H.B. Claflin estate gatekeeper's house, 1923. Horace B. Clafin was a dry goods merchant who rose to prominence as the foremost wholesale merchant in the city in the early and middle 19th century. In the 1860s he began assembling a large estate in the then-rural countryside of the Bronx. The estate grew to more than 100 acres and eventually included three large mansions and a number of outbuildings (like this gatekeeper's lodge). The H.B. Claflin & Company became insolvent in 1914 and in 1919 the estate was divided and put up for sale (a section of the property had been earlier been sold to the city for the construction of the Jerome Park Reservoir). The property included about 300 lots which, while originally rural countryside, were by 1919 conveniently located near considerable mass transit infrastructure. Today the streetscape is densely populated with apartment houses and private residences.

University Avenue, west side, south from Fordham Road, ca 1913. In the late 1920s this streetscape would be replaced with St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church (near the corner) and brick apartment houses further south on the block.

William G. Schrafft was a Boston chocolate and candy maker whose confections were sold in stores owned by a businessman named Frank G. Shattuck. The original candy stores opened in 1898, and by 1909 the shops were selling lunch in addition to sweets. The first two Schrafft stores in New York were in Manhattan, but by 1930 more than 25 stores were open in the New York area. These luncheonettes catered to a largely female clientele, with a largely female front and back of house staff. A descendant of the original owner once said of the patrons, “Everyone wore hats and handmade suits. And if you were a lady, it was safe to sit at the soda fountain and drink gin from a teacup.”

St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church, 1937. The Roman Catholic parish of St. Nicholas of Tolentine was founded by Augustinian friars in 1906. After years of worship in smaller structures, work on the current Collegiate Gothic church, designed by Delaney, O'Connor & Schultz, began in 1927. The so-called “lower church” was completed in 1928, but work continued on the upper section of the building into the 1950s. The completed church was consecrated in 1957.

Fordham Manor Dutch Reformed Church, February 1940. The congregation of the Fordham Manor Reformed Church celebrated its 300th anniversary in 1996. In 1696 founding members of the church were given a charter by the King of England to built a chapel. The original sanctuary was constructed in 1706 nearby at what is now Devoe Park on W. 190th St. and University Ave. The original structure was burned to the ground by British troops during the Revolutionary War. The church moved to this plot on Reservoir Ave. in 1800 and the building seen in this photograph (with the four-story wooden steeple) was constructed in the 1849 and was razed 1940 to make way for the current structure.

Webb Institute and Home for Shipbuilders, 1914. Established by shipbuilder (and industrialist and philanthropist) William Henry Webb in 1889, the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture educated its students in structural and mechanical engineering and other scientific disciplines, with the goal of creating more efficient and advanced ship designers. Construction on the Bronx home for the school began in 1890 and was completed the year its first class graduated: 1893. The look of the school was intended to be "a romantic version of a medieval castle," with turrets, fanciful carving, and other decorative ornamentation. The building served its purpose for more than 50 years. During World War II the Navy trained officers here. In 1945 the Bronx building was deemed lacking in size and modern science facilities. It was sold, and the Institute moved to the former estate of Herbert L. Pratt in Glen Cove, Long Island. In 1950 the Fordham Hill Apartments were constructed on the hill that had once been home to the Webb Institute. These nine highrise apartment houses were initially rental properties but went co-op in 1982.