Westervelt Avenue – The Bronx We Knew

The Neighborhood Gets a Name—Pelham Gardens

[To begin at the beginning, please turn to the first blog posts of January 2020. Those early posts lay out historical facts, while subsequent posts reveal the soul of my neighborhood as I knew it. Less historical and more subjective, they concentrate on the characters, customs, and concerns that gave this far corner of New York City its hometown aura.]

Sometime in the 1990s or early 2000s, I began to notice the name “Pelham Gardens” appearing on maps of our neighborhood, as well as in newspaper articles and in real estate listings. To my surprise, my neighborhood now had a name, and I now had a concise answer to the common question, “Where in the Bronx are you from?” My answer had always been a hit-and-miss listing of nearby names that people might recognize: “Near Pelham Parkway…toward Co-op City…the Eastchester/Gun Hill Road area.”

Pelham Gardens seemed an appropriate name, given the lush and prolific gardens that thrive here in front yards and backyards. The name might not have historic roots like other neighborhood names, such as Kingsbridge, Morrisania, or Williamsbridge. Nor is it a name that highlights a geographical distinction, such as Throgs Neck, Soundview, Silver Beach, or City Island. Instead, the name Pelham Gardens pays homage to the long-ago farms and plantations that covered this area for centuries, and confirms that the paving of roads and construction of buildings did not deplete the richness of the soil in modern times.

Our backyard, like many others, was like a small nature preserve. A screened-in wooden house took up most of the space in our backyard, but flowers, shrubs and vines surrounded this structure, which we called the summer house.

Hollyhock spiers—tall stalks of pale yellow, burgundy, and rose-colored flowers as large as three inches across—towered above one section of the black wire fence that enclosed our property. A tangle of grapevines all but obliterated another section of the fence. When the grapes ripened, they sweetened summer mornings with their fragrance. Honeysuckle vines twisted and twined with unrelenting tendrils over and through another part of the fence, just beside the thicket of pungent spearmint that could barely be controlled.

Our cat, Poochie, and the spearmint bush, with the summer house behind.

In May, lilies of the valley bloomed in the narrow channel between the summer house and the fence. Each stem, with its string of tiny bells, emitted a delightful but subtle scent. When their blooms had passed, the Chinese Lanterns would emerge, puffy, papery orange orbs, blooming alongside the lunaria, or silver-dollar plant. At the right time, these two plants could be clipped, bunched together, and brought inside as a long-lasting autumn arrangement.

A trumpet vine wrapped its leafy arms around the back of the summer house, shading those inside from the afternoon sun. In August the vine burst into bloom with brilliant “trumpets” as orange as the August sunset. Forever after I would think of August as the color of orange. Flanking the vine were a forsythia bush, which turned sunlit yellow each April, and a weigela shrub, which welcomed the month of May with blossoms of magenta and rose.

To drive into our garage, my father used the private road that ran behind the row houses of Westervelt and Mickle Avenues, which stood back to back. Residents of both streets used this road to access their driveways and garages.

Just before he turned into our driveway on the right, my father passed Mrs. Anner’s house on the left. The fence surrounding her property failed to contain the abundant growth of shrubs, bushes, and perennial flowers that bloomed all summer. A pear tree near the far edge of the garden spread out long, heavy branches, one of which overhung the access road.

My father, a lover of all fruit but especially figs and pears, came face to face with one particular pear each evening on his way home from work. As it grew, it dangled closer and closer to the car’s windshield. Each day my father, confronted by this alluring piece of fruit, took note of its growth and gradual ripening. Finally, it reached the point of golden-green perfection.

Pausing a split-second before turning into our driveway, my father reached out the car window and plucked that pear. After dinner, he sliced it up and shared the sweet and juicy slivers with us.

Sometime later he ran into Mrs. Anner. Not one to commit a crime and fail to own up, he had to confess. “I couldn’t resist it,” my father explained. “It was hanging right in front of me every day.”

Mrs. Anner could not have been more pleased. “Help yourself any time,” she said. “It’s better than leaving them for the squirrels.”

One spring, tired of trekking all the way to Hunt’s Point Market for his annual crate of figs, my father brought home a fig tree sapling. Why go to such lengths for his favorite fruit, he figured, when he could grow his own? He planted it behind the summer house, finding room between the forsythia and the weigela. All summer he watered it, fertilized it, and tended to its every need. It seemed to settle in.

That fall, knowing his little tree could not survive our northern winters without some heavy winter clothing, my father traveled to the Connecticut countryside to gather a bushel of pine needles, which he piled in a deep layer around the roots of the tree. He then swaddled the tree with burlap, an old army blanket, and tar paper. He wrapped this snug bundle with heavy cord, then topped the whole thing off with a plastic bucket turned upside down, like a winter cap.

Wrapped fig tree and summer house. Photo by Bob Donlan.

Each autumn, my father followed this ritual. Each spring, he followed another one.

It would begin with the unwrapping, which exposed a bony, gray skeleton. Day after hopeful day, he’d examine the dry sticks, scratching the surface for a sign of life. Depending on the type of spring we were having, some waits were longer than others. But typically, as soon as he’d say, “I guess this winter was too much for it,” he’d step outside on a warm morning and find tufts of green sprouting from very twig. And each summer, my father would harvest a small but satisfying crop.

For reasons I can’t recall (although the word rot rings a bell), my father decided to tear down the summer house. Although we mourned the loss of this combination rec room/play space/study hall/summer dining room, we now looked out on an expanse of burnt-umber, fragrant soil. Aware of the thriving farms that once overspread this corner of the Bronx, and knowing firsthand how our flower gardens prospered, we decided to try creating a small farm of our own.

For my sister and for me, this exciting prospect sparked great enthusiasm. The boards, screening, and shingles that once comprised the summer house were hauled away in the early days of autumn, giving us plenty of time to plan a garden for the following spring. Looking over our bit of farmland, we diagrammed—first in our heads and then in a special notebook—our future garden. With vague ideas of how to start, we knew we had much to learn.

Through a request to our congressman, we received, free of charge, a publication of the U.S. Department of Agriculture called Gardening for Food and Fun, a thick, hardcover book that quickly became dirt stained, dog-eared, and spine-split.

In September we enrolled in Fundamentals of Gardening, a certificate course offered at the New York Botanical Garden, a short drive away. Taught by Ralph Snodsmith of the Queens Botanical Garden (who a few years later hosted the long-running Garden Hotline show on WOR Radio), the course delved into plant physiology, germination, propagation, planting, pruning, weed control, disease control, pest control, mulching, and soil management.

In December we received our Certificates of Completion. About six weeks later the gardening catalogs started to arrive in the mail. In February, with proper lighting, a heat coil, seeds, and a seed-starting mix, we sowed corn, eggplant, basil, lettuce, and tomato seeds, saving the carrot seeds for direct sowing into the ground in late spring. The earthy aroma of the vermiculite made spring feel imminent in spite of the February snowstorms.

Our notebook, where we kept meticulous descriptions of every action and every development, included this information:

Plant Number of seedlings Out of seeds planted

Basil 9 12

Eggplant 6 15

Lettuce 9 15

Tomatoes 15 27

Corn 6 10

We wrote down dilemmas: “March 24—should we feed the seedlings?? Discrepancy in book about when seedlings should first be fertilized!”

We noted the date (April 1) when we turned over the backyard soil and sent a sample out for testing.

We noted the date (April 22) when we worked a 10-pound bag of cow manure into the soil, along with a 5-pound bag of 5-10-5 fertilizer.

We tracked progress, noting that in July we harvested the lettuce, the tomatoes were “growing fast,” and the cornstalks, by now over five feet tall, had “sprouted ears and silk.”

We noted an overheard conversation between a mother and her child, out on an evening walk: “The child pointed to the corn and asked, ‘What is that, Mommy?’ The mother’s reply: ‘It’s a sunflower.’”

Well, I thought, this is the Bronx after all, not the heartland. Still, I found it sad to think a grown woman did not know the difference between a cornstalk and a sunflower.

In August, while the water boiled on the kitchen stove, we harvested the first ears of corn. Thereafter, no ear of corn ever came close to that sweet, just-picked taste.

For several more summers, we planted a garden. Weeding it, staking it, mulching it, debugging it—all those chores were never burdensome to us.

Years later, the members of our household dwindled to one—me—and tending the garden remained one of the joys of summer. Eventually the house was sold, and as the closing date approached, I spent an autumn afternoon clearing away the dried brown cornstalks and the bedraggled remnants of the tomato plants. Dusk fell. I paused a moment, captivated by the sight of the pale crescent moon framed by the bare branches of the neighbor’s sycamore tree. As I watched, a crisp leaf lost its tenuous grip and drifted to the ground, rustling all the way.

I gathered the bundled cornstalks and withered tomato vines and left my backyard for the last time.

A Bronx Fourth of July

The explosions started early, a wake-up call to all who still slept that the commemoration of America’s declaration of independence from Great Britain had begun. Reverberating up and down Westervelt Avenue and rousing neighbors on nearby streets, those booms and blasts of celebration echoed the sounds of the battles fought on this terrain in the British-occupied Bronx some 200 years earlier.

Not that the battles fought here had any significant effect on the course of the Revolutionary War. One story we often heard in the classroom characterizes the futility of our forebears’ efforts. It told of a group of rebel colonists who devised a plan of attack. Dragging a cannon to the top of the hill on the Kingsbridge Road (later named Gun Hill Road), near the banks of the Bronx River, they launched a cannonball on British troops stationed below. The effort, though valiant and well-intentioned, was of little consequence to their red-coated targets.

This area of the northern Bronx was called Neutral Ground since neither side held full control. That made it difficult to know which side a civilian was on. As a result, local residents endured constant raids on their property from bands of guerillas on the American side as well as from Redcoats, Hessians, and Tories.

But even back then, long before the outcome of the American Revolution could have been known, the colonists celebrated every fourth of July with fireworks. In a letter dated July 3, 1776, John Adams directed Americans to celebrate the Fourth with “pomp and parade…bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forever more.” Philadelphia started us off, holding the first fireworks display on July 4, 1777.

Personal possession of fireworks was illegal in New York City, yet some families on the block acquired enough of an arsenal to set off a non-stop barrage that lasted from morning to midnight. At a frantic pace the older kids and teenagers lit the fuses, apparently unconcerned about running out of ammunition. With one match they would set off whole packages of string fireworks at a time. The furious, rapid-fire bang-bang-banging went on for minutes as paper wrappers leaped and flew across the pavement. When it seemed that a particular string of firecrackers had been spent, the budding pyrotechnicians would approach for a closer look, only to be unnerved by a leftover bang or two that, had there been a little less patience, might have cost them some fingers.

Firecrackers were loud, but cherry bombs were deafening. To make them even louder, the kids set them off inside metal garbage cans, causing a reaction in the pit of the stomach similar to a physical punch. Add to that the whiz-bang of the bottle rockets, and the ear-splitting cacophony was complete.

Young kids waved sparklers lit by a supervising adult. Cracker balls afforded them another way to participate safely in the fun. When thrown forcefully to the ground, these little red balls that resembled Trix cereal would explode with satisfying snaps.

By afternoon the air was hazy with smoke, and redolent with the spicy scent of gunpowder. Toward evening, charcoal from backyard barbecue grills added more smoke and smoldering scents to the air.

At dusk, people in cities and towns across America piled into cars or used public transportation to get to fireworks shows organized by local businesses or municipalities. But residents of Westervelt Avenue did not have to fight traffic or crowds. Armed with lawn chairs, couch pillows, mosquito repellent, cold drinks, and ice cream from the Mister Softee truck, they made their way to their front stoops, settled in, and waited to be dazzled.

Once darkness fell, families on the eastern side of the street brought out their nighttime arsenal, a load that appeared as abundant as the noisemaking bombs of the daylight hours. Their displays were supplemented by the equally elaborate show from Kingsland Avenue beyond. Gazing skyward, swatting mosquitoes here and there, we had front row seats to a spectacular show that lasted for hours. Now the fireworks that had been set off simply for noise took a back seat to the blazing explosions of color that we had waited for all day.

The ground show was a pale forerunner: Roman candles pumped out continuous bursts of light; tentacles of fire shot from the whizzing spinners as onlookers scrambled out of the way; fountains spewed sizzling sparks. But the sky show brought audible gasps from the crowd as rockets shimmered skyward, exploded into starbursts that filled the sky, then melted into streamers of red, white, silver, green, gold, and blue that rained down upon the rooftops.

As eleven o’clock approached, the pace of the rocket launchings slowed and soon stopped. Cramped from sitting for hours with heads upturned, we headed inside. But the teenagers, along with a few adults, were not finished. Rapid-fire blasts of firecrackers started all over again, even at the midnight hour, perhaps in an attempt to use up all the leftovers.

We fell asleep as we had awakened, to the sounds of celebration eerily similar to the sounds of the Revolution itself.

The next morning, tattered remnants littered the street. Red wrappers from rockets and bombs fluttered across the pavement, along with the blue-and-white checkered firecracker papers.

Another Fourth of July was over. We knew that next year’s Independence Day would be celebrated in exactly the same way, as this one had been a repeat of so many before.

Keeping Watch

Peering furtively through your window like Gladys Kravitz to spy on your neighbors is typically frowned upon. On Westervelt Avenue in the 1960s and ’70s, no one peeked from behind their curtains like this. No, they came outside and openly watched whenever something of interest was going on. This behavior was accepted and often even expected.

Some events were “come out and look” invitations in themselves. For instance, one Saturday afternoon a water main broke. It was part of a new line that led to the house of our neighbor two doors down. Surrounding neighbors gathered in commiseration while others watched from windows, porches, and stoops as water rushed up through the sewer grates and flooded the curb. People from down the block came too, curiosity aroused at the sight of a small river coursing through the street. The crowd sustained their watch for the entire time it took for the city to be notified and the water turned off. Then, excitement over, the watchers returned to their ho-hum ordinary day.

Sometimes the watchers were welcomed; in fact, it would have been disappointing if no one had come out to create a spur-of-the-moment honor guard of sorts.

The sight of a limousine pulling up to a house on a Friday evening in May meant one thing—the senior prom. Word of a limousine on the block spread instantly, bringing the neighbors out: one still clutching a dinner napkin, another wiping hands on a dishtowel. Kids wearing cookie crumbs and milk moustaches came running, along with teenage girls waving fingernails wet with polish or with half their hair done up in rollers.

All eyes focused on the young man in the stiff components of a tuxedo unfolding legs and arms from the dark recesses of the back seat while grasping a small white florist’s box. They watched as he climbed the stoop and pressed the doorbell, then disappeared inside. And then they waited out there in the street, waited and watched, watched and waited, until, after an unbearably long time, the couple emerged.

In her gown, the girl appeared as we had never seen her before—not in a school uniform, not in shorts or jeans, not even in a Sunday skirt. This typical teenager was unrecognizable in her formal dress and skinny high heels, her hair and makeup specially done up.

Often two or three other couples would then climb out of the limousine for a group photo. The boys looked good all spiffed up in their tuxedos, hair slicked back or at least controlled and tidy. But the girls in their pastel gowns of taffeta and tulle created a beautiful array. On their wrists or at their shoulders, a spray of pink roses or a delicate white orchid breathed life into the glamour.

Picture-taking over, the couples would duck back into the limo, taking great care not to rumple their finery. Slowly the limousine would roll away, shrugging off the hovering boys who had hung around solely to gawk at the car.

Those of us still awaiting our proms could only imagine what the night ahead would be like—as magical as Cinderella’s ball, that much we knew.

Another event that drew neighbors from up and down the block was a wedding. Again, the signal was the limousine pulling up to the curb. Again, a crowd of neighbors, pressed together and jostling for the best view, would gather in the street outside the bride’s house. Showing great restraint, the watchers kept the sidewalk clear for the bride and her bridesmaids.

Women in the usual Saturday attire—housedresses or ragtag housecleaning clothes—stood with arms crossed. Kids often came to watch, but men—never. This fashion event and lump-in-the-throat moment of nostalgia and sentimentality was a woman’s thing, for the great-grandmothers to the youngest observers.

Boys gathered too, but again because of the limousine, not to fill their eyes with the rare sight of ordinary people dressed like royalty, or to reflect on the passage of time as this young woman, only yesterday a kid popping tar bubbles in the street, ventured off into marriage. The boys turned wheelies on their bikes as they pestered the driver with questions, left dirty handprints on the limo (which the driver patiently polished off), and begged for an inside view before the driver shooed them away.

Excitement grew when the bridesmaids stepped out of the house in a burst of color—typically shades of blue or pink—flowing chiffon, and floral bouquets with trailing ribbons. They processed like ethereal beings to the limousine, signaling that the star of the show was not far behind. Then the bride emerged, a vision in white satin, escorted by her father. As they paused for a photo, it was clear that the crowd felt only warmth and happiness for the bride, judging from the discreet wipe of a tear, murmured endearments, and a backdrop of oohs and aahs. But one of the women came dangerously close to heckling at one of these watches, yelling out in her angry-crow voice, “Sure, she’s happy now, the bride. Just wait. She’ll see.”

Heads turned…or shook in disbelief. The girl standing next to me whispered fiercely, “Just because she’s unhappy doesn’t mean everyone is. I’m going to have a happy marriage.”

Another event brought the people outside, but this kind of watch was a somber and respectful one. It was the local custom when someone passed away. On the morning of the funeral, immediately following the church service, neighbors kept a silent vigil as the funeral procession drove slowly passed the deceased person’s house, a last farewell. The cortege then moved on to the cemetery and the final resting place.

On Summer Nights

When the August sun slid behind the rooftops to the west, the heat of late afternoon simmered down and Westervelt Avenue roiled up.

The highlight of those after-dinner daylight hours was the arrival of the Mister Softee truck. The first notes from its music box, barely audible as the truck turned in from Mace Avenue, sent kids hurtling home for money and any other family member craving a quintessential summer treat.

Each evening Mister Softee stopped at our end of Westervelt Avenue, the end closer to Allerton Avenue and most densely populated with kids. The truck’s engine idled and the music box played in a continuous loop until, finally, the ice cream man silenced it, too late though to divert the earworm that would crawl out unexpectedly down through the decades. The idling engine was a grumbling monster for the better part of an hour, until the long line of customers dwindled and the truck lumbered toward Allerton.

Then, with ice cream cones, sundaes, floats, and parfaits consumed, the kids returned with ear-splitting enthusiasm to their various groups under the sycamores and ginkgoes to play touch football, ride their bikes, pop tar bubbles, or jump rope.

About once every minute and a half, jets approaching LaGuardia Airport flew so low over our heads that each airline’s name or logo could easily be seen. Each deafening intrusion drowned out the evening news on TV and forced all of us below into shouted conversations.

As daylight diminished, the atmosphere would start to change. Street games ended, the shrieks and shouts trailed off, and kids went inside to do other things. The roar of jet engines ceased as planes switched to nighttime routes away from residential areas. The streetlights flickered on, the long summer dusk turned to night, and other groups came out—nocturnal gatherings that operated independently, yet companionably in the sense that each was well aware of the others’ presence. To keep moths and other insects away, porch and stoop lights had to be off. The streetlights scattered all the silvery illumination we needed anyway.

Under one of the streetlights, a cluster of teenage boys occupied the street where the younger kids had played earlier. They leaned against parked cars or paced back and forth in the middle of the street, relinquishing just enough turf to let traffic go by. Some drivers crept cautiously through the bunch of boys, who, resenting the inconvenience, were in no rush to get out of the way. Other drivers bullied their way through. Those were the ones you could hear when they were still a block away, their stereo music pounding louder and harder as they approached and trailing stomach-throbbing bass beats as they passed.

On our side of the street, where most houses still had only the landing of the stoop and no real porch, an older couple set out their lawn chairs and waited for a breeze. Quietly they sat in the snug dark space under the awning, but an occasional cough, the slap of a hand fending off a mosquito, or the glint of the streetlight on their aluminum chairs reminded us they were there.

Many nights our stoop served as a gathering place. Friends from down the block and across the street dropped by, some of them old classmates from Holy Rosary now dispersed to various high schools, others lifelong friends from the block. For hours we discussed school and teachers, track and football practice, Orchard Beach vs. Jones Beach, driver’s ed, cars, and whether or not to send out for a pizza. If we spotted a toad on the lawn someone always tried and always failed to catch it. Or we tried to pick up a ghost crab from the countless number that covered the street and sidewalk one strange time, but no one wanted to feel a defensive pinch.

Sometimes Robert stopped by on the way home from his summer job at Rossi Pastry Shop on Gun Hill Road, bringing with him the wonderful aroma of Italian cookies that wafted from every thread of his bakery whites. Apparently he was not oblivious to our sudden cravings for cookies whenever he joined us. One night we watched him approach in the darkness. He was easy to spot as his white clothing reflected the streetlights, but that night they also reflected another object—a small white bakery box dangling from his hand.

From the porch across the street, muffled murmurings drifted from the shadows. The voices rose and fell and crackled into laughter. Some of the neighborhood women had gathered there, as usual. The dark porch revealed only silhouettes. Though the front door was open and yellowish light from the hallway spilled outside, it was a dim illumination. But from the brightness of the kitchen at the other end of the hallway came the sound of clattering dishes, then footfalls along the hallway as the hostess brought out a tray. She set the tray on the porch table, and as she sat the plastic chair cushion reacted with a hissss…. Soon the night air carried the smell of coffee, mingled with the scent of cigarette smoke, across the street to us.

Sometime between 11 pm and midnight the boys in the street would scatter for home. The stoop couple would fold up their chairs and retire for the night.

The front-porch group of women across the street would start to break up. With rattling of coffee cups, the friends would help clean up until one by one the dark figures descended the porch steps, flip-flops slapping against the cement. A speck of orange glowing in someone’s hand briefly moved to her mouth, then flew in a sparking trajectory to the street.

Conversation on our stoop would begin to wind down. High-pitched whining around our ears, and pinpricks at our ankles and elbows that erupted into itchy welts, persuaded us to call it a night, too.

Up in my room, before pulling down the window shade, I always paused to take one last look at the night. The cars below, parked tightly along both sides of the street, were polished to a high gloss by the streetlights. Over the rooftops ahead an object brighter than the evening star grew larger as it got closer. The plane then banked southward, revealing the green light at its wingtip. At this late hour the sounds that never stop could not be drowned out: the low growl of that plane on its nighttime flight path, the gasp of airbrakes as the Allerton Avenue bus pulled away from its stop, and the persistent trilling of the tree crickets.

The Other Side of the Street

The builders hoped to save the enormous old tree on the eastern side of Westervelt Avenue, but soon realized it had to be cut down to make room for four new homes. Photo by A.F. DiSalvo, May 1948.

New homes built by Ben Caravella taking shape on the eastern side of Westervelt Avenue, June 1948. Houses visible in the background are on Kingsland Avenue. Photo by A.F. DiSalvo.

Looking Eastward

Before the homes across the street went up in the 1940s, this was the view from our bedroom windows. The Forte truck farm is in the foreground; the Hutchinson River Parkway drawbridge is at left; the towers of the New Haven Railroad trestle are toward the right. The trees in the background are part of Pelham Bay Park.

A Neighborhood Forms

Jonas Bronck lived in the northern hinterlands of the Dutch territory of New Netherlands for only four short years, but in that time he made enough of an impact that his name became permanently attached to the region.

Jonas, a Scandinavian sea captain, was the first non-native to settle and farm part of this vast expanse of wilderness. Arriving in 1639, Jonas cleared land and built a farmstead consisting of a main house for his family, housing for his indentured servants, a tobacco plantation, and a barn to store the abundant crop. He died in 1643.

In school we were told that “The” became part of our borough’s name because the area had been widely known as “the territory of the Broncks’ homestead.” More officially it was called Broncksland or Broncks Land until 1697, with the first recorded usage of the spelling Bronx.

Long before the Dutch purchased the land from the Siwanoy people, the area east of the Bronx River and the Bronck homestead had been known for its rich, fertile soil. A number of farms prospered in the area, but the rest of the land remained undeveloped.

In 1912 the New York, Westchester & Boston Railroad (NYW&B, or “the Westchester”) began operation, giving residents of Manhattan and the south Bronx a new way to commute to their jobs in Westchester County. Speeding northward on its approach to the Westchester County border, the train gave commuters glimpses of a sparsely populated, rural landscape. The “rustic charm of the northeast Bronx”—as the real estate developers called it—appealed to those ready to move from the crowded streets further south.

The late 1920s brought streetlights to Eastchester Road, a major thoroughfare. As yet there were no paved streets or sidewalks, but there were enough houses in 1925 that residents joined together to form the Eastchester Home Owners Association. One of their first objectives was to get sewer lines installed. The population increased still more when the Eastchester Road bus began running in 1927. Another surge followed in 1933 with the Gun Hill Road bus route that connected Manhattan commuters with the Eighth Avenue subway station.

In the area bordered by Pelham Parkway to the south, Gun Hill Road to the north and east, and Eastchester Road to the west, the 2500 block of Westervelt Avenue marked the eastern limit of the borough’s full blocks in the 1930s and early 1940s. A row of 30 two-story, red-brick attached houses, built around 1930 and selling for about $4,000 each, lined the western side of the street. From the sidewalk, the approach to each home was via a walkway that ran alongside a small front lawn enclosed by a privet hedge. The walkway led to a stoop consisting of five steps and a landing just big enough to hold the milkbox and perhaps a small lawn chair.

The front door opened to a foyer with a coat closet. Passing through a French door brought you into the living room with its fireplace, staircase to the second floor, and a double-wide doorway to the dining room. The homes featured living room and dining room walls of a mellow, amber-varnished stucco, and except for the kitchen floor (which was linoleum) and the bathroom floor (which was tile), hardwood floors throughout. A small kitchen off the dining room completed the first floor. Styled in the latest design of the 1930s, it featured a double porcelain sink in a Youngstown metal cabinet; a four-burner gas stove with oven and broiler; white, subway-tiled walls; and a breakfast nook with built-in shelves and a window overlooking the backyard, the driveway, the alley, and the back of the row homes on Mickle Avenue.

The back of the homes on Mickle Avenue, the driveways, backyards, and the access road. And my brother Arthur shoveling the driveway in the early 1960s.

Three bedrooms and a bath comprised the second floor. The bathroom featured white subway tiles on the lower half of the walls, a floor of one-inch hexagonal tiles, a wide pedestal sink, a cast iron bathtub, and a separate shower stall. Inside the closet of the large front bedroom a steel ladder led to the trapdoor to the roof, a fire escape as well as a portal to
“tar beach.”

The walk-out basement opened to a fenced-in backyard. Almost every backyard had a clothesline of some sort. A driveway adjacent to the backyard connected the back alley to the garage.

Newcomers to the neighborhood maneuvered their cars along dirt roads that could be dusty or muddy depending on the season. They swerved around the cows from nearby dairy farms that drank from the creek on Allerton Avenue, the first cross street to the north, which was little more than a clearing in the woods.

Mace Avenue, the first cross street to the south, ended at Kingsland Avenue, a half-developed block of two or three houses east of Westervelt and south of Mace. Behind Westervelt (to the west) was Mickle Avenue with a similar row of attached brick homes, then Woodhull Avenue, followed by Eastchester Road, the shopping district.

From our upstairs bedroom windows, we looked eastward over farmland and marshland that sloped downward to Gun Hill Road at the bottom. In the distance we could see the city dump, a vast expanse of marshlands, the towers of the New Haven Railroad trestle, the Hutchinson River Parkway, and the Hutchinson River. Not quite visible was Eastchester Bay and the Long Island Sound just beyond.

A walk to the south end of Gun Hill Road, to the paths that ran under the Hutchinson River Parkway, led to Eastchester Bay and its creeks and inlets. For $2 a day you could rent a rowboat from Stark’s Dock. Those who attached their own outboard motors and had a couple of hours to spare could easily cruise to Orchard Beach or to City Island, or spend the day picking blue claw crabs off the pilings of the City Island docks.

Despite expectations that the NYW&B would turn the northeast Bronx into a bustling metropolis, the line declared bankruptcy during the Great Depression. Around 1940 the City of New York purchased the tracks that ran north of the E. 180th Street Station to the city limits at Dyre Avenue and joined those stations to the Lexington Avenue subway line. Until 1957, a two-car train shuttled passengers between Dyre Avenue and E. 180th Street, stopping at Baychester Avenue, Gun Hill Road, Pelham Parkway, and Morris Park Avenue along the way. At E. 180th Street, riders transferred to the main line into Manhattan. The little train had a covered platform at each end through which passengers entered and exited. Local residents called it the “Dinky” after the Toonerville Trolley, a dilapidated feature of a favorite comic strip of the day called Toonerville Folks. Even as late as the 1980s—more than 20 years after it became a 10-car direct line into Manhattan as the Number 5 Lexington Avenue Express—long-time residents still referred to it as the Dinky.

During the 1930s, truck and dairy farms, cows and chickens were common sights. Tom and Louie Forte cultivated several truck farms, one of which covered about an acre of land directly opposite our house. (One of the original residents recalls youthful behavior: “We carried salt shakers with us during the summer so we could pick Tommy’s tomatoes and eat them on the run.”) Others overspread the area south of Mace Avenue to Waring Avenue, the next cross street. The Fortes grew enough produce to stock their vegetable store on Eastchester Road until home construction expanded in the 1940s, obliterating all but a few family farms.

Over the course of the 1940s, homes were built on the eastern side of Westervelt Avenue, the road was macadamized, streetlights installed, and more homebuyers came to this region of eastward expansion. Further east, more streets were paved and houses were built all the way to Gun Hill Road, which, by its southeast to northwest trajectory, formed the northern and eastern boundaries of the newly established neighborhood. The southeast end of Gun Hill Road ran parallel to the New England Thruway (I-95), which was under construction in the late 1950s. Terminating at the Hutchinson River Parkway, it developed rapidly with gas stations, ice cream shops, and other off-the-highway conveniences.

Now the panorama from our bedroom windows was constrained. All that was left of our farm and marshland view were the towers of the New Haven Railroad trestle and the drawbridge of the Hutchinson River Parkway, visible through the narrow spaces between the houses. But just behind the drawbridge, the rising sun, whose beams pierced our window shades each morning, still gilded the unseen meadows, creeks, and salt marshes all the way to the edge of the continent.