Mott Haven, Bronx

Mott Haven
Neighborhood of The Bronx

East 139th Street, between Willis and Brook Avenues, facing east
Nickname(s): "The Boogie Down Bronx"
Mott Haven
Mott Haven
Mott Haven

Location in New York City

Coordinates: 40°48′37″N 73°55′32″W / 40.810278°N 73.925556°W / 40.810278; -73.925556Coordinates: 40°48′37″N 73°55′32″W / 40.810278°N 73.925556°W / 40.810278; -73.925556
Country  United States
State  New York
City New York City
Borough Bronx
Founded 1849
Named for Jordan Lawrence Mott
Area[1]
 • Total 3.06 km2 (1.180 sq mi)
Population (2011)[1]
 • Total 52,885
 • Density 17,000/km2 (45,000/sq mi)
Economics
 • Median income $25,325
Ethnicity[2]
 • Hispanic and Latino Americans 72.3%
 • African-American 24.7%
 • White 1.7%
 • Asian 0.4%
 • Others 1%
ZIP codes 10451, 10454, 10455
Area code

718, 347, 646

Mott Haven Historic District

40th Precinct Police Station, July 2010
Location An irregular pattern along Alexander Ave. and E. 140th St., New York, New York
Area 11 acres (4.5 ha)
Built 1850
Architect Multiple
Architectural style Gothic, Queen Anne, Romanesque
NRHP Reference # 80002586[3]
Added to NRHP March 25, 1980

Mott Haven is a primarily residential neighborhood in the southwestern section of the Bronx borough in New York City. Zip codes include 10451, 10454, and 10455. The neighborhood is part of Bronx Community Board 1.[4] Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are East 149th Street to the north, the Bruckner Expressway to the east, the Bronx Kill waterway to the south, and the Harlem River to the west.

East 138th Street is the primary east-west thoroughfare through Mott Haven. The local subway line is the IRT Pelham Line (6 <6>  trains), operating along East 138th Street. The local buses are the Bx1, Bx2, Bx15, Bx17, Bx19, Bx21, Bx32, Bx33. Mott Haven is served by the Triborough Bridge, the Third Avenue Bridge, the Madison Avenue Bridge, the 145th Street Bridge, and the Willis Avenue Bridge. The closest Metro-North Railroad stops are Harlem – 125th Street and Yankees – East 153rd Street.

Demographics

Mott Haven is a high-density neighborhood with a population of around 52,885. The residents are 72.3% Hispanic/Latino, 24.7% Black or African American, 1.7% White, 0.4% Asian, and 1% as multiracial or other. Like most neighborhoods in New York City, the vast majority of households are renter-occupied. The neighborhood is largely Puerto Rican, with smaller numbers of African Americans, Mexicans and Dominicans present.[1]

Land use and terrain

Post office
Bertine Block - 136th Street

Mott Haven is dominated by tenement-style apartment buildings and large public housing complexes. There are three historical districts consisting of brownstone-style rowhouses. In the last two decades, construction of modern 2- and 3-unit rowhouses and apartment buildings has increased the percentage of owner-occupiers. The neighborhood contains one of the highest concentrations of NYCHA projects in the Bronx. The total land area is roughly one square mile. The terrain is low-lying and flat except around St. Mary's Park where it is somewhat hilly.

Historical districts and landmarks

Three Historic Districts are located in Mott Haven: Mott Haven, Mott Haven East and the Bertine Block.

St. Ann's Episcopal Church is located on the west side of St. Ann's Avenue between East 139th and East 141st Streets. It is the Bronx's oldest church, having been built in 1841 and dedicated to Gouverneur Morris's mother Ann. Notable figures buried there include Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; Gouverneur Morris; and former mayor of New York, R. H. Morris.

Public housing projects

NYCHA Betances Houses on Brook Avenue

The seventeen NYCHA developments in Mott Haven illustrate the various types of public housing initiatives in vogue in New York City over the decades.[11]

  1. Dr. Ramon E. Betances I; thirteen buildings, 3, 4, 11 and 19 stories tall
  2. Dr. Ramon E. Betances II, 13; one 6-story building
  3. Dr. Ramon E. Betances II, 18; two buildings, 4 and 6 stories tall
  4. Dr. Ramon E. Betances II, 9A; one 4-story building.
  5. Dr. Ramon E. Betances III, 13; two rehabilitated tenement buildings, 5 stories tall.
  6. Dr. Ramon E. Betances III, 18; one rehabilitated and three abandoned tenement buildings 5 stories tall
  7. Dr. Ramon E. Betances III, 9A; two rehabilitated tenement buildings 6 stories tall
  8. Dr. Ramon E. Betances IV; eight buildings, 3, 4 and 5 stories tall with 282 apartments
  9. Dr. Ramon E. Betances V; six rehabilitated tenement buildings, 5 and 6 stories tall
  10. Dr. Ramon E. Betances VI; three rehabilitated tenement buildings, 5 and 6 stories tall
  11. Millbrook Houses; nine 16-story buildings
  12. Millbrook Extension; one 16-story building
  13. Mitchel Houses; ten buildings, 17, 19, and 20 stories tall
  14. Moore Houses; two 20-story buildings
  15. Mott Haven Houses; eight buildings, 20 and 22 stories tall
  16. Patterson Houses; fifteen buildings 6 and 13 stories tall
  17. Southern Boulevard M.H.O.P. (Multi Family Homeownership Program); one 7-story rehabilitated tenement building

Hospitals

Mott Haven is home to Lincoln Hospital on 149 Street between Park and Morris Avenues. The hospital was founded in 1839 and now has 342 beds.

History

Mott Haven station of New York Central, 138th St
Mott Haven Canal in 1893
Looking east across Bruckner Blvd and Third Avenue at Bruckner Bar & Grill

The Bronx was named after the Swedish sea captain Jonas Bronck.[12] In 1639, the Dutch West India Company purchased the land of today's Mott Haven from the Wecquaesgeek (groups of Lenape tribe). Bronck built his farm on this land and named it "Emmanus". The house was located close what is today the corner of Willis Avenue and 132nd Street.

The peace treaty between Dutch authorities and the Wecquaesgeek chiefs Ranaqua and Tackamuckwas was signed in Bronck's house. This event is portrayed in a painting by the American artist John Ward Dunsmore (1856–1945).[13]

Even if Bronck only lived in the area for four years, the land became known as "Broncksland" and the river that bordered his land kept the name Bronck's River. The first time the spelling "Bronx land was used, was in 1697 in the First Legislature outlined the County of West Chester.[14]

The area that is now called Mott Haven was sold to the Morris family in 1670.[14] A small part of the larger swath of land known as Morrisania, it was purchased by Jordan Lawrence Mott for his iron works in 1849. A vestige of the iron works can be seen just west of the Third Avenue Bridge on East 134th Street at St. Ann's Church (ECUSA) on St. Ann's Avenue is the resting place of Lewis Morris, Gouverneur Morris and other members of that powerful colonial family, and a Registered Historic Place.

As the city below grew, the area quickly developed residentially. At the same time, an upper-middle class residential area, marked by brownstones built in an elaborate and architecturally daring fashion, started to grow along Alexander Avenue by the 1890s (Doctors' Row, aka the Irish Fifth Avenue).[15] A series of brownstones on E. 134th St, east of Willis Ave., was known as Judges' Row. Soon after, the Bronx grew more quickly, especially with public transit into the area, including the Third Avenue Elevated Line. By the early 20th century, the population density of the area supported the construction of many tenement-style apartment buildings.

From the end of the 19th century through the 1940s, Mott Haven was a mixed German-American (north of E. 145th St.) and Irish-American neighborhood (south of E. 145th St), with an Italian enclave west of Lincoln Ave.[16]

One of the largest parades in New York City took place here in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was organized by the veterans of the Irish Republican Army, who marched every Easter Sunday, down Willis Avenue from the Hub to E. 138th Street, then west to St. Jerome's. The Star of Munster Ballroom at the northeast corner of Willis Avenue and E. 138th Street was a center of Irish music for decades. It was speculated at one time that there were more bars on Willis Avenue than on any other city street, given its short length. More recorded Irish musicians lived in Mott Haven than in any place outside Ireland.[17]

The first Puerto Rican settlements came in the late 1940s along the length of Brook Avenue.[18] African-Americans came into the area when Patterson Houses were built.[19]

North Side Board of Trade
North New York Congregationalist Church

Mott Haven and Port Morris were the first neighborhoods to give rise to the term "South Bronx". Together, they were earlier known as the North Side or North New York. This area was part of New York County after the incorporation of Greater New York in 1898.[20] The Chase Manhattan Bank at Third Avenue and E. 137th Street was originally the North Side Board of Trade Building (1912). It later became the North Side Savings Bank, which became Dollar Dry Dock, which became Chase.

In the 1940s when the Bronx was usually divided into the East Bronx and West Bronx, a group of social workers identified a pocket of poverty on East 134th Street, east of Brown Place, and called it the South Bronx. This area of poverty would spread in part due to an illegal practice known as blockbusting and to Robert Moses building several housing projects in the neighborhood. The poverty greatly expanded northward, following the post-war phenomenon colloquially referred to as white flight, reaching a peak in the 1960s when the socioeconomic North Bronx-South Bronx boundary reached Fordham Road. At this time a wave of arson destroyed or damaged many of the residential, commercial, and industrial structures in the area.[21]

Today the North Bronx-South Bronx distinction remains more common than the traditional East Bronx-West Bronx distinction, and some still regard Fordham Road as the boundary. Though crime has declined versus the highs of the crack epidemic and revitalization of former abandoned properties is taking place, the neighborhood continues to deal with serious crime issues, which some speculate is due to persistent poverty among the population.

Development and gentrification

There have been significant strides to increase gentrification of the neighborhood, and the most changes are seen on Bruckner Boulevard, Alexander Avenue, and Lincoln Avenue.[22] E. 138th Street has seen minor changes with apartment buildings under new renovations, and the arrival of new businesses. Mott Haven is home to a community-supported agriculture program hosted at Brook Park.[23]

Recent development plans include two affordable rental buildings and a Hampton Inn by Monadnock Development and Signature Urban Properties,[24] and the so-called Piano District in Mott Haven.

Media

The Mott Haven Herald is a news outlet that reports in Mott Haven, Melrose and Port Morris. It is produced by students at the City University Graduate School of Journalism and edited by Joe Hirsch.

Education

PS 18, Morris Avenue
JHS 149, Willis Avenue

Public:

Parochial:

Transportation

A mosaic along the platform of Brook Avenue station on the IRT Pelham Line.
The historic and closed off Mott Avenue Control House, now part of the 149th Street-Grand Concourse Subway Complex.

The 145th Street Bridge and Madison Avenue Bridge eastward and the Willis Avenue Bridge northward from Manhattan lead to Mott Haven and are maintained by NYCDOT. The Triborough Bridge, which also ends in Mott Haven, is maintained by the MTA Bridges and Tunnels, and is tolled.

Notable natives

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Mott Haven neighborhood in New York". Retrieved June 4, 2014.
  2. ↑ "Center for Urban Research". Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  3. 1 2 National Park Service (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  4. ↑ "Bronx Community District 1" (PDF). Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  5. ↑ http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/maps/mott_haven.pdf
  6. ↑ Mott Haven Landmarked District
  7. ↑ Elizabeth Spencer-Ralph and Suzanne J. Wilson (June 1979). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Mott Haven Historic District". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved 2011-01-12. See also: "Accompanying 24 photos".
  8. ↑ Mott Haven East Landmarked District
  9. ↑ Bertine Block Landmarked District
  10. ↑ "To Have and Have Mott". Forgotten New York. Retrieved 2010-01-16.
  11. ↑ "NYCHA Redirect". Retrieved 29 April 2016.
  12. ↑ "The Story of The Bronx". The Bronx County Historical Society. 2016-02-03. Retrieved 2016-07-12.
  13. ↑ "East River NYC :: History". www.eastrivernyc.org. Retrieved 2016-07-12.
  14. 1 2 "THE BRONX MALL Cultural Mosaic - The Bronx... Its History & Perspective". www.bronxmall.com. Retrieved 2016-07-12.
  15. ↑ "Mott Haven Historic District - History" (PDF). Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  16. ↑ "Bronx Irish Americans: American Irish History in the Bronx". Retrieved 22 September 2015.
  17. ↑ "Anne and Timothy Kelly mark golden anniversary". The Riverdale Press. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  18. ↑ "A South Bronx Latin Music Tale" (PDF).
  19. ↑ "Painting a Portrait of Black Experience in the Bronx". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
  20. ↑ "Bronx Chronology". Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  21. ↑ "The Bronx County Historical Society". Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  22. ↑ Hughes, C.J. "Mott Haven, the Bronx, in Transition". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 October 2015.
  23. ↑ "Friends of Brook Park". Retrieved 22 September 2015.
  24. ↑ Wirsing, Robert (January 15, 2016). "Project slated for Mott Haven". Bronx Times Reporter. p. 1.
  25. ↑ "AG: Andre's New Posse". Retrieved 21 September 2015.
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