DEVOE Park occupies an uneven plot surrounded by West Fordham Road, Webb Avenue, Father Zeiser Place and University Avenue. Curving Fr. Zeiser Place, once a part of West 188th Street, follows an ancient brook. It was renamed in 1953 for the longtime pastor of St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church from 1917-1946, Blasius Zeiser.
Devoe, meanwhile, is an old Bronx name as various members of the Devoe family owned farms from the colonial era into the 1800s. Other place names in the Bronx include Devoe Avenue and Devoe Terrace.
Devoe Park is one of the Bronx’s most irregularly-shaped parks. Its plot was once occupied by the First Reformed Dutch Church beginning in 1705, with successive churches built in 1849 and 1902, the present Fordham Manor Reformed Church found on Reservoir Avenue north of Kingsbridge Road. The curving routes of Webb Avenue and Father Zeiser Place (once part of West 188th Street) overlay Valentine’s Creek, which was relocated below ground over a century ago.
When streets are renamed these days, in general the honored party gets only a subtitle under the old street name, but until the 1970s the city went whole hog and did a straight, complete rename (cf. Seaside Boulevard to Father Capodanno Boulevard in Staten Island, 7th Avenue to Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and 8th Ave. to Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem, and many others). Today, the honored party gets a sign underneath the longstanding name.
Facing the park at the southeast corner of University Avenue and West Fordham Road is the impressive Gothic St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church, dedicated in 1928. The parish was founded in 1906. It once supported a parochial grade school and high school, but they closed in 2019 and 1991, respectively. The church’s namesake was a 14th Century Italian Augustinian monk, who it is said had visions of Purgatory, “God’s waiting room.” He is invoked by faithful praying for souls waiting there fro admission to heaven.
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10/19/23