Longwood is a low income residential neighborhood geographically located in the southwest Bronx, New York City. The neighborhood is part of Bronx Community Board 2. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise are: East 167th Street to the north, the Bronx River & the Bruckner Expressway to east, East 149th Street to the south, and Prospect Avenue to the west. Southern Blvd is the primary thoroughfare through Longwood. The local subway is the 6 line, operating along Southern Blvd. Zip codes include 10455 and 10459. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 41st [1] Precinct. NYCHA property in the area is patrolled by P.S.A. 7 at 737 Melrose Avenue in the Melrose section of the Bronx.
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Longwood has a population over 35,000 people. For decades Longwood has been one of the poorest communities in America. Over half the population lives below the poverty line and receives public assistance (AFDC, Home Relief, Supplemental Security Income, and Medicaid). Longwood has one of the highest concentrations of Puerto Ricans in all of New York City. The vast majority of households are renter occupied.[2]
Longwood is dominated by tenement buildings, older multi-unit homes, vacant lots, and newly constructed attached multi-unit subsidized townhouses and apartment buildings. Most of the original housing stock was structurally damaged by arson and eventually razed by the city. The total land area is roughly half a square mile. The terrain is somewhat hilly.
The landmarked Longwood Historic District is located in the southern part of the neighborhood. It consists of about three square blocks including buildings on Beck, Kelly, Dawson and Hewitt Place. The district largely consists of rowhouses, most of which were designed by one architect, Warren C. Dickerson.[3][4]
There are four NYCHA developments located in Longwood.[5]
For much of the first half of the 20th Century, Longwood was home to a predominantly Jewish population. Beginning in the 1950s, the neighborhood experienced a demographic shift as many Puerto Ricans moved to Longwood. Shortly after, white flight and abandonment began. By the late 1960s, many buildings in the neighborhood had burned down in an epidemic of arson. In the 1960s, crime reached such a level that the 41st Precinct Station House at 1086 Simpson Street became known by the police as "Fort Apache, the Bronx", as was later immortalized in a 1981 movie named for it.[6]
The wave of arson ended when community groups such as Banana Kelly and SEBCO began to protect the remaining tenement buildings. Federal funding for new multi-family homes began in 1986 under the Ed Koch administration.
During the mid-1990s, local and federal governments invested over $550 million in new subsidized residential housing and the expansion of businesses and commerce. With the building of the new South Bronx headquarters of P.A.L.; the relocation of the 41st Precinct of the NYPD from Simpson Street to Longwood Avenue; the Banana Kelly High School; and several small and large businesses (such as Rite Aid and McDonald's). Thanks in part to the new 41st Precinct on Longwood Avenue and Southern Blvd and public and private investment in the community.
Despite the new housing, there are still remains of the old Jewish presence in Longwood. For instance, 830 Fox Street, which is now a newly constructed low income apartment building, was formerly a Jewish synagogue that burned down in the 1960s. It was abandoned for many decades, until 2006 when they began construction. In the 1950s the Puerto Rican community began to emerge. Now it is filled with large population of minorities and is an extremely poor community, but has progressed from 1980s-90s.