Congressman
Joseph Crowley
Fighting for the People of Parkchester
"While
Washington, D.C. may be 250 miles away, the people of my Congressional
District are always forefront on my mind, and everyday I have
the honor of serving you in Congress, your concerns will be paramount."
- Secured
$4.7 million in Federal funding for the Little Angels Head Start
Program to prepare children for elementary school
- Delivered
more then $7.1 million in funding to Bronx area public schools
to provide greater technology in the classroom, better after-school
programming and increase English language programs for Limited
English proficient students
- Brought
$400,000 in Federal funding to the Neighborhood Enhancement
and Training Services Center on Purdy Street for the development
of a new computer lab for neighborhood residents
- Leading
the charge to strip out discriminatory language that shortchanges
children in the Bronx from their fair share of Federal education
dollars
- Fought
for and won $100,000 for an EPA study of the air and noise pollution
surrounding Parkchester resulting from LaGuardia Airport
- Introduced
legislation to increase the Federal budget by $10 million for
bilingual health services at Community Health Centers, like
the one on White Plains Road on the Parkchester/Morris Park
line
Parkchester
Parkchester is a neighborhood in the eastern Bronx, bounded to
the north by East Tremont Avenue, to the east by Purdy Street,
St. Raymond Avenue, and Olmstead Avenue, to the south by McGraw
Avenue, and to the west by White Plains Road. It was once the
site of the New York Catholic Protectory, a self-sufficient farm
and trade school for wayward boys opened by the Christian Brothers
after the Civil War, which had a bakery as well as printing, carpentry,
shoemaking, and tailor shops. The playing fields were also used
by semiprofessional baseball teams for many years. Between 1938
and 1942, a complex designed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company was built on a site of 129 acres (fifty-two hectares)
as one of the first large- scale housing developments in the United
States that was not itself a city. There were 12,273 units divided
among buildings of seven to thirteen stories each, standing in
four quadrants around landscaped grounds; amenities included a
large shopping area with more than a hundred stores (among them
the first branch outside Manhattan of Macy's), a movie theater,
and a bowling alley. The design of the residential buildings was
based on three core plans-and five wing plans (and their variants).
A wing consisted of two dwelling units, each having two to five
rooms. The facades were of sheer brick, patterned at the tops
of buildings and around entrances, and there were also small decorative
sculptures. Parking could accommodate three thousand automobiles.
Storefronts were in the moderne style, with curving facades, art
deco detailing, and stylized signage. The development was named
for two adjoining neighborhoods, Park Versailles (a name that
went out of fashion) and Westchester. In the mid 1960s the Metropolitan
Life Insurance Company, the developer of Parkchester and its original
owner, was accused by the city's commission on civil rights of
limiting tenancy to whites. The neighborhood became more diverse
racially as a result, and in 1968 Metropolitan Life sold Parkchester
to the large real-estate firm HelmsleySpear, which converted
the southern quadrant of the project into a condominium. In the
1980s many new immigrants settled in Parkchester, mostly from
Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, the Soviet Union, India,
China, and the Philippines.
John McNamara: History in Asphalt The Origin of Bronx: Street
and Place Names (New York: Bronx County Historical Society, 1984)
John McNamara: McNamara's Old Bronx (New York: Bronx County Historical
Society, 1980)
Gary D. Hermalyn and Robert Kornfeld: Landmarks of the Bronx (New
York: Bronx County Historical Society, 1990)
Gary D. Hermalyn, Encyclopedia of New York City, Edited by Kenneth
T. Jackson. New Haven, Yale University Press. 1995.
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