Bronxwood Park: A Modern Relic

When you take a left off of Gun Hill Road and walk onto Holland Avenue, the sound of the cars, buses and throngs of people, so familiar to Bronx locals, gradually fades away. The hulking apartment buildings and commercial strip give way to big, old houses with yards and trees, and by the time Holland Road curves into North Oak Drive, it’s hard to believe you’re still in the Bronx.

North Oak Drive is the main entrance to Bronxwood, a small neighborhood that is comprised of just two streets, North Oak and South Oak. It dates back to the 1880s, and owes its existence to a man named John T. Adee, a major landowner who sponsored real estate development in the area more than a century ago.

Many of the houses that can now be seen in Bronxwood are as old as the neighborhood itself. Though they have been re-sided and updated over the years, their gated driveways and large porches serve as a reminder of their younger days.

Still, a lot has changed in the neighborhood besides the siding on the houses, one of the biggest differences being the people who call those houses home.

Tony Nelson moved to the neighborhood about 25 years ago, and currently works as a maintenance man for six of the houses in the neighborhood, including the one that he lives in. He says that the changes, and accompanying cultural shifts in the neighborhood, have been especially apparent over the last few years.

“Everything is different now,” Nelson said. “You have a lot of Spanish moving in… mostly from Harlem. You have a lot moving in because of displacement; Yonkers and Harlem [are]…where we get most of our people now from. We [have] people from Jersey too… Bronx is like the last frontier basically.”

Nelson attributes this sudden influx of new people to the Bronx’s relative cheapness, compared with other boroughs. He adds, however that if newcomers continue to move in, those rent prices might not stay so low.

Despite all the new neighbors he’s gotten recently, Nelson says he can still feel a strong sense of community in Bronxwood.

“Yeah there’s a big sense of community, a big sense of community because you have a lot of churches around here,” he said. “And like on holidays churches give away food.”

This community feeling cannot be denied. Even though it is a cold February afternoon, Bronxwood is bustling with people shoveling driveways, walking dogs, and talking to neighbors. There is even a Franciscan convent on the corner of North Oak, which serves as a stately presence over the street.

Nelson has also looked beyond the current state of his neighborhood and done some research into its history in the city records.

“The guy who owned this property [Nelson’s house] used to own all this property,” he said.  That was maybe like, 90 some or 100 years ago…his stable house used to be in the back.”

The stable house, in fact, is still there, though it has long housed cars instead of horses. Even so, Nelson says that the harnesses and other horse equipment are still there. They hang on the wall, serving as a quiet reminder of what used to be.