The Grand Concourse

The Grand Concourse

I'll keep my commentary to a minimum, but I thought I'd share some pictures I recently took along the Grand Concourse in The Bronx. The Concourse and, indeed, much of West Bronx, is similar to SoHo (which I covered last week) in that it is a fantastic time capsule. The Grand Concourse was built largely during the 1920's during a period of tremendous growth in New York. Upwardly mobile second and third generation immigrants (many of them Jewish) left the cramp, crowded conditions of neighborhoods like the Lower East Side for the newly built, and comparatively spacious, apartment buildings of The Bronx.

During this time art deco (or moderne) architecture was very much in vogue as a result of the 1925 Paris Exhibition, and hence many of the apartments built along the Concourse were built in that style. Indeed, the West Bronx (along with Miami Beach) have the largest collections of art deco architecture anywhere in the United States. 

The art deco of the Grand Concourse is what you might call restrained. Exterior ornamentation is minimal and takes the form of patterned brickwork and the occasional sublime mosaic. While many of these buildings have not been properly kept up, there are a select few who still sport absolutely breathtaking lobbies, which I did not document out of respect for the tenants, but if you're ever in the area and can work up the gumption, step inside. I assure you it's worth it.

Details along The Grand Concourse

The most interesting feature of these buildings comes from their dynamic layouts. Block-long buildings are broken up by incised, repeating light wells as well as wedge patterned "sawtooth" facades which meet the street at odd angles, creating ever-changing patterns of light and shadow across their patterned fronts.

Repeated light-wells

"Sawtooth" facade

Apartment construction was largely halted along the Concourse during the Great Depression, however, this was not the end of art deco construction along it's length. Where the private sector let off, the Federal Government picked up.

Bronx County Building (1931-1935)

General Post Office (1935-1937)

Both of these buildings were built on behalf of the WPA and reflect the bold, almost triumphant style of many Depression-era projects. Of special note are the Ben Shahn murals that line the walls of the Post Office.

Cardinal Hayes Memorial High School

I'll close with is the Cardinal Hayes Memorial High School. Built in 1941 it reflects not only the changing demographics of the area, but also the transition away from art deco to more modernist sensibilities. The building is very striped down and features many crisp, simple lines, something that would be a hallmark of mid-twentieth century architecture. The school also makes wonderful use of the oddly curved lot it occupies where the Concourse widens as it makes it's way North along Franz Sigel Park.

Upper West Side Art Deco

No commentary today, just some images from my recent sojourn to the Upper West Side.

Sophia Apartments

Pythian Temple

Sherman Square Studios

The Level Club

Broadway Fashion Building

Century Apartments

55 Central Park West

Majestic Apartments

241 Central Park West

295 Central Park West (perhaps more Bauhaus than Art Deco, but whatever)

The Eldorado

The Ardsley

336 Central Park West

SoHo/Broome Street

SoHo

Wandering through SoHo today, it is difficult to imagine the neighborhood which, in the early 20th century, was the site of so many fires it earned the nickname "Hell's Hundred Acres." The district today is, of course, one of the most expensive and desirable neighborhoods in all of New York, home to expensive retail and upscale galleries, a far cry from the blighted slum that was slated to be the future site of the Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOWMEX) back in the early 60's.

The battle for what would become SoHo and the defeat of LOMEX was, in many ways, the end of an era. The fight over LOMEX would be Robert Moses and Jane Jacob's final public battle before he was removed from power and she permanently decamped for Toronto. The creation of the SoHo Cast-Iron Historic District in the early 1970's was also an early victory for the nascent historic preservation movement. While few today would defend Moses' plan to push an expressway through Lower Manhattan, SoHo is nonetheless a case study in the cost of historic preservation. SoHo's iconic cast-irons, once home to a range of people and enterprises are now the exclusive domain of the wealthy and elite, and while the neighborhood is undeniably beautiful and quintessentially New York, the Parisian-like attention to preservation can make the area feel more like a specimen under a cloche than a living thing.

SoHo Cast-Irons

Physically SoHo is made up primarily of five-plus story buildings, with storefronts at street level and apartments above, many of which sport stone and cast-iron stoops. The sidewalks are wide and, in stark contrast to neighboring Chinatown and Little Italy, almost completely devoid of carts, stalls, or vestibules of any kind. Trees are very rare (hardly an anomaly given that this is Lower Manhattan). Walking East from Sixth Avenue the neighborhood remains fairly uniform in density until it's Eastern boundary at Broadway where the buildings assume an all-together larger scale. The majority of SoHo's cast-irons can be found along Greene and Mercer streets, which run North-South from Houston to Canal through the district's center.

SoHo Streetscapes

Also of note is the district's many Romanesque buildings, most of which are contemporaneous with its cast-iron structures.

Note the rounded arches

To close out this entry I want to focus on one street in particular: Broome Street.

Broome Street

Broome Street has some very nice buildings, however, it is especially significant because it was slated to be the path for the Lower Manhattan Expressway, and consequently would have been completely obliterated had the project gone forward. Broome runs all the way from SoHo to the Lower Eastside by way of Little Italy, where it is home to the San Lorenzo Ruiz Chapel (formerly the Church of the Most Holy Crucifix).

San Lorenzo Ruiz

While this modest romanesque church is architecturally unremarkable it is nonetheless significant as it was one of the major planning/rally points for the battle against LOMEX. Father Gerard La Mountain, who became the Church's pastor in 1960, was an significant figure in campaign against the expressway and was instrumental in persuading Jane Jacobs to join the fight. Following the defeat of LOMAX the two planted a tree out in front of the church, which stands to this day.