Jacob M. Felson
1939
Grand Concourse Historic District, National Register Historic District

Completed in 1939, this pair of six-story Art Deco apartment houses was designed and built by Jacob Felson. Felson was a Russian-born immigrant noted for his movie theaters and apartment houses, which can be found elsewhere on the Grand Concourse, as well as in the Upper West Side, Upper East Side and Riverside-West End Historic Districts in Manhattan. Felson used decorative brickwork to create the buildings’ most significant architectural features, including vertical elements on the central bay, dark brick bands between window openings and rounded corner bricks on the outer bays. The cast stone surrounding the recessed entryways and the rounded metalwork of the fire escapes further contribute to the buildings’ Art Deco aesthetic.

840 Grand Concourse
Andrew Thomas
1926-7
Grand Concourse Historic District, National Register Historic District

With its expansive courtyard filled with vegetation and landscaping, the red brick Thomas Garden Apartments stand out from the dense urban fabric that characterizes most of the Grand Concourse. Named after its architect, Andrew Thomas, this complex was financed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as a non-profit cooperative. Thomas is often associated with the garden apartment typology, which is typically characterized by groups of low-rise buildings arranged around an interior courtyard and located on relatively large building lots. Besides its notable layout, this Renaissance Revival style building features terra cotta detailing at the roofline and round-arched entry surrounds framed by stepped hood molding.

851 Grand Concourse
Joseph H. Freedlander & Max L. Hausle
1931-1933
Grand Concourse Historic District, NYC Individual Landmark, National Register Historic District

Prominently overlooking Joyce Kilmer and Franz Sigel parks, this nine-story limestone building was designed in the neo-Classical style befitting a civic building situated on a prominent thoroughfare. The courthouse’s solid square massing is juxtaposed with sculptural details and ornamental reliefs. Among these is a frieze that encircles the entire building, depicting the “universal working man” engaged in such activities as agriculture, industry, the arts and war. Like other public buildings constructed during the Great Depression, the project was intended to provide needed work for architects, artists and construction workers. While the courthouse is the only project on which architects Joseph Freedlander and Max Hausle collaborated, Freedlander designed other recognizable New York City buildings, including the Museum of the City of New York and the nearby Andrew Freedman Home.

Emery Roth & Sons
1937
Grand Concourse Historic District, National Register Historic District

The only building designed by Emery Roth in the historic district, 888 Grand Concourse takes on a distinct streamlined appearance with its three curved bays, which stretch up six stories. The building’s entrance, located beneath the central bay at the corner of East 161^st Street, features a concave vestibule decorated with beige and gold mosaic tiles and a terrazzo floor. This central bay is further accentuated by cast stone window surrounds that run the full height of the building and terminate in a stylized Art Deco crown. Emery Roth, one of New York City’s most renowned architects, was responsible for other landmark apartment buildings, including the San Remo and Eldorado on Central Park West in Manhattan.

Sugarman & Berger
1935
Grand Concourse Historic District, National Register Historic District

When it was completed in 1935, 1000 Grand Concourse was the first apartment building over six stories tall to be erected along the prestigious thoroughfare. The ten-story Art Deco building is faced with beige brick and features a cast stone entrance surround. However, the building’s most noticeable feature is the raised and contrasting brickwork along the spandrels and roofline that add variety to a relatively unadorned façade. The apartment house was designed by Sugarman & Berger, whose work can also be found in Greenwich Village and on the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan.

1020 Grand Concourse
Philip Birnbaum
1961-1963
Grand Concourse Historic District, National Register Historic District

Designed in the Modern style by Philip Birnbaum, this 23-story cooperative apartment complex contains 453 units. Faced primarily in white brick, the Executive Towers features a slightly concave elevation with curved balconies, punctured by narrow light wells running up the height of the building. Projecting outward from the building, the entrance pavilion’s jagged, sawtooth roof, supported by green and white marble columns, contrasts sharply with the gentle curves of the tower. The complex was completed in 1963, just as the middle class began its rapid exodus from the Grand Concourse. Boasting features like central air conditioning, it was touted in real estate brochures as “the first luxury skyscraper in the Bronx.” Despite the development’s aspirations, the Executive Towers could not compete with the suburbs and larger complexes like Co-op City, which contained 15,000 apartments in a self-contained community in the northeast Bronx.

1125 Grand Concourse
Joseph H. Freedlander & Harry Allan Jacobs
1922-24; wings by David Levy, 1928-31
Grand Concourse Historic District, NYC Individual Landmark, National Register Historic District

Sitting prominently on the Grand Concourse, the four-story Andrew Freedman home was designed by Joseph Freedlander and Harry Jacobs in the tradition of the Italian Renaissance palazzo. This monumental building is defined by its symmetrical massing and architectural details, including a balustraded terrace and beautiful ironwork. After his death in 1915, Andrew Freedman, who was involved with the construction of New York City’s first subway and had close ties to Tammany Hall, left his fortune for the establishment of a home for the “care and maintenance of aged and indigent persons of both sexes…who have been in good circumstances but by reason of adverse fortune, have become poor and dependent.” This home for the once-wealthy was expanded between 1928 and 1931 and remained in its original use until 1983. Purchased by the Mid-Bronx Senior Citizens Council, the rechristened Andrew Freedman Complex now serves as a lodging facility, cultural center and event space.

Horace Ginsbern & Marvin Fine
1936-7
Grand Concourse Historic District, National Register Historic District

With its curved corners, Art Moderne flourishes and geometric cast stone entryway, 1150 Grand Concourse is arguably one of the most striking examples of Art Deco architecture in the neighborhood. The six-story building incorporates six light courts, which not only provide tenants with fresh air, but also lend the façade a streamlined flare. The vibrant tinted mosaic tile mural of tropical fish at the building’s entrance lends 1150 Grand Concourse the nickname, the “Fish Building.” Notably, the building’s architects, Ginsbern & Fine, along with Ginsbern’s son Frederick, were also responsible for the designs of the Chock Full O’ Nuts restaurant chain in New York City.

Horace Ginsbern
1936-37
Grand Concourse Historic District, National Register Historic District

Occupying the corner of East 167^th Street, this six-story brick apartment building designed by Horace Ginsbern embodies many characteristic elements of the Art Deco style. While the majority of the building faces East 167^th Street, its entrance opens onto the Grand Concourse, and is topped by a vertical band of raised bricks that stretch up to the roofline and culminate in a terra cotta crown. In addition to the geometric patterns found in the brickwork throughout the façade, the building boasts an eye-catching iron fire escape with curved railings and chevron details. This building’s location at the intersection is accentuated by its wrap-around corner window openings that punctuate the monotone masonry exterior.

The Grand Concourse Historic District encompasses 61 apartment houses that were built between 1917 and 1959 along the Grand Concourse, the major north-south artery of the West Bronx that was conceived in 1891 as a means of linking the park system of Manhattan with the rural Bronx. The development of apartment buildings along the Grand Concourse was precipitated by the completion of the Jerome Avenue subway, which made it possible for residents to commute to Manhattan, as well as the introduction of real estate tax exemptions. About half of the district’s apartment buildings were constructed following these two major developments, from 1922 to 1931, and were mostly designed in revival styles popular in Manhattan at the time, including Renaissance and Colonial Revival. The 1933 opening of the IND subway along the Grand Concourse sparked the Grand Concourse’s next building boom, which lasted until about 1945 and produced most of the remaining buildings in the district. Many of these were undertaken in the Art Deco and Moderne styles for which the district is famous. Charles Kreymborg & Son and Jacob M. Felson were the architects responsible for the greatest number of buildings found within the historic district, though it also features buildings by other illustrious architects of the day, including the prolific apartment building designer, Emery Roth. Despite a period of decline and deterioration lasting from the 1950s to the 1980s, the architectural character of the Grand Concourse survived and now serves as the backdrop to a diverse working class community with a large immigrant population.

Neville & Bagge, 1909
Neville & Bagge, 1910
Neville & Bagge, 1910
Clay Avenue Historic District

The three apartment buildings found within the historic district were all designed in the neo-Renaissance style by Neville & Bagge, a prolific architectural firm in New York from the 1890s to the 1920s. While most well-known for its apartment buildings on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Neville & Bagge designed rowhouses, individual residences and commercial lofts, in addition to hundreds of neo-Renaissance style apartment buildings. These brick buildings, trimmed with stone and terra cotta, face the side streets, centering on an entrance with a low stoop and limestone enframement featuring Doric pilasters. On the Clay Avenue side, each building has a pair of three-sided bays flanking a central bay that reflects, at a larger scale, the massing of the two-family houses on the street. These four- and five-story buildings are typical “new law” tenements, built in compliance with the standards outlined in the Tenement House Act of 1901. Catering to working-class households, all apartments in “new law” tenements met minimum size standards for rooms, boasted kitchens and bathrooms, and were guaranteed adequate access to light and air via light courts at the side and rear of the buildings. A look at the residents of 360 East 166^th Street in 1910 sheds light on the buildings’ original social makeup. Eighteen households, averaging two to three people, lived in the building in 1910. A range of nationalities was represented, including American, Italian and German, and occupations such as bookkeeper, grocer, architect, photo engraver, asphalt company laborer and court clerk.

Warren C. Dickerson
1901-02
Clay Avenue Historic District

These houses each feature three-sided, angled bays clad in rough-hewn stone at the basement and first story, and boast windows with leaded-glass transoms. A pair of tall stoops with historic wrought iron railings lead up to entrances framed in the same rough-hewn stone. The ensemble is topped by a galvanized iron cornice and a pair of curving Flemish-inspired gables. No. 1055 retains an original galvanized iron decorative urn in its gable. In 1905, the two apartments of No. 1055 were home to the families of Frederick Krauth, a clothing cutter, and John Elstner, a German immigrant. No. 1057, on the other hand, was home to a real estate agent, a police sergeant and their families.

Warren C. Dickerson
1901-02
Clay Avenue Historic District

The façade of this pair of red brick, three-story rowhouses is enlivened by the rock-faced stone at the buildings’ bases, around the entrances, in the second-story window lintels and on the beltcourses. Stone stoops with historic wrought-iron railings lead up to the entrances, which each feature a wood and glass door set below a transom. With two-story rounded bays flanking either side, the façade culminates in a central gable with a set of two round-arch windows. Ornamented dormers, which rise above a bracketed cornice, are found on either side of the gable. In 1905, four households occupied the two buildings, including that of Helen Seamen, a dressmaker who lived at No. 1053 with her five children and a niece.

Warren C. Dickerson
1901-02
Clay Avenue Historic District

Although Nos. 1054 and 1056 share similar asymmetrical massing with their southern neighbors, this pair of houses stands out with its rounded bays and gable topped with a segmental-arched pediment. Tall stone stoops, as seen throughout the district, lead to doorways flanked by dwarf pilasters with foliate corbels and caps. No. 1054 retains all of its original leaded-glass transoms in the second story windows. Both the gable and the dormers feature galvanized iron pediments, while only No. 1056 features its original bracketed cornice. The areaway features its historic wrought-iron railings and cast-iron newels. In 1903, Henry Stiehl, a baking supply dealer, purchased No. 1054 and moved in with his wife, two sons and a servant. A year later, Martha Tezlaff, a German immigrant, bought No. 1056, and 1910 census data indicates that she lived here with her daughter, son-in-law and servant.

Warren C. Dickerson
1901-02
Clay Avenue Historic District

While this pair of houses may be asymmetrical in its massing, Nos. 1050 and 1052 share common characteristics such as keyed limestone transom bars and dwarf pilasters flanking the doors. Non-historic iron railings guide visitors up the tall pair of stone stoops to the entryways. The façade, faced in Roman brick (red brick for No. 1050 and beige brick for No. 1052), is enlivened with window openings featuring keyed enframements and drip lintels. The shared gable that rises from the center of the pair features a galvanized iron pediment. Dormers with pediments supported by Ionic pilasters are found on either side of the gable. In 1905, No. 1050 was home to John E. Hubbard, a carpet salesmen, and Thomas Ahearn, a fireman, as well as their families. Their neighbors at No. 1052 included Henry Cabaud and his mother, daughter and Irish-born aunt.

Charles S. Clark
1906
Clay Avenue Historic District

This two-story, red brick building at the corner of East 165^th Street and Clay Avenue is the only single-family house in the historic district. Francis Keil commissioned Charles Clark, a Bronx-based architect, to design this grand neo-Renaissance style house to serve as his home. Keil, one of the original homeowners on Clay Avenue, was a Czech-born hardware manufacturer with a factory located nearby. The building’s façade is almost completely covered in ivy, which is only interrupted by an entrance porch of brick piers that supports a sloping roof and frames a pair of wood and glass doors. The house is crowned by a bracketed cornice and a brick parapet with inset panels, the latter of which can also be seen above the ivy-covered façade.

New York City Historic District, National Register Historic District

The Clay Avenue Historic District encompasses one block from East 165^th and East 166^th Streets, and is made up of charming, low-rise and mostly intact buildings that date from the early 20^th century. In 1900, seeing a chance to earn a profit through speculative development, Ernest Wenigmann began amassing property on Clay Avenue in The Bronx, in some instances directly purchasing it from descendants of the Morris family that held title to the land since 1670. Intending to construct 28 houses on the block, Wenigmann commissioned Warren C. Dickerson, a reputable architect who designed many high quality rowhouses in The Bronx at the turn-of-the-century. Dickerson employed a transitional style, combining Renaissance-inspired massing and detailing with popular Romanesque Revival motifs, such as rock-faced stonework. Although all of the houses are faced with beige or red brick, Dickerson counterbalanced variations in ornamentation with the repetition of building forms to create a dynamic streetscape. Other details emerge upon further inspection: for instance, all of the houses on the west side of the street have single wooden doors, while the east side homes feature wood and glass double doors.

Dickerson, who was also responsible for a majority of the buildings in the Longwood and Morris High School Historic Districts, designed each detached pair to house four families, though each resembles a pair of single-family homes. At the turn of the 20th century, these two-family houses had become popular in Brooklyn and The Bronx, and were viewed as “the best possible investment for the young married man.” The aspirational middle-class homeowner could fit their family into one apartment while renting out the adjacent unit for additional income, all while maintaining the appearance of occupying an entire single-family home. On Clay Avenue, Ernest Wenigmann began selling his houses in 1902, and three years later the street was almost entirely occupied. The 1905 New York State census indicates that Clay Avenue was a predominantly middle-class street of owners and renters, with all residents identifying as white and most listed as American-born.

1075 Webster Avenue
Frank Rooke
1914; annex: 1923

When the Sheffield Farms Milk Plant was completed in 1914, it was one of the most expensive and elaborate milk plants in the country, boasting one of the highest processing capacities in the dairy industry. Sheffield Farms, one of the largest and most innovative dairy companies of its time, hired Frank Rooke to design a series of four large-scale milk plants in The Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan (one of which survives as Columbia University’s Prentis Hall). Sheffield Farms was among the first to implement large-scale pasteurization, and pioneered the production of certified milk and introduced the world’s first paper-packaged milk container in 1930. The original building, designed in a modern French Renaissance style, was sold by the successor of Sheffield Farms in 1971 and demolished in 1991, leaving only the two-story ice and storage building standing. In homage to the site’s history, three glazed terra-cotta cow heads and milk bottles were salvaged from the plant and installed on a wall in the garden of the adjacent Webster House apartment building.

1068 Brook Avenue
Axel S. Hedman
1908

This utilitarian building was constructed in 1908 to serve as “Sub Station No. 2” for the Union Railway Company, which operated a streetcar network stretching from the Westchester County line to a southern terminus in Harlem. Until the last route was discontinued in 1948, streetcars played an important role in The Bronx’s rapid transit network by providing both local service across the borough and shuttling commuters to elevated railway and subway stops. Raised brickwork and geometric patterning constitute the primary form of architectural ornamentation found on this two-story building, but the Union Railway Company name emblazoned at the cornice line is the structure’s most noticeable feature.

1122 Franklin Avenue
Charles C. Haight, 1906-1911
addition by Benjamin W. Levitan, 1926-1928

Situated at the top of a steep slope overlooking the western Bronx, the Second Battery Armory consists of a large drill shed and administrative building topped with a six-story corner tower. Designed by Charles Haight, who was awarded the commission after winning a design competition, the asymmetrical red brick building is similar to other New York armories in its use of Gothic details like slit windows and crenellated parapets. In 1928, Benjamin Levitan designed a one-story addition for the building’s Franklin Avenue façade, expertly replicating original design elements while providing additional storage space. The first permanent armory built in The Bronx, the Second Battery Armory was located in the burgeoning Morrisania neighborhood, which was also home to the borough’s first high school (Morris High School, 1904). The Second Battery, whose successors occupied the armory until 1988, has a history dating back to 1833 that includes action in the Civil and Spanish-American wars, as well as in numerous New York City strikes and riots.

F.T. Camp, 1887
Charles C. Churchill, 1892

This pair of two-and-one-half-story, wood-frame buildings is representative of a period in which larger single-family homes were the predominant housing stock in this section of The Bronx. Characteristic of the Queen Anne style, these houses are asymmetrically massed and feature a variety of ornamentation. No. 1076, built in 1892, retains less of its original detailing than its southern neighbor. No. 1074, on the other hand, boasts an arched porch with turned posts on its first story and a smaller second-story porch framed by a whimsical bargeboard. This ornamentation is complemented by gables intersecting at different levels to create an irregular roofline.

Architect & date unknown

Wedged between the masses of two apartment buildings, the two-story, wood-framed house at 386 East 162^nd Street survives as a symbol of an earlier period in The Bronx’s development. This vernacular building is relatively unadorned except for its three Italianate cornice brackets. The Morrisania section of The Bronx dates back to 1850, when country estates were subdivided and developed with single-family houses that could be sold to professionals commuting into Manhattan on the New York & Harlem Railroad. The introduction of industry and manufacturing to the area and the coming of the elevated railway along Third Avenue in 1887 encouraged denser development so that by the turn of the 20^th century, the neighborhood was a mix of tenements, single-family dwellings and old village housing.

386 East 162^nd Street
Architect & date unknown

Wedged between the masses of two apartment buildings, the two-story, wood-framed house at 386 East 162^nd Street survives as a symbol of an earlier period in The Bronx’s development. This vernacular building is relatively unadorned except for its three Italianate cornice brackets. The Morrisania section of The Bronx dates back to 1850, when country estates were subdivided and developed with single-family houses that could be sold to professionals commuting into Manhattan on the New York & Harlem Railroad. The introduction of industry and manufacturing to the area and the coming of the elevated railway along Third Avenue in 1887 encouraged denser development so that by the turn of the 20^th century, the neighborhood was a mix of tenements, single-family dwellings and old village housing.