Everything about Grand Concourse Bronx totally explained
The
Grand Boulevard and Concourse (almost universally referred to as the
Grand Concourse) is likely the most famous street in the
borough of
the Bronx in
New York City. It was designed by
Louis Aloys Risse, an
Alsatian immigrant who had previously worked for the
New York Central Railroad and was later appointed chief topographical engineer for the
City of New York.
History
Risse first conceived of the road in 1870, as a means of connecting
Manhattan to the parkway in the northern Bronx. Construction began on the Grand Concourse in 1889 and it was opened to traffic in November 1909. Built during the height of the
City Beautiful movement, it was modeled on the
Champs-Élysées in
Paris but was considerably larger, stretching four miles in length, measuring 180 feet across, and separated into three roadways by tree-lined dividers.
The cost of the project was $14 million, the equivalent to $310 million by today's standards. The road originally stretched from the Bronx Borough Hall at 161st Street north to
Van Cortlandt Park, although it was later expanded southward to 138th street after Mott Avenue was widened to accommodate the boulevard.
The
IRT Jerome Avenue Line of the
New York City Subway opened a few blocks west of the Grand Concourse in 1917, initiating a housing boom amongst upwardly mobile, predominantly Jewish and Italian, families who were fleeing the crowded tenements of Manhattan. Development of the Concourse was further encouraged by the opening of the
IND Concourse Line in 1933. By the mid-
1930s, almost three hundred apartment buildings had been built along the Concourse. Customarily five or six stories high with wide entrance courtyards bordered with grass and shrubs, among these apartments are many of the finest examples of
Art Deco and
Art Moderne architecture in the United States.
In
1923,
Yankee Stadium opened near the Grand Concourse at 161st Street. South of Fordham Road, the palatial Loew's Paradise Theater, at one time the largest movie theater in New York City, was constructed in
1929.
Although the
Great Depression ended the period of tremendous growth, privately financed apartment buildings continued to be constructed. During this period, The Bronx had more amenities than other boroughs: in 1934, almost 99% of residences had private bathrooms, and 95% had central heating.
(External Link
) In the 1939 WPA guide to New York, the Grand Concourse was described as "the
Park Avenue of middle-class Bronx residents, and the lease to an apartment in one of its many large buildings is considered evidence of at least moderate business success."
In 1941, the New York City Planning Department proposed converting the boulevard into an expressway, in order to connect the
Major Deegan Expressway and the proposed Park Avenue Expressway to the south with the
Mosholu Parkway to the north. However, these plans were abandoned following the southern extension of the
Bronx River Parkway in the 1940s and the extension of the Major Deegan Expressway to the north in the 1950s.
The south and central Bronx began to rapidly deteriorate in the 1960s.
White flight led to the steady exodus of many residents of the
South Bronx, lured by the dream of
suburban life and fear of mounting crime. At the same time, over 170,000 people displaced by slum clearings in Manhattan, mostly African American and Puerto Rican, moved to Concourse. The city also adopted policies of relocating welfare recipients to the area, paying fees to landlords.
The construction of
Co-op City in the fringes of the northeastern Bronx between
1968 and
1970 drained the areas along the Grand Concourse of most of its few remaining middle-class residents. Many if not most buildings in the area were damaged by arson and a lack of maintenance. Even along the Grand Concourse, some buildings and apartments were left abandoned and boarded or bricked shut. Starting in the
1990s, when the Bronx's population began to grow for the first time in twenty years, a wave of affordable housing construction came to the area.
In recent years
New York City authorities have made efforts to restore the Grand Concourse. Among other things, large exit signs have been introduced, in the manner of limited-access highways.
Today, the Grand Concourse is set to undergo an $18 million restoration and landscaping that will widen the medians and improve lighting from 161st to 171st Streets.
Further Information
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