FNY doesn’t spend enough time in the Bronx — your webmaster freely admits guilt. With today’s Slice I’ll present a batch of photos I shot in High Bridge mostly in January 2005, a time when I was getting photographs for the ForgottenBook — I found that most of my previous pictures were unusable for print for one reason or another, and so I went around town with a film camera, since publisher HarperCollins wanted hard copies they could scan themselves.

High Bridge, named for the aqueduct bridge that spans the Harlem River, is a very hilly area in the southwest Bronx just northwest of Yankee Stadium. Google map: High Bridge



1001 (left) and 1005 Jerome Avenue are on the short stretch of Jerome Avenue not shrouded by the Lexington Avenue line (#4) which is carried over it by an el for most of its length. 1005, in particular, is a highly stylized Art Deco extravaganza with a multicolored terra cotta facade; look for figures that resemble, but not quite match, the High Bridge itself.

For fun, I shot the ‘flatiron’ shaped building at Jerome and Anderson Avenues at an angle. I wonder what the rooms on the corner with the single windows look like. Nearby, in 2005, I found a remaining ‘worded’ “walk/dont walk” sign, which has undoubtedly been replaced by the Hand and the Man since.

One of the most gorgeous unknown buildings in the Bronx is the High Bridge Woodycrest Center, a nursing home at Woodycrest and Jerome Avenues, built in 1902 originally for the American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless (this page — it rambles a bit — gives a personal history of the place).

Fountain, Macombs Dam Park, named for the Harlem River dam built in 1813 by Robert Macomb. It was demolished in 1838 to make way for shipping.

Lighthouse

At the fork in the road where Sedgwick and M.L. King Blvd. (University Avenue) meet, a curious lighthouse-shaped structure comes into view. What is it?

The ‘lighthouse’ rests atop the H.W. Wilson Company headquarters. Wilson is a bibliography, general interest, and periodical index publisher that has been in bsuiness for over a century. The firm built its eight-story building with the lighthouse here in 1929. The lighthouse, shown perched on a book, is meant to symbolize “guidance to those seeking their way through the maze of books and periodicals, without which they would be lost.” At night, the structure is bottom-lit: in 1998, the company’s centennial, the lighthouse was relit after being out of commission for several years.

As of January 2005, the Parks Department wasn’t giving much attention to this park, which is across from the Wilson building overlooking the Harlem River. The lamps and benches are about 1925 vintage and likely hadn’t been touched since.

Helter-skelter staircase accessing steep hill, Jerome Avenue and West 165th; All Brand Electronics, Jerome Avenue and Edward L. Grant Highway

The poles in High Bridge, for some reason, are absolutely festooned with signs pointing to bridges near and far. (I am a fan of these ‘shield’ signs and plan a page devoted to them).

Jerome Avenue el, here shown over River Avenue

University Avenue (Martin Luther King Boulevard) begins modestly at Sedgwick Avenue and the Wilson building; it gains extra lanes and a center median at the intersection of the Edward L. Grant Highway and the Washington Bridge.

(I couldn’t do a page on the High Bridge neighborhood without, ah, actually showing you the marvelous aqueduct, which was completed in 1848.)

Photographed January 2005; page completed September 15, 2008.