The Monument before it was moved

[Alan Lasky]

I have a rough guess of where the Monument was built, and where it existed from 1930 to 1936, but would love to find more exact info or perhaps other pictures of the original location.
Rev Tieck’s book has a grainy picture of the tower being moved ca 1936 to make way for the conversion of Spuyten Duyvil Parkway to the Henry Hudson Parkway. Many sources say the move was about 700 feet to the south.
It seems likely to me that there was some raising of some areas around the new HHP, but quite a bit more blasting and digging to lower the new parkway.
Before the HHP, there were not bridges over the Spuyten Duyvil Parkway, as the roads were all on the same level.
This ca 1930 aerial photo from Tieck’s book shows the area just before the construction of the monument. I’ve added my best guesses for addresses of houses that I think correspond, and the yellow circle shows approximately where I think the Monument was originally constructed.

Note that 4550 HHP is the original firehouse #52 as seen in this picture.

This picture from 1934  is the only one I know of the original location of The Monument.
It is labeled “Memorial tower, Fieldston, Riverdale-on-Hudson, N.Y. View from southwest.”

Here is a 1921 Fire Insurance Atlas map with the current location of the Monument at the center of two circles, one 700ft, the larger, 750 ft.

Here are the same two circles, superimposed over a modern map.

Based on all of that, my guess is that The Monument originally stood right about here…

In this view, The Monument would likely be on the lawn of, or possibly overlapping 4502 HHP. Note that 4506 HHP was built in 1905, and it does not show up in the 1934 pic. 4506 is at the left edge of this modern street view. The Monument could also have been a few feet south of the current wall at the edge of 4502, as the service road access from MHC Parkway clearly involved some blasting and earth moving when the HHP was constructed.

Does anyone have any more exact info, or perhaps other pics showing The Monument in its original location?

Here is Tieck’s pic of the tower being moved around the end of 1936.

[Thomas Casey]

Dwight James Baum was the architect…. I wonder where his achives are now?  Great job with maps and images.  I have also long wondered where and when it was moved from originally.

[Peter Ostrander]

Can’t help on the original location. Don’t believe I’ve ever seen a description of the location.  Regarding your first photo. The large building at the top center of the photo is /was the Ben Riley’s Arrowhead Inn a popular nightclub that was open here until 1940. There were actually a few Ben Riley Arrowhead Inns. First up in Saratoga 1890s, then 177th & Ft Washington Ave in 1908 then move to Riverdale then last one in Yonkers, Tuckahoe Rd.  He died in 1944 in a fire where he lived above his Inn in Yonkers.  Some of his friends and guests were Diamond Jim Brady, Lillian Russel, W.C.Fields.

 

[Thomas Casey]

The Dwight James Baum Papers,
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Libraries   does not have a file on the Riverdale Monument.

My old friend Bill Twomey of the Bronx did an article on Baum that was recently republished

[Thomas Casey]

[Thomas Casey]

Peter is correct about the Arrowhead inn.  From my Book “Northwest Bronx” Thomas X. Casey and Bill Twomey

Ben Riley’s Arrowhead Inn was built on a 17-acre site and opened in April 1924 at 246th Street
and Riverdale Avenue. It was designed by Dwight J. Baum. Ben Riley’s establishment closed in
1941 and was transformed for services by Rabbi Charles E. Shulman of the Riverdale Temple
from 1947 to October 1952. The Briar Oak housing complex was then built on the site, and a
new Riverdale Temple was dedicated on September 17, 1954.  see my postcard image ( there are about 16 )

[Thomas Casey]

2019 Aerial view of the Henry Hudson Parkway

[Author]

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