The home that once stood where the Bronx County Courthouse was erected.

Anderson—Jerome Avenues Station, June 27, 1928. The elevated line, which crossed Jerome Avenue just north of East 162nd Street, was spur at the northern end of the IRT Ninth Avenue Elevated Line, before the tracks connected with the IRT Jerome Avenue Line at River Avenue (out of frame at right). The extension opened on in 1918, crossing the Harlem River via the Putnam Bridge, and thereby providing a Manhattan connection at the southern terminus of the New York Central Railroad's Putnam Division (the NYCRR had previously used the bridge to reach its 155th Street Terminal, which went out of service in 1918). When the main portion of the Ninth Avenue El closed in 1940, the Bronx spur remained open as the Polo Grounds Shuttle. The Bronx-Manhattan connection was discontinued on August 31, 1958, one year after the New York Giants left the Polo Grounds for San Francisco and three months after the NYCRR retired the Putnam Line. Today, the new Yankee Station (opened 2009) sits on the east side of Jerome Avenue, just up the road from the House that Ruth Built. On June 27, 1928 — the date this photo was taken — Ruth, himself, batted third and drove in two runs as a Yankees lineup also featuring Lou Gehrig defeated the Ty Cobb's Athletics 7-4, in Philadelphia. At the Polo Grounds, Mel Ott homered to lead the Giants to an 11-8 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.

Lorelei Fountain, 1899 Constructed in the 1890s, the fountain was intended as a monument to German poet Heinrich Heine, to be put up in his hometown of Düsseldorf. The statue was based on one of Heine’s most well-known poems, “Die Lorelei,” about the German folktale of a siren who sits above the river Rhine, luring sailors to their deaths against a cliff face with her song. The fountain, designed by Ernst Herter, was originally commissioned by the Düsseldorf City Council and planned to be unveiled in 1897, for the poet’s 100th birthday. Unfortunately, this plan was met with resistance, due to rising antisemitism in Germany. The statue was proposed to city after city in Germany and was rejected by all. The plans for the fountain caught the attention of New York City's government, and Herter, the sculptor, came to America to work on it in 1893. An original proposal had the statue installed at the Grand Army Plaza entrance to Central Park. The opposition to this prominent location was strong, and eventually, the fountain was given a home in the Bronx; it was unveiled in 1899. The statue has been moved short distances twice since 1899 and has suffered vandalism since its installation. In the 1970s it was considered the statue in New York most affected by vandalism (which is saying a lot).

950 Sedgwick Avenue, ca. 1934. The 8-story building with the lighthouse is the home of the H.W. Wilson Company, a publishing firm that has been in business for over a century. Halsey William Wilson, who originally founded the company in Minneapolis, produced an old book that explained how he had the lighthouse built in 1929, after moving the business to New York. He wrote that the lighthouse was meant to symbolize the company's mission: “To give guidance to those seeking their way through the maze of books and periodicals, without which they would be lost.” In 1998, the lighthouse was relit after being out of commission for many years to celebrate the company's centennial.

"Construction of subway cut on West 162nd Street, just west of Anderson Avenue, November 1915. 68 West 162nd Street is the building at left." The tunnel was constructed as part of a project to extend the Ninth Avenue El service from 155th Street in Manhattan to Bronx points, while providing a connection to the New York and Putnam Railroad’s new Sedgwick Avenue terminus (the line had previously ended at 155th Street, after crossing the Putnam Bridge). The project was completed in 1918. Though part of an elevated line, transit engineers decided to tunnel through the West Bronx hillside in order to connect the Sedgwick Avenue station with the IRT Jerome Avenue Line (today’s 4 train) to the east. Ninth Avenue El service was discontinued in 1940, but the newer Bronx stations remained in service for the Polo Grounds Shuttle to 155th Street, Manhattan, until 1958.

Louis J. Heintz Sculpture, ca 1915. Louis J. Heintz was an early Bronx civic leader and the first Street Commissioner for the district of the Bronx. Heintz began his career in the beer industry, and for a time served as the president of the Brewers’ Board of Trade of New York. When sections of the Bronx were consolidated into the Greater New York City in 1898, Heintz was instrumental in the creation of a local board of improvements. The bronze statue of Heintz was designed by French sculptor Pierre Feitu and dedicated in 1909. It was placed on the Grand Concourse due to Heintz's work in advocating for the creation of that thoroughfare. The original statue had a female figure standing on the base of the pedestal who seemed to be inscribing the words carved there. She was removed after being vandalized.

Concrete is the most widely used man-made material in the world. It is hidden under the surface of the city: forming the foundations of skyscrapers, snaking underground as tunnels, retaining tons of earth laterally to clear space for inhabitation, or anchoring the steel structure of the elevated train lines. New York is, after all, the concrete jungle.

Bronx County Courthouse, 1938. The nine-story Bronx County Courthouse was built between 1931-1934, two blocks east of Yankee Stadium. When the court opened in 1934, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia celebrated its dedication by declaring it the seat of the city’s government for three days. The Art Deco courthouse, designed by architects Joseph H. Freedlander and Max Hausle, has four identical facades, each with matching six-column entrance porticoes. A continuous frieze by Charles Keck depicts various conditions of city residents industry, hardship, and glory throughout history. The courthouse has been the seat of Bronx borough administration since the closure of Bronx Borough Hall in 1969. In 1988, it was renamed in honor of former Bronx district attorney Mario Merola.

Entrance to the Park Plaza Apartments, ca. 1995. The Park Plaza, built in 1931, is an early example of Art Deco apartment building architecture in the Bronx. Situated on the west side of Jerome Avenue at 164th Street, the Park Plaza entrance used to face Macombs Dam Park. Today, the southern section of that parkland has been replaced by the new Yankee Stadium. This black and white photo doesn’t do justice to the intricate polychrome terra cotta details that surround the entranceway and enliven the building’s facade.

View of Yankee Stadium, 1923 Constructed between 1922 and 1923, this stadium was the home of the New York Yankees for 85 years. (It also hosted the New York Giants football team from 1956 to 1973.) Yankee Stadium was funded entirely by Yankees owner (and brewer and politician) Jacob Ruppert. The 58,000 seat venue was double the size of most other baseball stadiums at the time. Yankee Stadium officially opened on Wednesday, April 18, 1923, with the Yankees' first home game played against the Boston Red Sox, and they won their first World Series pendant during that inaugural season. During its history, the stadium not only hosted sporting events, but concerts, Jehovah's Witnesses conventions, and papal masses. The highest attendance ever recorded was on August 3, 1958, with 123,707 people at the Jehovah's Witnesses International Convention. A substantial renovation in 1974 and 1975 saw the painting of the stadium's exterior, the removal of columns and the original roof, and the addition of a new upper shell, new seats, and an additional concourse. The field itself was also altered dramatically (with other field dimension changes made throughout the 1980s). The Yankees final game here was played on September 21, 2008, and by March of 2010, the entire stadium was demolished. Today the land once occupied by the iconic, original Yankee Stadium is a park complex called Heritage Field.

All Hallows Institute, 1933. All Hallows was founded in 1909 as a Catholic boys elementary and high school by the Congregation of Christian Brothers. The institution moved from 124th Street in Manhattan to this Bronx structure in 1929 and in 1977 became solely a high school. Famous alumni of the school include former NBS players Olden Polynice and Shawnelle Scott, and James Donovan, the lawyer and military officer who negotiated the release of a captured American pilot from the USSR in 1962.

Entrance to the Bronx County Building, ca. 1980. The Art Deco courthouse, designed by architects Joseph H. Freedlander and Max Hausle, has four identical facades, each with identical six-column entrance porticoes.

Construction on the elevated trestle at the 161st Street station of the IRT Jerome Avenue (Woodlawn) line, March 30, 1916. Today, the station sits in the shadow of the new Yankee Stadium, but at the time of the photo the Yankees were still playing across the river at the Polo Grounds.

Aerial view looking north up Grand Concourse from about East 157th Street. Yankee Stadium in foreground

While New York does not have the real estate to devote to massive roadside attractions (think Palm Springs' dinosaurs, the Long Island's Big Duck, or a picnic basket-shaped building), it does have the perfect architectural feature for displaying weird and quirky attractions and advertisements: ROOFS. For more than a century New York building owner have looked up to their highest points as not just unusable real estate, but as the perfect location for signage, fabulous rooftop gardens, theatres, and the occasional giant jug of milk!

From the House that Ruth built to the Shot Heard ‘Round the World, New York has been home to baseball history for more than 170 years. Here are the places, some long-gone, where it happened.

Yankee Stadium, date unknown.

Both the building at center (behind the trees) and the large boulder outcropping at right remain today. Just past the edge of the photograph on the right is where the new Yankee Stadium stands.