The Bronx

June 7, 2018

Torn off by a fan in 1973, a right field sign from the old Yankee Stadium just sold for $55K

On September 30, 1973, during the last home game at Yankee Stadium before the historic arena underwent two years of renovations, diehard baseball fans came wielding screwdrivers and hammers. Not to fight fans from the opposing team of that night's game, the Detroit Tigers, but to dismantle any memorabilia from "The House That Ruth Built." One fan somehow got his hands on a right field sign wall that designates the 296-foot distance from home plate (h/t Forbes). A family member of the brazen fan put up the sign for auction last month and on Wednesday, after 18 bids, the 1960s era sign sold for a final sale price of $55,344.
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June 4, 2018

Why is Woodlawn Cemetery carving its trees into animals?

Opened in 1863, and long known as the final resting place of some of history’s most notable figures-- Irving Berlin, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Robert Moses, F.W. Woolworth, and Herman Melville, to name a few--the Bronx’s Woodlawn Cemetery and Conservatory is also home to many treasures of the living variety. When one of Woodlawn's trees (of which there are a whopping 140 different species!) meets its ultimate fate, the cemetery doesn't merely bury it but rather celebrates its life by carving it into an animal that can be found on the grounds.
Find out the meaning behind this tradition
May 31, 2018

Apply for 3 middle-income apartments next to the Harlem River in Highbridge, from $1,200/month

A lottery launched this week for three middle-income apartments in the Highbridge neighborhood of the Bronx. Located at 1072 University Avenue, the newly constructed building sits just steps from the Harlem River, with views of the High Bridge, a 170-year-old bridge that offers a shortcut to Manhattan. As the oldest bridge in New York City, the High Bridge first opened in 1848 and was closed for 45 years before reopening after renovations in 2015. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 130 percent of the area median income can apply for the three units: a $1,200/month studio, $1,500/month one-bedroom and a $1,800/month two-bedroom.
Find out if you qualify
May 29, 2018

13 middle-income apartments up for grabs right near the Bronx Zoo

With the warm weather officially here, living just a couple blocks from the Bronx Zoo and a short walk to the Crotona Park Nature Center sounds like a pretty nice idea. Throw in a location right alongside Mapes Ballfield and middle-income rent and you've got yourself a deal. There are 13 units at East Tremont's 2118 Mapes Avenue available for households earning 130 percent of the area median income, and they range from $1,100/month studios to $1,600/month two-bedrooms.
Find out if you qualify
May 24, 2018

Dockless bike-share pilot will roll out in four boroughs outside of Manhattan this summer

Four outer-borough neighborhoods undeserved by Citi Bike will host dockless bike-share programs this summer, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday. In July, the city's pilot kicks off in the beach communities of Coney Island and the Rockaways. The Bronx and Staten Island will also have the bike-share program, a first for both boroughs, near Fordham University and on the North Shore. "We are bringing new, inexpensive transportation options to neighborhoods that need them," de Blasio said in a statement. "Dockless public bike sharing starts this summer, and we're excited to see how New Yorkers embrace this new service."
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May 21, 2018

An open-air night market with diverse grub will open in the Bronx next month

Move over, Queens. The Bronx is getting an open-air, night market next month, the first of its kind to come to the borough. Setting up shop in Fordham Plaza, the festival will include food and craft beverages from more than 35 vendors, handcrafted items and live entertainment (h/t amNY). The event is free to attend and will run starting June 30 through October, happening on the last Saturday of every month.
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May 16, 2018

Former home of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia lists for $3.5M in Fieldston section of Riverdale

A stately English Tudor mansion in the historic Fieldston neighborhood of Riverdale, considered one of the city’s best preserved early 20th century suburbs, has just hit the market for $3.5 million, and it's oozing history filled ghosts, science fiction, New York master politicians, and urban planners. Former Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia moved to 5020 Goodridge Avenue after serving three consecutive terms as mayor and living in Gracie Mansion. He lived a quiet life after politics but is said to have hosted people like Robert Moses in his house. The home was originally built for magazine illustrator Arthur I. Keller. LaGuardia died in the house in 1947.
Find out even more history
May 11, 2018

Four $2,425/month two-bedrooms near Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx up for grabs

While this housing lottery won't save you a ton on rent, the four middle-income units available do sit in a prime location-- near the beautiful and historic Van Cortlandt Park.  According to the city's parks department, the park is home to the country's first public golf course, the oldest house in the borough and the largest freshwater lake in the Bronx. Located at the nexus of the Bronx neighborhoods of Riverdale and Kingsbridge Heights, the building at 3190 Riverdale Avenue offers residents a parking garage and bike storage. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 120 percent of the area median income can apply for the four $2,425/month two-bedrooms.
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May 8, 2018

Lottery for 218 affordable units opens in new Bronx building with yoga pavilion and rooftop farm

Nearly a year ago, L+M Development Partners and Hornig Capital Partners broke ground on a $156 million, mixed-use development on the St. Barnabas Hospital campus in the Belmont section of the Bronx, adjacent to Little Italy's Arthur Avenue and just a short walk to the Bronx Zoo. A pair of all-affordable housing projects--an 11-story, 181-unit building at 4511 Third Avenue and a 12-story, 133-unit building down the street at 4439 Third Avenue--the Dattner Architects-designed complex aims to combine health care services, affordable housing, job creation, outdoor fitness areas, and healthy food options to low-income residents of the community. And these residents earning 60 percent of the area median income can now apply for 218 apartments, ranging from $865/month studios to $1,289/month three-bedrooms.
Find out if you qualify
May 7, 2018

You can own an affordable co-op in the South Bronx for just $92K

Applications are now being accepted for three newly renovated co-ops in the Longwood neighborhood of the South Bronx, part of the city's initiative to make affordable homeownership more accessible for first-time buyers. Located at 847 Fox Street, the three-bedroom units are move-in ready, with renovated kitchen and bathrooms, new electrical and heating systems and energy efficient appliances. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 120 percent of the area median income can apply for the three units, listed for a subsidized price of roughly $91,483.
Find out if you qualify
May 4, 2018

Two buildings near Crotona Park in the South Bronx launch lotteries, from $897/month

Sixteen moderate-income apartments are up for grabs in two buildings located in the Claremont and Morrisania neighborhoods of the South Bronx. The buildings, located at 625 Jefferson Place and 3531 Third Avenue, sit near Crotona Park, a nearly 128 acre public park with a lake, 20 tennis courts a massive swimming pool and 28 species of trees. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 80 percent of the area median income can apply for the apartments ranging from $897/month studios to a $1,764/month four-bedrooms.
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May 3, 2018

750 mostly affordable apartments coming to the South Bronx near Yankee Stadium

The South Bronx's building boom is continuing with the announcement of a pair of developments near Yankee Stadium that will bring 750 mixed-use residential units to the area. As reported by The Real Deal, Maddd Equities is developing two sites across from each other at 1159 and 1184 River Avenue. The former will have 250 affordable and supportive housing units, and the latter will be a set of 17-story buildings with 500 apartments, most of which will be reserved for low-income households.
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May 2, 2018

7 chances to live across from Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, from $1,600/month

A newly constructed rental in the Bronx has launched a lottery for seven middle-income apartments, located across from the city's largest public park, Pelham Bay Park. The park measures over three times the size of Central Park and includes two golf courses, miles of hiking trails, many fields and courts and Orchard Beach, a man-made beach designed by Robert Moses. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 130 percent of the area median income can apply for three one-bedrooms for $1,600/month and four two-bedrooms for $1,800/month.
Find out if you qualify
May 1, 2018

NYC neighborhoods made for workers: The history of Queens’ Steinway Village and the Bronx Co-ops

While immigration, urban planning, and the forces of gentrification are certainly key factors in how NYC's neighborhoods have been shaped, New Yorkers’ patterns of work, their unions, and in some instances, even their employers have also played a role in the development of several of the city’s established neighborhoods. To mark May Day, 6sqft decided to investigate two of the city neighborhoods that were quite literally made for workers—the Van Cortlandt Village area of the Bronx and the Steinway neighborhood in Astoria, Queens.
Learn all about it
May 1, 2018

Lottery launches for 250+ mixed-income apartments in East Tremont, from $822/month

Rendering via Mastermind Development The Tremont Renaissance housing complex this week launched a lottery for 255 apartments, part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's affordable housing plan aimed at bringing more mixed-income units to New York City. Located in the East Tremont neighborhood of the Bronx, the development at 4215 Park Avenue rises 12 stories and features roughly 40,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground level. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 60, 100 and 120 percent of the area median income can apply for the apartments ranging from $822/month studios to $1,965 three-bedrooms.
Find out if you qualify
April 30, 2018

Lottery opens for 15 affordable apartments in Riverdale, just across from Van Cortlandt Park

If you're looking for a bit of the suburban lifestyle without leaving the boroughs, this affordable housing lottery in the Bronx may be for you. Fifteen apartments at Stagg Group’s Riverdale project The Station (so named for being adjacent to the 1 train station) at 5959 Broadway are up for grabs for New Yorkers earning 80 percent of the area median income. These include 12 $1,292/month one-bedrooms and three $1,458/month two-bedrooms. Just as good as the price is the location; the mixed-use building is directly across from the southeast entrance to Van Cortlandt Park, right near the swimming pool and Van Cortlandt House Museum. And for families, it's also just a couple blocks from the prestigious Horace Mann School and Manhattan College.
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April 20, 2018

Lottery launches for five middle-income units in Parkchester, from $1,700/month

A housing development located in the Bronx's Parkchester neighborhood has five middle-income apartments up for grabs. The two buildings at 1360-1364 Purdy Street are located just outside the planned neighborhood and sits around the corner from the 6 train at Castle Hill Avenue. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 130 percent of the area median income can apply for units ranging from a $1,700/month one-bedroom to a $1,875/month two-bedroom.
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April 17, 2018

$700M proposal calls for NYC’s first soccer stadium and 550 affordable apartments in the South Bronx

New York City could be getting its first soccer stadium if a proposal for the project led by Related Companies gets chosen by officials. A partnership made up of developers Related and Somerset Partners, along with the Major League Soccer team, New York City Football Club, has submitted a plan to bring a 26,000-seat soccer stadium designed by Rafael Viñoly, over 550 units of affordable housing and a waterfront park to the South Bronx. According to YIMBY, the project, estimated to cost $700 million, would rise on the site of the Harlem River Yards, a 13-acre parcel in Mott Haven operated by the Empire State Development Corporation.
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April 9, 2018

Six things you didn’t know about Arthur Avenue and Bronx Little Italy

This post is part of a series by the Historic Districts Council, exploring the groups selected for their Six to Celebrate program, New York’s only targeted citywide list of preservation priorities. The Bronx's Belmont community can date its history all the way back to 1792, when French tobacconist Pierre Abraham Lorillard opened the Lorillard Snuff Mill as the first tobacco firm in the country, and possibly the world. European influences continued to proliferate in the area, and at the turn of the 19th century, flocks of Italian immigrants moved to Belmont to take jobs in the newly opened Botanical Gardens and Bronx Zoo. By 1913, the neighborhood was referred to as the Italian "colonies" in the Bronx. Today, Belmont's main artery, Arthur Avenue, still thrives as a bustling Italian center, with countless restaurants, pastry shops, butchers, and more. But there's a lot more to Belmont than just spaghetti and cannoli. From the origins of a pasta shop's sign that's now featured on Broadway to a Neapolitan restaurant that was born in Cairo, Egypt, the Belmont BID shares six secrets of this saucy neighborhood.
Uncover the history ahead
April 6, 2018

Travel uptown on a WWI-era subway to mark the 100th anniversary of Woodlawn station

Before the Woodlawn station opened a century ago, the surrounding area of Norwood in the Bronx was mostly rural with lots of farmland. While residential development began with the opening of the Woodlawn Cemetery, the neighborhood's transformation really took off when the subway was extended to reach this part of the city. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first train pulling into the northern terminal of the IRT Jerome Avenue Line, the New York Transit Museum is giving guests the chance to travel on World War I-era cars to relive this important part of subway history.
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April 4, 2018

$165M sale of South Bronx waterfront site is the borough’s priciest development deal ever

Somerset Partners and Chetrit Group have sold their massive South Bronx waterfront site to Brookfield Properties for $165 million, the priciest transaction for a development in the Bronx on record. As the New York Post reported, the project includes two sites on either side of the Third Avenue Bridge. At 2401 Third Avenue, original plans called for a 25-story standalone tower and a 25-story and 16-story building rising from an eight-story base. Developers also planned to bring three 24-story buildings and a 22-story building on top of a six - and seven-story base at the second site at 101 Lincoln Avenue.
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April 3, 2018

La Central, 992-unit affordable Bronx development, ramps up construction

As 6sqft previously reported, after getting the green light for La Central, a new development that would bring nearly 1,000 units of affordable housing to the site of the Bronx Zoo-bordering Lambert Houses, construction on phase 1 of the project is well underway. Welcome2TheBronx reports that a 160-unit building D at Bergen Avenue and 152nd Street, a supportive housing building for formerly homeless individuals, is almost topped out and is scheduled to be finished by the summer of 2019. Two more buildings in the 992 unit, 1.1-million-square-foot Hudson Companies, Inc, development have broken ground.
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March 29, 2018

When the Bronx Bombers were the Highlanders: A brief history of the Yankees

Not unlike their current powerhouse lineup, the most dominant team in American sports got off to quite a rocky start. Not only did the New York Highlanders, now known as the Yankees, have a losing record for many years, but the team’s first home field was also a mess: it was located near a swamp, the outfield had no grass, and the ballpark sat mostly unfinished. In just six weeks, 500 men hastily built the stadium on Broadway and 168th Street in Washington Heights, known as Hilltop Park, in time for the Highlanders' first home game on April 30, 1903. Due to the unsavory, rock-filled conditions, the last big league game at Hilltop Park was played in October of 1912. Following its closure, the Highlanders changed their name to the Yankees in 1913, moved to the Bronx, and went on to become one of the most successful sports teams in the world.
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March 28, 2018

Live across from the historic Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, from $519/month

Applications are now being accepted for 122 newly constructed, mixed-income apartments at Webster Commons D, one out of five buildings located at 3620 Webster Avenue. The development, which sits across from the sprawling Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, was designed by Aufgang Architects and was chosen as the 2016 Project of the Year by the New York Association for Affordable Housing. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 40, 50, 100, and 110 percent of the area median income can apply for units ranging from a $519/month studio to a $1,965/month three-bedroom.
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March 23, 2018

Jerome Avenue rezoning and Peninsula complex to bring thousands of affordable units to the Bronx

Rendering of the Peninsula by BLA + WXY The New York City Council on Thursday unanimously approved the rezoning of 92-blocks along Jerome Avenue in the Bronx, bounded by East 165th Street to the south and 184th Street to the north. As the fourth neighborhood rezoning of Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration, the city plans to construct about 4,600 new apartments, adding to the mayor's goal of bringing 300,000 units of housing to the city by 2026. The council has set aside $189 million in capital investment for workforce development, open space, parks and two new schools (h/t City Limits). A plan to bring even more affordable housing to the Bronx got the green light on Thursday after the Council approved The Peninsula, a $300 million plan to redevelop the former Spofford Juvenile Detention Center as a mixed-use development.
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March 21, 2018

65 chances to live in a new South Bronx complex, from $860/month

A South Bronx mixed-use development, dubbed the Thomas and Lilly Keller Manor, launched a housing lottery this week for 65 affordable units. Designed by Heritage Architecture, TLK Manor features two six-story buildings in Morrisania: 917 Westchester Avenue and 944 Rogers Place. The two buildings boast a unified design, seamlessly blending into one another. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 60 percent of the area median income can apply for units ranging from a $860/month studio to a $1,281/month three-bedroom.
Find out if you qualify
March 21, 2018

Live in a new mixed-use building in the Bronx’s Mount Hope neighborhood from $368/month

A housing lottery launched this week for 105 mixed-income units at a newly constructed building in the Mount Hope neighborhood of the Bronx. Designed by Aufgang Architects, the more than 110,000-square-foot complex at 2028 Creston Avenue features 114 residential units and space for retail and community activities. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 30, 40, 50, 60, 90 and 120 percent of the area median income can apply for units ranging from a studio for $368/month to a three-bedroom for $1,965/month.
Find out if you qualify