Grand Concourse Historic District

Running more than a mile along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, this district takes in parts of thirty-six blocks and holds 83 contributing buildings plus one park. Most are apartment houses of five or six stories, built of brick with stone, cast-stone or terra-cotta trim, and set at the building line to form a continuous street wall. All contributing buildings date from 1916 to 1941. Early walkups are simple neo-Renaissance designs, while the 1920s brought Colonial Revival, neo-Tudor and Mediterranean examples such as the Concourse Plaza Hotel and Buckingham Manor. The 1930s and early 1940s produced buff-brick Art Deco buildings with corner windows, mosaics and terrazzo lobbies, including works by Emery Roth, Horace Ginsbern and Jacob Felson. Institutions such as the Andrew Freedman Home and the Bronx County Courthouse sit among them. Speculative builders developed the boulevard piecemeal as lots and financing became available, yet the scale, materials and ornament remain closely related, and many original lobbies survive.