While just nine blocks apart, Clay Avenue and the Grand Concourse appear to be in different worlds in terms of architecture and urban form. However, both the small-scale street of two-family houses and the wide thoroughfare lined with Art Deco apartment buildings help to tell the story of the development of this section of The Bronx. Both are located in what was historically the village of Morrisania, named for the English brothers Colonel Lewis Morris and Captain Richard Morris who purchased the land in 1670. In 1900, Ernest Wenigmann began amassing property on Clay Avenue with the intention of constructing 28 houses. Wenigmann commissioned architect Warren C. Dickerson, who had a reputation for designing many fine rowhouses across the borough. For the Clay Avenue development, Dickerson employed elements of the Renaissance Revival and Romanesque Revival styles, and while the houses are all different in their ornamentation, they are linked by the use of beige or red brick, as well as their similar massing and repetitive trends found on either side of the street. The houses were designed in pairs, with each house meant to house two families, but Dickerson subtly designed the houses so that each would give the appearance of a single-family dwelling. Thus, the aspirational middle-class homeowner could fit their family into one apartment while renting out the adjacent unit for additional income, all the while residing in what appeared to be a single-family home. The 28 houses on Clay Avenue were all constructed between 1901 and 1902, when Ernest Wenigmann began selling the properties. Within three years, the street was almost entirely occupied, illustrating the success of Wenigmann’s venture and Dickerson’s designs. Clay Avenue remains a beloved architectural ensemble and tight-knit community. In 1909, seven years after Wenigmann completed construction of the houses on Clay Avenue, the Grand Concourse was opened to traffic and became a crucial link between Manhattan and the still rural sections of The Bronx. The completion of the Jerome Avenue subway in 1918 and the introduction of real estate tax exemptions precipitated a wave of development that swept the Grand Concourse from 1922 to 1931. This period saw the construction of over half of the district’s buildings, primarily five- and six-story apartment houses situated on large lots and enlivened by decorative elements that evoked faraway places. The 1933 opening of the IND subway along the Grand Concourse sparked a second building boom from 1935 to 1945 that produced many now iconic Art Deco and Moderne style buildings. These structures feature terra cotta, mosaic tile, cast stone and beige brick in their designs. Although these buildings were executed in a range of architectural styles, many of them are representative of the garden apartment typology. This housing form, which developed in the late 1910s and 1920s, was principally characterized by medium-rise structures arranged around large courtyards. The neighborhoods surrounding Clay Avenue and the Grand Concourse shared in the precipitous population loss and economic decline that plagued much of The Bronx in the post-World War II era. Nevertheless, the community emerged from the turmoil to become the stable, dynamic and diverse area that it is today. The significance and integrity of this neighborhood’s built fabric prompted the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate two historic districts here: Clay Avenue (1994) and the Grand Concourse (2011).

860 Melrose Avenue. ca. 1910. This narrow, but long two-story building on Melrose Avenue was likely a new construction at the time this photograph was taken. The storefront at the corner is occupied by a "fancy cash groceries" and just down the block (at no. 864 in the same building) is a fish and oyster market. The other storefront are empty and have "to let" notifications posted.

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.

Late night fire at the Brook Avenue facility of Morris & Co., a "meat concern," April 13, 1933. Around 10pm, a fire broke out in rail a tunnel beneath the Morris & Co. building, a cold storage facility for meat products. The tunnel, which led to the New York & Harlem Railroad freight yards then on located on the east side of Brook Avenue, "creating a draught, spread the flames through the building quickly." With the fire partially suppressed, some FDNY resources were redirected to another active blaze, some four blocks south at 506 Brook Avenue.

East 161st Street, north side, east from Melrose Avenue, 1941. The building just preceding the five-story tenements (with the marquee) opened as the Melrose Theatre in 1916. In the 1940s it was converted into a banquet hall known as the Ambassador Ballrooms. Today the building still stand—somewhat worse for the wear— and it used as a daycare center.

East 161st Street, at the northwest corner of Melrose Avenue, showing what was called the "city's tiniest house" in the 1927 book "The Bronx and its People," 1941.

"370 and 376 E. 154th Street, south side, between Courtlandt and Melrose Avenues. No 370 is the 2 story frame house set back from the sidewalk. No. 376 is the 1 story Miller's Machine Shop building."

My Archive Summer 2019