The following has been syndicated by permission from Manhattan College’s Director of Communications, Peter McHugh.…
Tag: Bronx History
Here’s a wonderful historical post by Olga Luz Tirado, executive director of The Bronx Tourism…
Old Bronx pics are amazing. The Bronx of 100 years ago was very different but…
It’s Throwback Thursday so take a journey down memory lane and see The Bronx as it was almost a century ago and see how it looks today. Some things are basically the same but others have changed drastically, from The Bronx River, to Allerton, and Mott Haven to Woodlawn.
Prince was a larger than life entertainer loved by millions who felt a deep connection to his music and joie de vivre but now fans have something else to celebrate in this man and perhaps take a page from the book and pay it forward.
“Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”—William Shakespeare’s, Hamlet
Welcome2TheBronx is happy to be part of Curbed’s first-ever Bronx Week Coverage which was launched today. The series takes a dive into our ever changing borough and what makes us tick. Thanks to the folks at Curbed for asking us to be a part of their launch!
In 1970, The Bronx registered a historic population record of 1,471,701 residents—and then the great decline led to a 20% drop by 1980 as over 300,000 people fled the chaos our borough was thrown into by government officials with planned shrinkage, landlords torching their properties, redlining, and a host of other systemic issues that plagued our borough of which we still feel the impact today.
Now, as of 2014 census estimates, The Bronx has an estimated population of 1,438,159—just 33,542 shy of our historic high in 1970.
207 years ago today, one of The Bronx’s most notable residents was born—the poet Edgar Allan Poe who once lived in what was known as the Village of Fordham in what was once Westchester County.
The famed writer and poet, one of the most important in American history, moved to The Bronx when his wife Virginia became ill from tuberculosis and he thought the fresh country air would help her condition.
Decades before The Bronx neighborhood of Morris Park came to be, it was home to the 360 acre Morris Park Racecourse which ran from 1889 until 1904 as an important center of American thoroughbred horse racing which was the home of the Belmont Stakes from 1890 until 1904 and even saw the famous Preakness Stakes in 1890.
The DreamYard Project is nurturing Bronx youth through the arts in hopes of changing the world, some of the works of the late Tony Award-winning Bronxite Boris Aronson who began his career in Yiddish theatre, and the greenest borough’s best hiking spots, all in this evening’s Bronx PM Links.
The Area Code Universe and Your Sense of Place: Are You a 212, 718,or 646 Person?
We are a species of belonging, of being part of place, of having a sense of identity based on that place. The place most closely associated with that sense of belonging is home. Be it ever so humble there is no place like it. Click your heels three times and you are there. Can it be that easy?
This issue of area code identity first arose back in 1984 in New York City. Once upon a time 212 encompassed the entire city of all five boroughs. Then one’s sense of belonging to the city was shattered with the introduction of a new code, 718, for Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. As reported in the New York Times (February 15, 1984), following the public announcement, all hell broke loose.
A French Huguenot family, the Lorillards, settled in the area which is now known as Allerton as well as parts of the New York Botanical Garden back in the late 1700s. The family became extremely successful in the tobacco industry and their company would eventually give rise to Lorillard Inc, which makes Newport, Kent, and other cigarettes.
By 1840 they had built what is now known as The Snuff Mill at NYBG which according to the New York Times, “…tobacco was ground into smokeless, powdery form called snuff, which could be flavored and inhaled.”