Crotona Parkway Malls and St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church
1910
c. 1925
The Crotona Parkway Malls, between Crotona Parkway and Southern Boulevard, lend a pleasing atmosphere to the parkway. The City acquired the land for Crotona Parkway in 1888 to connect Crotona Park and Bronx Park. Southern Boulevard dates back to the 1870s, when it opened as a grand thoroughfare from East 133rd Street and Third Avenue to present-day Kazimiroff Boulevard. The pink granite obelisk at East Tremont Avenue is a memorial to the 87 people who lost their lives in a fire that destroyed the Happy Land Social Club across the street on March 20, 1990. At Fairmount Place is St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church, whose Gothic Revival building lends elegance to this stretch of the parkway.