The Mott Haven neighborhood in the South Bronx is one of the oldest neighborhoods in New York City. It is situated on a piece of land historically known as Morrisania, named after the powerful Morris family who owned it for centuries. Richard and Lewis Morris, merchants from Barbados, bought the land from Jonas Bronck in 1670. Mott Haven is a primarily residential American neighborhood in the southwestern section of the Bronx Borough of New York.
Its boundaries, which start in the north and move clockwise, are East 149th Street to the north, the Bruckner Highway to the east, the Major Deegan Highway to the south, and the Harlem River to the west. East 138th Street is the main east-west street that runs through Mott Haven. In honor of its 50th anniversary, the Mott Haven Association uncovered stories behind 10 historic sites in Mott Haven, from an iron mill that gave the neighborhood its name to two stretches of stunningly intact townhouses and an old piano factory. The complex was reconstructed multiple times to accommodate expansions and changing needs, and the first buildings were constructed with wooden frames and burned down at least twice. The oldest sections of the factory currently located on the site located at 2403 Third Avenue date back to the 1860s, and the main building, designed by Babcock (26% McCoy), dates from 1882 and was extended in the 1890s. Mott moved his works to Trenton in early 20th century, possibly because the community he had fostered had become too dense to allow for further expansion of his factory.
The part of Bronx annexed to New York City in 1874 was commonly known as North Side. Its Board of Commerce was a civic organization that advocated for municipality. Davis, architect of building, was also founder of Board and its first president. He selected a site at 270 East 137th Street as “the gateway to district”.
The neoclassical design of this building shows Ionic columns and pilasters and round arched windows, with upper floors covered in white terracotta and its base clad in rustic granite. The Forum Theater at 490 East 138th Street was conceived by businessmen Haring & Blumenthal and built as a vaudeville and movie theater with capacity for 2,700 people according to designs by theater specialist Eugene De Rosa. The theater declined with vaudeville and with larger modern movie theaters taking over. In later years it found a new life as Puerto Rico Theater serving its growing Latin American population with stars such as Tito Puente, Cuban Tres Patines and Argentinian singer Libertad la Marque gracing its stage before it closed in 1980s. The imposing church building at 330 Willis Avenue was completed in 1900 reflecting a thriving and growing community at that time. Its main sanctuary could accommodate 1,000 people while its basement had a conference room with capacity for 500 people.
Its upper floors contained Sunday school facilities for another 1,000 children. Kramer designed its façade with polished bricks with limestone moldings and an extension of delicate pointed arched windows topped with a corner bell tower. The neighborhood is part of Bronx Community Board 1 and is located within zip codes 10451, 10454 and 10455. Several members of Morris family who are source of Morrisania neighborhood's name are buried in cemetery including first governor of New Jersey Judge Lewis Morris and General Lewis Morris III one of signers of Declaration of Independence. From late 19th century to 1940s Mott Haven was a mixed German-American (north of East 145th Street) and Irish-American (south of East 145th Street) neighborhood with Italian enclave west of Lincoln Ave. It contains one of highest concentrations of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) projects in Bronx. Serving a network of more than 500 neighborhood-based community groups across all five boroughs, HDC strives to protect, preserve, and improve New York City's historic buildings and neighborhoods through ongoing promotion, community development, and education programs.
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