The Bronx, NY

Welcome to The Bronx

The only borough contiguous with the mainland of the United States, the Bronx was named for Jonas Bronck who established a settlement in the area in 1639. The Bronx’s main thoroughfare, the Grand Concourse, was conceived as part of the City Beautiful movement. It was designed by immigrant engineer Louis Aloys Risse and modeled on Paris’ Champs Élysées.

Nationally recognized institutions in the borough include the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo. The Botanical Garden, which possesses a landmarked conservatory, library, fountain and tulip tree allée, also contains the City’s largest stand of old-growth forest on its grounds. The borough’s 400-acre Woodlawn Cemetery, established in 1893, is registered as a National Historic Landmark and is where many of the City’s notable people, from suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman, are interred.

The 1848 High Bridge, a relic of the Croton Aqueduct, which spans the Harlem River, was considered an engineering marvel at the time. It links the Bronx to northern Manhattan and was recently reopened to the public as a park in 2015. City Island, in the Long Island Sound, retains the feel of a small New England town, with numerous seafood restaurants and facilities catering to boaters. Finally, the “Boogie Down Bronx” is famed as the birthplace of Hip Hop and fostered the musical and cultural movement in the 1970s.