TREMONT AVENUE PART THREE

Continued from Part Two

In March 2018, I marched from the Tremont Ave. IND subway station at the Grand Concourse east on its titular avenue all the way to the Bruckner Expressway, where I caught a bus back to Queens. I’d never walked for this long a stretch on the Bronx’s lengthiest avenue before, and I’m always ripe for something new.

The genesis of Tremont’s name is similar to that of Boston’s Tremont Street: while that city’s Tremont was named for three hills on the originally narrow peninsula where Boston grew and prospered, so the Bronx’ Tremont was named by its first postmaster for three hills in mid-Bronx: Mount Eden, Mount Hope and Fairmount. The main difference is that Bostonians pronounce it TREM-mont, while Bronxites say TREE-mont. 

I returned to Tremont Avenue in early 2024…

GOOGLE MAP: EAST TREMONT AVENUE – THROGS NECK

Frank Bee Stores has had this marvelous plastic lettered ad on East Tremont Ave. between Bruckner and Otis Avenue for may years. Several large mass merchandise stores were patterned after the success of F.W. Woolworth, both large and small. Kresge (now later K Mart), Lamston’s,  McCrory and this one, Frank Bee.

According to its awning, the store was established in 1957.  By that time, inflation caused them not to be able to use the term “five and dime” as Woolworth’s was able to do when it first opened in the 1870s.  Instead they used the term “five cents to one dollar.” Both Mapquest and Yelp report the location has closed, but in spring 2024 there was an “open” sign and an open door. In 1940, this was already a five and dime.

I had to cross over to get a photo of the cobblestone-pillared #3481 East Tremont at Greene Place, home to a doctor’s office and spa.

Speaking of stony facades, a couple doors down you can be sent off in style at Sisto Funeral Home at #3489.

Another stylish funeral home, both sides of Sommer Place. (Cue Percy Faith). I have not seen these parts referred to as Schuyler Hill, but rather Schuylerville. Both refer to Fort Schuyler in the shadow of the Throgs Neck Bridge.

There was a now-defunct clown school at East Tremont and Bruckner, so naturally, there’s a balloon joint just off Lafayette Avenue…

Pastosa Ravioli, East Tremont Avenue and Lamport Place, is a pasta and Italian food franchise with numerous locations in the Bronx, Brooklyn (on New Utrecht Avenue), fc Staten Island, New Jersey and Long Island.  The sign is in brilliant white, red and green of the Italian flag. The store is actually one in a chain originating in Mill Basin, Brooklyn in 1967. “Ravioli” is derived from the Italian word for “turnip” and the hollow pasta shells stuffed with cheese or meat were probably originally thought to be turnip-shaped.

I won’t lie. When I saw “De Rosa O’Boyle Triangle” on the Hagstrom Bronx map I perused as a kid, I thought, “what a cool name!” Turns out, of course, it’s two area soldiers, William Anthony DeRosa and Andrew O’Boyle, who were killed in battle during World War II. The triangle was created when the Cross Bronx Expressway was built through the area at East Tremont and Dewey Avenue in the 1950s.

A sea of concrete was produced on a widened sidewalk, as the CBE runs under East Tremont on an angle.

Formerly Alfie’s Place, New Jack City is a well-reviewed cigar bar on the Cross-Bronx between East Tremont and Dewey Avenues:

Definitely a gem in the BX!!! Love the atmosphere the playlist of music is fantastic. Good selection of cigars as well. The owner is an African American woman which is definitely a plus. Love to see that!! I’ll definitely be returning.

Don’t let the location’s past fool you. What was once the dingiest bar in town is now an up and coming cigar lounge. The outdoor facade is discreet and has you questioning if this is the entrance to an organized “social club’s” home base. Once the barred members only door is answered, you are met by extremely friendly staff who are willing to share their knowledge on their premium cigars. The place is still under construction to a small degree. The giant humidor is near completion, but I can see this place turning into a real gem. Will definitely be stopping by for more cigars in the future.

The neon “bar” sign is left over from a much earlier incarnation.

A pair of 9/11/01 memorials on the other side of the Cross Bronx. I thought the use of the two Parks-style lamps to light the official memorial was unusual. The flag motif on the hydrant was probably painted after the terrorist attack. If you look carefully wound town, you can find some Bicentennial hydrants from 1976, though many of them have likely been repained since the page was composed in 2003.

Engine 72, a modern fire station on East Tremont between Dewey and Sampson, designed by architect Arthur Witthoeft in 1971. I don’t know much about Witthoeft, but he had a spectacular, Wright-esque home in Armonk, NY.

East Tremont Avenue begins to look almost suburban, as you approach the south end, between Miles and Lawton Avenues.

I found the curved tower of St. Frances de Chantal Church, East Tremont and Harding Avenues, reminiscent of the facade of St. Brendan’s in Norwood, which is supposed to resemble the prow of a ship. This could be intentional as we are now getting close to the East River. The parish was formally established in 1927, with the current building completed in 1970.

Brendan was a sailor and navigator and journeyed to what he called ”the island of the blessed” or St. Brendan’s Island, considered by some to be the Faeroe Islands, Iceland, or even further west to Newfoundland, making him the first European to visit North America, centuries before the Norse made it. At this remove, anything can only be speculation.

St. Frances de Chantal, meanwhile, was a 17th Century Frenchwoman who became a nun after her husband was killed in a hunting accident and went on to found the Visitation order.

Had the city wanted to name a street for longtime St. Frances pastor Monsignor John Halpin today, it would have added a second sign to Silver Beach Place. Back in 1983, though, the city went “all the way” and completely renamed the street, removing Silver Beach Place signage. The street runs two blocks from East Tremont Avenue and Throgs Neck Boulevard and hosts the parish elementary school, cenacle (nuns’ residence) and rectory (priests’).

I mentioned Bicentennial hydrants earlier. Here’s a genuine item, on Msgr. Halpin Place.

East Tremont Avenue’s southern progress ends at Schurz Avenue, before it can reach the East River, at the ritzy wedding and event venue, Marina del Rey.

Schurz Avenue was named for Carl Schurz (1829-1906), who by 1848 was a doctoral candidate at the University of Bonn, joined strenuous opposition to the Prussian government then in power. He wound up imprisoned but escaped to France, then England, and finally the USA in 1852. Among his many accomplishments here were his rise to a Civil War generalship, US Senator from Missouri (1869-1875), Rutherford Hayes’ Secretary of the Interior (1877-81), editor of the New York Tribune and Harper’s Weekly. Upon his death in 1906, a monument at West 116th Street and Morningside Drive was commissioned by prominent lawyer Joseph Choate, who raised $93,000 for it.

What do the premier British supergroup The Who have to do with the Carl Schurz monument? This FNY page explains.

Heading east on Schurz Avenue, it becomes sidewalk-free east of Hollywood Avenue, as it borders…

…the private enclave, Silver Beach, which runs past the East River shore from Throgs Neck Boulevard to Jasmine Place, past a multitude of tiny homes originally built as summer dwellings but have since been winterized, along a cliff which affords terrific views of the nearby Throgs Neck Bridge and looking west, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge and the towers of Manhattan beyond it. Were it not for those reminders, you would think you were in a small town along the seashore, which Silver Beach pretty much is. Only politically does the Bronx claim it. Home-owners own shares in the Silver Beach Corporation, and pay a monthly maintenance fee, which includes real estate taxes. Silver Beach is a mix of co-op and private ownership; the land used to be rented, but the residents pooled their resources and bought the land from the owners a few decades ago.

In these riverside, or Long Island Sound-side (depending on what side of the Throgs Neck Bridge you’re on) there’s a conscious attempt to de-New Yorkify the surroundings, since in Silver Beach, the street names can be found on wooden boards nailed onto the telephone poles, and the streetlamps aren’t the standardized New York city issue. It all combines to impart a rather surreal, if still pleasing, effect.

The enclave seems to be better guarded than previously, with locked gates. I was able to enter it in 1999 and in 2007, when I wrote this FNY page, which also chronicles the long-gone Charlie’s Inn on Harding Avenue.

Pennyfield Avenue, the main road to the State University of New York Maritime College and Fort Schuyler. Throgs Neck Bridge is visible to the southeast, especially before the trees fill in. It has been called Throgs Neck Road and Fort Road, but its present name comes from the colonial era, when local Native Americans sold the territory for one English penny, desiring the metal. George Washington and accompanying horsemen were surprised by a British warship in the East River on this road during the Revolution and had to gallop for cover.

Whenever I pass the guarded Chaffee Avenue entrance to Silver Beach I check on this scroll-mast telephone pole streetlight mast, left over from the early 20th Century; I’m glad it’s still there. I also like the ranch house and brick sidewalk at Chaffee and Pennyfield. The avenue is named for Union Civil War general Adna Chaffee (1842-1914).

Glennon Place, where I waited 45 minutes on Saturday for the Bx40 Tremont Avenue bus back to the train, is one of five Bronx streets, Chaffee Avenue, Hatting Place, Glennon, Giegerich Place and Tierney place, cut in two pieces by Hammond Creek, an inlet of the East River. Maps from the 1960s show the creek filled in and the streets continuous, but the feat was never accomplished.

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10/20/2024