District contains some of the Bronx’s finest 19th-century row houses as well as two imposing churches—St. Jerome’s Roman Catholic (Delhi & Howard, 1898) and Third Baptist (Frank Ward, 1901)—a Carnegie public library branch (Babb, Cook & Willard, 1905), and a 1924 police station designed by Thomas O’Brien.

 

Four blocks south of the Mott Haven Historic District, this factory and its clock tower stand as monuments to an industry in which the Bronx once led the country. This industry produced a popular consumer good that was once a fixture of middle- and upper-class American homes in the late-19th and early-20th century. What was it?

 

Built in five phases starting in 1885, the Estey Piano Company Factory at the corner of Bruckner Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue was one of the first large piano factories in the Bronx. Its original portion, including its signature clock tower, was designed by A. B. Ogden & Sons. In 1919, the Bronx had more than 60 factories employing 5,000 people making pianos and their components; piano manufacturing declined following the arrival of radio in the 1920s, and this building was converted to artists’ studios in the early 2000s.

 

One of the Bronx’s most curious and luxurious institutions, the Andrew Freedman Home opened in 1924 on the Grand Concourse to provide “free and gratuitous reception, shelter, nourishment, and care” to a very select group of retirees. Who were they?

 

Designed by Joseph Freedlander and Harry Allan Jacobs, the Andrew Freedman Home was founded at the bequest of the former owner of the New York Giants baseball club to provide a sumptuous free residence for older people “who have been in good circumstances but by reason of adverse fortune, have become poor and dependent.” The limestone-clad building combining elements of Italian Renaissance palazzi and rural Italian villas is both an individual landmark (designated in 1992) and within the Grand Concourse Historic District. Acquired by the Mid-Bronx Senior Citizens Council in the 1980s, it currently contains community facilities, artists’ space, a business incubator, and a bed and breakfast.

 

One of New Yorkers’ great sources of pride is our public water system, which dates back to the completion of the Croton Dam (shown above) in Westchester County in 1842, and its continuous improvement and expansion since then. Which of the following Bronx Landmarks is associated with our water system?

 

All three of these landmarks are historic structures associated with our water supply. Designated in 1970, High Bridge (John B. Jervis, 1838-48) was constructed to carry the Croton Aqueduct over the Harlem River and is the city’s oldest standing bridge; it was refurbished and its walkway reopened in 2015. The Williamsbridge Reservoir Keeper’s House (N.Y.C. Department of Public Works, George W. Birdsall, chief engineer, 1889-90) housed the overseer of a reservoir serving the West Bronx that no longer exists. And the High Pumping Station (N.Y.C. Department of Water Supply, Gas & Electricity, George W. Birdsall, chief engineer, 1901-06) is a Romanesque Revival-style structure built to boost water pressure to consumers throughout the Bronx.

 

Built in 1929-31, the Park Plaza near Yankee Stadium was one of the earliest and most prominent Bronx apartment houses completed in which architectural style?

 

Designed by Horace Ginsberg and Marvin Fine, the Park Plaza (designated in 1981) is an outstanding example of the Art Deco style, expressed in its strong vertical thrust and dazzling ornament depicting eagles, owls, flamingos, fountains, geometric motifs, and the rays of the sun rising behind a large Bronx apartment house, all splendidly rendered in terra cotta. When it opened, the Park Plaza was described as “modernistic” in design; the term “Art Deco” would not come into use until the 1960s.

 

Many Bronx Landmarks were built in the 1920s and ’30s when Art Deco and its stylistic cousin, the Art Moderne, were at their peak. In which of these Bronx places could we see Deco- and Moderne-style Landmarks?

 

All these places have Deco- and Moderne-style landmarks! Although the Grand Concourse is probably the best-known Art Deco destination in the Bronx, the Bronx Zoo is home to the Paul J. Rainey Memorial Gates (1934) and Pelham Bay Park to the Orchard Beach Bath House and Promenade (1934-37). The bronze Rainey Gates, depicting stylized flora and fauna at the zoo’s northern entrance, were designed by Paul Manship, who sculpted the iconic Prometheus statue at Rockefeller Center. The Orchard Beach Bath House and Promenade, designed by architect Aymar Embury II and landscape architects Gilmore D. Clarke and Michael Rapuano, has a streamlined style bridging the Art Moderne and Modern Classic. In addition to its many fine Deco- and Moderne-style apartment houses, the Grand Concourse Historic District contains the Deco-influenced Bronx County Building (Max Hausle and Joseph H. Freedlander, 1931-35), designated individually in 1976.

 

Speaking of the Bronx Zoo, one of its most popular exhibits is “Madagascar!” which opened in 2008 in a renovated 1903 building on the zoo’s designated Astor Court. What animals did this building originally house and display?

 

Originally the zoo’s Lion House, the building, like the other original animal houses surrounding Baird Court, was designed by Heins & LaFarge. Its sculpture was by Eli Harvey, who specialized in cats and other animals. Upon its opening, the New York Zoological Society explained that the building’s “wealth of sculptured stone and terra cotta, presenting realistic carvings of large feline animals, are calculated to impress the observer quite strongly.” After the big cats were moved to more naturalistic habitats, the building sat empty before its conversion to “Madagascar!” under the guidance of the Landmarks Commission in the early 2000s.

 

Also within Bronx Park just north of the zoo, the New York Botanical Garden is a major Bronx attraction and one of the leading research institutions of its kind in the world. The Garden's centerpiece is this individual landmark designated in 1973. What is its name?

 

Originally constructed as New York University’s University Heights campus, Bronx Community College features stunning Landmarks designed by two world-renowned architects working 50 years apart. Who were they?

 

One of the Commission’s earliest designations, Saint Ann’s Church in the South Bronx is a simple vernacular fieldstone church with Gothic windows and a Greek Revival steeple constructed in 1840-41. Adjacent to the church is a cemetery where a framer of the U.S. Constitution, credited with penning its opening line, "We the People of the United States," is buried. A statesman from an important Bronx family, his name is carried on many Bronx place names. Who was he?

Erected by Morris’ son Gouverneur Morris II in a field on his estate, Saint Ann’s Church adjoins a cemetery serving as the final resting place for several family members, including statesman Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816). The “Penman of the Constitution,” Morris is credited with streamlining the formerly fussy language opening the document into “We the People of the United States.” He was one of the Constitutional Convention’s few delegates to speak openly against slavery, denouncing it, as James Madison later recalled, as a “curse” and a “nefarious institution.” Morris’ name carries on today in many Bronx place names, including that of the Morrisania neighborhood.