East 205th Street, looking toward the Third Avenue El tracks above Webster Avenue; September 22, 1930. The apartment building at near left is No. 365 East 205th Street. In 1920, the Third Avenue El was extended north from Bronx Park Terminal, to connect with the IRT White Plains Line, via Webster Avenue and Gun Hill Road. Here, the elevated trestle is visible just north of the East 204th Street Station in Norwood.

290 East 201st Street, 1938.

3055 Webster Avenue, 1938.

Following the creation of the Greater New York City in 1898 the population of the Bronx boomed, and the need for additional municipal services became apparent. By 1905, the growth of the borough required expanded police forces. A new precinct, first known as the 41st Precinct, was completed in 1906 on quasi-rural land near the New York Botanical Garden. Designed by the firm of Stoughton & Stoughton, the neo-Italian Renaissance building is rendered in red brick and terra cotta. The wooden brackets at the roof, the clocktower, and the diapering (decorative diamond patterns) of the brick add to its quaint appearance. Renamed the 52nd Police Precinct by the mid-century, the building's exterior remains extremely well preserved. It is both a New York City landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Mertz Library is sometimes called "the library hiding in a garden hiding in New York City." It is one of the largest botanical libraries in the world and the largest in America, with over half a million volumes in its general research collection alone. Use of the library is free and has been since its opening in 1881. The library was one of the first structures built on the grounds of the New York Botanical Garden. Its collection includes books and materials on history, anthropology, landscape, and building design, architectural history, ethnobotany, urban social history, environmental policy, including over 3,000 linear feet of archival materials. The Mertz Library holds both rare and historically important works, notably flower portraits by Pierre-Joseph Redouté and 19th-century American seed catalogs.