A pair of streets called Magenta and Bartholdi can be found south of East Gun Hill Road and east of White Plains Road in Williamsbridge. On the face of it, you may think they were named for the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, and the color magenta. But you would only be half right.
As you know, Liberty was a gift from France to the USA in 1886. Interestingly, though, both Bartholdi Street and Magenta Street were named to honor a small French colony that sprung up in Bronxwood-Williamsbridge in the late 1800s. Only peripherally is Magenta Street, a block north of Bartholdi Street, named for the bright violet color. Instead it was named for a French-Italian victory over the Austrians in 1859, led by Napoleon III at the Italian town of Magenta. Because both French and Italian immigrants resided in this Bronx enclave it was thought fitting to name the street Magenta in honor of a battle that led to the unification of Italy. The color itself was named for the town.
And now, as Paul Harvey used to say, you know the rest of the story.
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2 comments
I used to walk past those streets on my way to and from Evander Child’s H.S. in the 70’s. There was a church on the corner of Bartholdi or Magenta as I recall.
Magenta was also my line of demarcation at the ripe age of 5 or so. During that period of time (early 1970s), my family rented an upstairs apartment in one of the many 2-family houses on Chestnut St. this was my father’s neighborhood as he was born and grew up on Radcliff (a couple blocks away) from the mid 1940s. I was allowed to ride my Big Wheel only “around the block,” which meant Chestnut, Barnes, Bartholdi, and Bronxwood. Not that my mom could have done a thing to save me, if I was just around the corner when fate struck, but during that time, certain rules were set and we were left to explore, and learn and survive accordingly. One day, curiousity got the better of me, and I rode past the sawtooth-roofed buidling along Barnes between Bartholdi and Magenta, which we were told was a parachute factory during the war (not sure if that was true, but it sounded cool at the time). I got to the far corner and seeing the street sign, misread it at a young age as “MAG-NEET-AH.” Later that day, I asked my mom what MAG-NEET-AH meant, and she replied “It’s Magenta, you went past where you were supposed to, no Big Wheel for a week.”
The sawtooth building was 801 Bartholdi – hopefully the link for this picture from the Municipal Archives, taken just before the war (of the Carver Lace Works) is functional – you can see Evander Childs behind it: https://nycma.lunaimaging.com/luna/servlet/detail/NYCMA~6~6~50328~619987:801-Bartholdi-Street?qvq=q:bartholdi&mi=98&trs=99 The building had a 2nd floor added and is now a school.