Schnorer Club Parade near 148th Street and Third Avenue, 1893. The Schnorer Club was a German social club in the Bronx, founded in 1881. Its headquarters building was located north of the location of this parade at 163 Street and Third Avenue. Many members of the club were active in local politics and the club was well known for its entertainment and activities. Each year at the end of the summer, the club paraded from 164th Street to the Harlem River with music and fireworks. As legend has it, Dr. Thomas Curtin, an Irish immigrant and a New York City coroner, invented green beer for St. Patrick's Day at the Schnorer Club in 1914.

East 149th Street, west from Bergen Avenue, as seen across the trestle of the Third Avenue Elevated Line. In the right back is visible the Immaculate Conception Church at the northwest corner of Melrose Avenue and East 150th Street, 1926.

Mott Haven Branch, NYPL 321 East 140th Street Designed by Babb, Cook & Willard, 1905 The Mott Haven Branch was the first NYPL building to be constructed in The Bronx. The building’s strong, Classical Revival style design was the work of Babb, Cook & Willard, the same firm responsible for Andrew Carnegie’s own mansion on Fifth Avenue and East 91st Street. Its three-story, brick façades are marked by prominent limestone quoins at the corners and around the entrance. The building is within the Mott Haven Historic District, an oasis of historic architecture, a small-scale residential enclave surrounded by tall mid-century housing projects. The historic district was designated in 1967, making it one of the city’s first. The library is located in the Mott Haven Historic District and a National Register of Historic Places District.

Bronx Theatre, 1909. Opened in 1909 the Bronx Theatre was not only a live performance venue. The wide corner building included the auditorium, two large storefronts on Melrose, a large assembly hall, and office spaces on the third floor. Designed by W.F. McElfatrick, the theatre presented a classic but restrained facade, while the interiors were elaborately paneled and highly decorated with ornamental plaster, murals, and imitation marble. The technology installed was said to be "especially adapted to the needs of modern vaudeville." When opened it was lauded for its excellent sight lines; supposedly any seat in the house provided a complete view of the stage. The theatre was sold to the RKO circuit in 1912, became the Miner’s in the Bronx Theatre in 1917, and finally closed in 1947 under the name the Central Theatre. Today the Cookies children's clothing store that occupies this corner looks to have the same shape as the theatre and likely includes the the original exterior walls, with the windows either filled in or covered over.

"Alexander Avenue, east side, north from East 140th Street. At the south east corner of East 141st Street is the Alexander Avenue Baptist Church, circa 1937." The original Alexander Avenue Baptist Church was a wooden chapel built in 1876 in this same corner at 141st Street and Alexander Avenue. The congregation had been organized four years earlier in 1872. The chapel was torn down in 1900 in preparation for a new building.The current building was dedicated in 1902 and became the Tercera Iglesia Bautista (Third Spanish Baptist Church) in 1962.

"147th Street and Willis Avenue. Dollar Savings Bank, circa 1918." The Dollar Savings Bank was founded in the Bronx in 1887 by John Haffen, a member of a prominent local family. The original location was housed at 2808 Third Avenue, but the space quickly became insufficient for the thriving business. This 1918/1919 Classical Revival building sits on a trapezoidal corner lot and fronts three different streets. The distinguished building remained the headquarters of the bank until the 1950s when the headquarters was moved to the Fordham branch. This building was sold in 1974 to a Seventh Day Adventist Church.

(Michael J. Garvin, 1906-07) The merger of the five boroughs into Greater New York in 1898 caused a wave of public building projects as the new municipal government consolidated and upgraded its services. Like the police station (site 6a) and library (site 6b), this firehouse is designed in the formal Neoclassical style typical of the era. Its architect was Michael Garvin, a Bronx native who served as the borough’s first Commissioner of Buildings. This particular company traces its history to the private fire squad associated with the J. L. Mott Iron Works, established in the mid-19th century and merged into the public service when portions of the Bronx were annexed by Manhattan in 1874. Another individually designated firehouse is located on the opposite side of the neighborhood at 618 East 138th Street. Firehouse Engine Company 83 and Hook & Ladder 29 (Robert D. Kohn, 1904-05) was established during this period of municipal improvements. It was one of the earliest firehouses in the city with two vehicle entrances.

"Willis Avenue, north from E. 140th Street, showing the buildings on the east side of the avenue and the Willis Avenue Methodist Church, at E. 141st Street, April 1941." Built in 1900 and designed by George W. Kramer (who designed churches all over the country and authored a 1897 book called "The What, How, and Why of Church Building"), the original Willis Avenue United Methodist Church (in the distance) is a Gothic Revival building with particularly colorful stained glass windows. The church was shut down in the fall of 2016 due to declining membership and insufficient funding.

St. Rita's Roman Catholic Church was founded in 1904.

Mott Haven Dutch Reformed Church, April 28, 1941. In 1850 Mott Haven founder, Jordan L. Mott, donated land and funds for the establishment of a new Dutch Reformed church. Services were first performed in a nearby schoolhouse, but in 1854 the new brick church was completed. Dedicated in March of the next year, the bell tower was finished seven years later. The Mott Haven Dutch Reformed Church bells rung out in celebration on January 1, 1874 when this area, once part of Westchester Country, was annexed by New York City. (These new city residents were certainly happier with their annexation than the disgruntled Brooklynites 24 years later when they became part of the Greater New York City.) With this municipal relationship also came further development, both positive and negative. The erection of the Third Avenue El caused quite a bit of problems for the congregation. The pastors were forced to pause when the trains rumbled by and the vibrations from the train passing caused instability in the old brick church. In the 1910s the church sued the city related to these issues, and following a win, used the reward funds to shore up the church and move it around the corner to a new foundation on 146th Street. The 19th century structure remained until 1971 when it was replaced with a low-rise, bland, and windowless structure.

Metropolis Theatre, 1903. Constructed in 1893 for theatrical productions, the elegant Metropolis Theatre could seat 1600 patrons and was the first theatre in the Bronx. The building included a "Rathskeller" (a German-style restaurant) in the basement and a rooftop garden. In the 1910s, the theatre was converted in a motion picture house—while likely continuing to present vaudeville and burlesque. During a small fire in 1920 the evacuation process for the 700 patrons present was jauntily described: "The theatre is a wealth of exits and moving to a lively jazz tune from the orchestra, the patrons were safe on the streets before the first engine came." Further excitement also came to theatre in 1926 when 10 performers, the theatre manager, and the stage manager were arrested for maintaining a public nuisance and indecent performance, presumably for a burlesque performance. The theatre ceased operations in 1926—perhaps because of the arrests that year— and was sold twice before the end of the decade. The buyer in 1929 was the Loew's circuit, who planned to use the space as a scenic studio for the construction and storage of stage sets, lighting and sound equipment, and props. The building served this function for more a decade. In the 1940s most of the building was demolished, though the facade fronting Third Avenue was retained and still stands as the unexpectedly elegant front of an office building.

(George W. Kramer, 1897-1900) The congregation was originally founded in 1865—early in Mott Haven’s residential development—as the First Methodist Episcopal Church of North New-York. This building replaced an earlier frame church on the same site. Its bulky, multi-story appearance is evocative of a flourishing neighborhood and congregation. The main sanctuary had seating for 1,000, there was a 500-seat lecture hall in the basement, and the upper stories contained Sunday school rooms for another 1,000 children. The façade, called English Gothic by the press, is notable for its buff brick with Indiana limestone trim and the expanse of delicate, pointed-arch windows. The corner bell tower was once topped with an upper tier and pyramidal roof.

"E. 143rd Street, adjoining the northeast corner of Willis Avenue showing the North Congregational Church and parish house, 1941." Originally called the Congregation Church of North New York, the direction in the name referenced its location at what was the northern reaches of New York City when the church was constructed in 1903. Designed by Dodge and Morrison, the massive church can fit 1000 parishioners on the main floor and more than 500 on the balcony.

"The Mott Haven branch of the New York Public Library (a Carnegie library), Bronx, N.Y., undated \[circa 1905-1918]." The oldest New York Public Library in the Bronx, this red brick and limestone structure opened in March of 1905. It was designed by Babb, Cook, and Willard, who also designed the 5th Avenue mansion of the library's funder, Andrew Carnegie.

My Archive Summer 2019