Pudding Rock, 1883. According to the NYPL description of this image... A truly immense glacial boulder, rising 25 feet in the air, and being 30 feet in diameter. On one side was a natural fire-place, where the Indians used to enjoy their corn feasts and oyster banquets. Under its cool shade, the Huguenots rested on their long Sabbath Day journeys from New Rochelle down to the old French Protestant Church in lower New York. After serving as a natural landmark to early settlers and to travelers in stage coaches en route from New York to Boston, it has finally been blasted into countless fragments so as no longer to "obstruct the march of civilization." Supposedly the local English farmers thought the massive rock looked like great big Christmas plum pudding, and so they named it the Pudding Rock.

Bronx Hospital, 1931. The history of the Bronx Hospital dates to 1911, when the facility was established to serve the needs of a booming south Bronx population. In 1919 ground was broken for a new building, designed by Louis Allen Abramson. The building was funded, in part at least, by private donors, including Abraham Harrison of the Bronx whose $500 contribution afforded him the honor of "turning the first spadeful of earth." Donors received a pair of decorative metal bookends in the shape of the completed building. (You can get your own vintage pair on eBay!) The building opened in 1928 and today remains a part of the larger Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center complex.

St. Augustine's Church, circa 1900. Built in 1894 and designed by Louis H. Giele, St. Augustine's Church was the home of a congregation that was established in 1849. The church structures that predated this building were a wooden church built in 1850 and a small brick structure built in 1858 (and destroyed by fire in 1894). In the early decades of the 20th century the parish was thriving with a large Irish, German, and Italian immigrant community. The parish and neighboring school suffered in the population decline of the mid century and the financial crises of the 1970s and 1980s. The Archbishop of New York closed the church and school in 2011. The church was demolished in 2013 and plans for the site include a 12-story affordable housing building.

Morrisania Branch, NYPL 610 East 169th Street Babb, Cook & Willard, 1908 NYC IL Originally the McKinley Square Branch, the Morrisania community advocated strongly for a Carnegie library in their neighborhood, with over 1,500 petition signatures sent to the NYPL’s site committee. Their successful effort resulted in the construction of this freestanding, Classical Revival style building. The T-shaped building’s main façade is flanked by lower, recessed, two-story wings. Its design features include arched windows and a projecting stone portico entrance, above which is a large, carved stone seal of the City of New York. The Morrisania Branch was designated a New York City Individual Landmark in 1998.

Mansion at the corner of Fulton Avenue and 169th Street, ca. 1918.

Franklin Ave (foreground) at the north east corner of East 166th Street, showing the Allendorf Residence, 1901. The Allendorf Residence was a wooded plot of land on a rocky slope. The plot included a wood-frame house seen in this photograph. In 1903 the New York City Armory Board chose this site for the location of a new permanent armory for the Second Battery. Designed by a former militia man and architect of institutional buildings, Charles C. Haight, the armory was the first of its kind in the Bronx. Constructed from 1908 to 1911, the asymmetrical building has bold massing and Gothic features. The building was used until the 1980s for the functions for which it was built. Today the armory houses a women's homeless shelter.

Eichler Mansion, ca. 1918. John Eichler, a German, emigrated to New York in 1855. Over the next few decades he built a massive brewing business, becoming one of the city's beer magnates (brewing was especially popular in the German communities of the Bronx). This home was constructed for him in 1889. Designed by German-born architects, De Lemos & Cordes, the large French Renaissance style mansion was a testament to Eichler's success. It sat on the corner lot overlooking his full block brewery complex. In 1918 following Eichler's death, the mansion was purchased by the new Bronx Hospital and converted into a 110-bed medical facility. The building remained a medical center for the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital into the 21st century. The home was demolished in 2011 and replaced with a modern five-story hospital building.

1204 to 1240 Washington Avenue, 1936. The building at far right still stands, though the two large wood-frame structures in the middle of the photograph (which the photographer notes belong to the "House of the Seekers After Truth") have since been demolished.

Boston Road, at the northeast corner of East 166th Street, showing the Elton Mansion, 1901. This plot is today occupied by the 1904-completed Morris High School.

Morris High School, ca. 1900. Morris High School was the first public high school in the Bronx when it opened in 1897. The school moved into it's C.B.J. Snyder-designed, Collegiate Gothic building in 1904. The school was notable for its large, church-like auditorium (now a designated interior landmark), which featured stained glass windows, steel-ribbed vaulted arches, and a pipe organ.

David Mayer Brewery, 1936. David Mayer was a Bronx brewery that opened in 1882 and was "closed" with the enacting of the Prohibition laws in 1920. According to legal documents from 1928 it seems that the Brewery might have been illegally producing "beer of the forbidden alcoholic content," which was discovered when a truck carrying it from the complex was stopped. They had also been producing 'day beer,' which was a legal near-beer type creation. With this evidence the court ruled to "declare \[the building] a common nuisance" and the doors were padlocked.

Each month the Landmarks Conservancy celebrates New York City’s extraordinarily rich architectural heritage by featuring a different building style or function. So, in September, as the new academic year begins, we’ll explore New York’s historic public schools designed by the prolific architect C.B.J. Snyder. With more than 1,500 schools and 1.1 million students, the New York City Board of Education is the nation’s largest public school system and one of the oldest. Snyder served as Superintendent of School Buildings for the Board of Education between 1891 and 1923. As Superintendent, he is credited with the design of more than 400 structural projects — including more than 140 elementary schools. Snyder worked in several styles, including Beaux-Arts, English Collegiate Gothic, Jacobean, and Dutch Colonial. He preferred mid-block locations away from busy and polluted avenues. One of his signature motifs was to design spaces for learning that would offer a respite from noisy streets and poverty.

Third Ave. at 166th St., looking north. Shoring used in reconstruction of Third Ave, 1914. The Third Avenue elevated line was original constructed in 1875-1878 by the New York Elevated Railway Company. The line traveled from South Ferry at the lower tip of Manhattan to 129th Street at the northern tip. The extension over the Harlem River came in 1886, with the construction of more northern Bronx stations between 1887 and 1920, when it reached its final terminus at Gun Hill Road. The railway line was merged and bought out a number of times before 1905. Manhattan Railway took over control of the New York Elevated Railroad in 1879. In 1891 they also took over the Suburban Rapid Transit Company, which operated the line that crossed the swing bridge over the Harlem River. In 1902 it all became a part of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, when Manhattan Railway leased the line for a period of 999 years! It was at this time the line was also electrified. In the 1910s, as part of the Dual Contracts that constructed a number of new subway lines, the Third Avenue line was triple-tracked (the work for that is depicted in this image). The third (center) track in the Bronx opened in 1916. The Third Avenue line in the Bronx outlived part of the elevated line that traveled through Manhattan. The Bronx section closed and was demolished in 1973.

We delve deep into the ghost stories, murder plots, and haunted location lists to bring you the most thorough collection of New York City's spookiest spots! Check out the historic photographs of the city's most haunted sites, from Psycho-esque mansions to abandoned lunatic asylums. How many have you visited? Proceed at your own risk!💀💀💀

Morris High School 1110 Boston Road, The Bronx 1904 Founded in 1897 as Peter Cooper High School, the first co-educational high school in New York City, the building that today houses the Morris High School was built in 1902 and is considered to be one of architect C.B.J. Snyder’s masterpieces. Noteworthy is the school’s façade in the popular Collegiate Gothic Revival style which evokes the belief that education, ideals, and beauty should be equally available to all students regardless of their neighborhood. In one of the finest interiors of any New York City school, Morris High has an elaborate 800-seat auditorium featuring Tudor arches, stained glass windows, highly decorative Gothic elements, and a W.W. Kimball Co. pipe organ. The auditorium was restored in 1991 and today is known as Duncan Hall. Among her famous alumni is Armand Hammer (industrialist), Milton Berle (comedian), and General Colin Powell (former U.S. Secretary of State). In 1982, the school building along with the surrounding area was designated as the Morris High School Historic District and in 1983 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.