Grand Concourse (Bronx)

Grand Concourse

Grand Boulevard and Concourse
Looking southward from 179th Street with Manhattan in the background
Owner	City of New York
Maintained by	NYCDOT
Length	5.2 mi (8.4 km)[1]
Location	Bronx, New York City
Nearest metro station	IND Concourse Line
South end	I-87 / 138th Street in Mott Haven
North end	Mosholu Parkway in Bedford Park
Construction
Construction start	1894 (1894)
Completion	1909 (1909)
Other
Designer	Louis Aloys Risse
Grand Concourse Historic District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
New York City Landmark No. 2403
Art Deco apartment buildings along Grand Concourse
Location	The Bronx, New York
Coordinates	40°49′50″N 73°55′15″W / 40.83056°N 73.92083°W / 40.83056; -73.92083
Architectural style	Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals, Art Deco
NRHP reference No.	87001388[2]
NYCL No.	2403
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	August 24, 1987
Designated NYCL	October 25, 2011

The Grand Concourse (also known as the Grand Boulevard and Concourse) is a 5.2-mile-long (8.4 km) thoroughfare in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. Grand Concourse runs through several neighborhoods, including Bedford Park, Concourse, Highbridge, Fordham, Mott Haven, Norwood and Tremont. For most of its length, the Concourse is 180 feet (55 m) wide, though portions of the Concourse are narrower.

The Grand Concourse was designed by Louis Aloys Risse, an immigrant from Saint-Avold, Lorraine, France. Risse first conceived of the road in 1890, and the Concourse was built between 1894 and 1909, with an additional extension in 1927. The development of the Concourse led to the construction of apartment buildings (a plurality of six-story high-class semi-fireproof elevator apartment houses was perceptibly interspersed with buildings that ranged from a more affordable tier of five-story New Law walk-up apartment houses to a handful of taller fireproof apartment houses comparable to those on Manhattan's luxury thoroughfares) surrounding the boulevard. By 1939, it was called "the Park Avenue of middle-class Bronx residents".^[3] A period of decline followed in the 1960s and 1970s, when these residences became dilapidated and the Concourse was redesigned to be more motorist-friendly. Renovation and redevelopment started in the 1980s, and a portion of the Grand Concourse was reconstructed starting in the 2000s.

The southern portion of the Grand Concourse is surrounded by several historically important residential buildings, which were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 as part of the Grand Concourse Historic District. In 2011, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated numerous buildings around the Grand Concourse as part of a city landmark district. Additionally, several individual points of interest are located on or near the Concourse, including the Bronx Museum of the Arts and Edgar Allan Poe Cottage.