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3893 Waldo Avenue – Designed by Kutnicki Bernstein Architects, is located in the Riverdale section of The Bronx at 3893 Waldo Avenue. The structure will rise five stories above ground and measure 41,177 square feet with 29 rental units. A small portion of the property will support unspecified community facility space.The building features a simple red brick façade that is set above light-colored masonry at the ground floor.
<p style=”text-align: center;”>According to John McNamara in his great work, “History in Asphalt”, Bradley Terrace received it’s name in 1927. The NYC engineering department had no information why that name was given.</p>
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 )
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
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.
Dear Alan, Charles Buck only took photo’s of prominent buildings and mansions. I am sure the 1909 image on the postcard is it. The wedding was in 1914 and there was not that many houses with that footprint. McKelvey died in 1947 and I am sure his estate sold the last house “Bonnie Brae” before that. The other projects, Rosa Bonheur, 1924,Villa Brontë, 1926, Villa Victoria in 1926 In 1933, Mr. McKelvey lost Villa Victoria in foreclosure, and the Rosa Bonheur co-op failed in 1941. John McKelvey said that his father “made a lot of money, and he lost a lot of money — almost everything in the building of the Villa Victoria — but he was able to regroup, and he always took it day by day.” From 1933-1941 it was probably developed. The Houses that are near “Bonnie Brae” are substantial but built in the 1940 – 1970’s
John Jay (J.J.) McKelvey was born Sunday, 24 May 1863, in Sandusky, Ohio, to the parents of John McKelvey and Jane Rowland Huntington McKelvey. J.J.’s paternal grandparents were Matthew McKelvey and Nancy Adams McKelvey, and his paternal great-grandparents were William McKelvey and Mary Toppings McKelvey along with Bildad Adams and Mary Hines Adams. William McKelvey of Scotch-Irish American, Revolutionary War regality removed with an assembly after the war to the Western Reserve; where John McKelvey fashioned and financed Sandusky and a section of its first short line railroad, which eventually enveloped by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Whereas, J.J.’s maternal grandparents were Apollos Huntington and Deborah Rowland Huntington with his maternal great-grandparents being American Revolutionary War soldier Elisha Huntington and Esther Ladd Huntington and great-grandparents of the William Rowland lineage. J.J.’s five siblings included: Janet Huntington McKelvey Swift, Alice Rowland McKelvey Milne, Jennie Adams McKelvey, Charles Sumner McKelvey, and Ralph Huntington McKelvey. J.J.’s sister Alice and father John helped document their family’s English and Welsh pedigree, colonial ancestors, war-time service, and Fire Lands migration.[7]
After successfully completing his college course, J.J. initially married Mary Clark Mattocks on 12 July 1887 in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, at the bride’s childhood home.[8] Before settling into their described “Bonnie Brae” on the Hudson River at Spuyten Duyvil, J.J. and Mary visited her mother in Los Angeles, California to consolidate contiguous land for the completion of their estate on Palisade Avenue, New York City.[9]
A cherished piece of Spuyten Duyvil’s past could be in jeopardy. And while the Villa Rosa Bonheur might not be completely obliterated, it could be fundamentally changed.
Kevin McDermott, who’s lived in the neighborhood for more than a decade, wanted to know what was happening to the Villa Rosa Bonheur on Palisade Avenue near the Spuyten Duyvil train station, a charming, stony structure clinging to the cliff side under the Henry Hudson Bridge.
Built in 1924 as a co-operative by John J. McKelvey — a lawyer, writer and developer, who also was the first editor-in-chief of the Harvard Law Review — the seven-unit apartment building hit the market last year, according to published reports.
McKelvey — who also built the Villa Rosa Bonheur’s sisters, the Villa Charlotte Brontë and Villa Victoria around the same time — had more than money on his mind when he created what would be Riverdale’s first apartment houses. Alarmed by what he called the encroaching “city ugly” — the wave of high-rise development spreading through northern Manhattan and other parts of the Bronx at the time — McKelvey’s answer, according to the Lehman College Art Gallery, was to construct cooperative apartments resembling villas made up of individually owned duplex and triplex studio homes.
The marriage of Lowell H. Brown, a son of Mr. and Mrs. Archer Brown of East Orange, N.J., and Miss Constance McKelvey, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Jay McKelvey, took place yesterday in Edgehill Church, Spuyten Duyvil, and was followed by a reception at Bonnie Brae, the McKelvey country home. October 11, 1914, Page 11
Since the Buck postcard is from cir 1910, I also looked at the 1888 – 1914 map.
I do like that image and the way the lower house is in the appx angle from the main house. Take a look. Thank you, Tom
Yes, the small yellow house below Highpoint does look like a match.
Great detective work, now to find out who was the owner and if a photo can be found. Many Thanks
This is one of my Charles H. Buck titled “Private Residence, Spuyten Duyvil on the Hudson NYC”. I have scanned the area using google views and I do not believe the house is still standing. I have not found any image to identify it either. I am posting the image in hopes that one of our members may have a good lead and or know the address or former owner. Thank you
The writing on the postcard indicates it was either sent by Mrs Ervin of Kingsbridge or that the road in front of the gate leads to Mrs. Ervin’s house.
After searching where I put the Dash’s Lane postcard, I thought it was time to reorganize the Buck section of my 6,736 postcards. There are 37 Buck postcards that have a Bronx connection and an additional 7 that are strictly in Manhattan. The 4 that I am missing are
Spuyten Duyvil swing Bridge (need)
Fordham Club House, Morris Ave and High Bridge Road (need)
Views of Dyckman Homestead on Harlem Ship Canal. Built 1810 (need)
Floating Old Ship Canal Draw Bridge from 221st Street and Broadway to 207th Street ( need)
I added a mystery postcard of a scene in Spuyten Duyvil that I do not know the specific mansion owners name or
specific address.
Posted below is “Scene in Dashe’s Lane, Van Cortlandt, NYC”
I have attached below, a listing of postcards published by Charles H. Buck of Kingsbidge, in the Bronx, with my earliest postmarked 1906:
1 Bailey Avenue, Looking South from West 230 St
2 Broadway and 230th Street as it looked in 1890
3 Bronx Catholic Orphan Asylum (for Girls), Sedwick Avenue & Kingsbridge Road
4 Church of the Mediator, Kings Bridge Ave, Kings Bridge, NY
5 Convent of Jesus Mary, Church St, Kings Bridge, NY
6 Dutch Garden at Van Cortlandt Park
7 Elmhurst Residence of Mr. G.P. Morosini, Riverdale-on-Hudson, NY
8 Engine Co. 52, N.Y. Fire Department, Kings Bridge
9 Engine Company, 81, N.Y.F.D., Kings Bridger, NY
10 Hadley’s or Farmers’ Bridge, Harlem River & Kings Bridge Road
11 Hagman’s Tree, Spuyten Duyvil on the Hudson, New York City
12 Historic Kings Bridge of Revolutionary Days
13 Kings Bridge Police Station, 40 Precinct, Boston Avenue
14 Lake & Boat House, Van Cortlandt Park
15 Looking West from Webb Academy, towards the Palisades, Kings Bridge, NY
16 New York Public Library, Kings Bridge Branch
17 Old Godwin Mansion, 228 St Broadway
18 Old Kings Bridge Hotel. A Popular Road House of Former Days
19 Old Station of the NY Central RR at KingsBridge
20 Old Van Cortlandt Mansion, Van Cortlandt Park
21 Power House, Looking South from 225 St & Broadway
22 Presbyterian Chapel at Spuyten Duyvil, NY
23 Prison Window from the Old Sugar House, in Van Cortlandt Park
24 Private Residence, Spuyten Duyvil on Hudson
25 PS No. 7 – Kings Bridge, N.Y.
26 Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum. ( for Girls) Sedwick Ave and Kingsbridge Road NYC
27 Scene at Van Cortlandt Park – The Old Mill Waterway
28 Scene in Dashe’s Lane, Van Cortlandt, NYC
29 Seton Hospital, Riverdale Ave, Spuyten Duyvil, NY
30 St Stephen’s ME Church, Marble Hill, Kings Bridge
31 Spuyten Duyvil Swing Bridge
32 Temporary Terminus of Subway at 230 St, Kingsbridge, NYC
John Zuricher was a gravestone carver of the mid-to-late eighteenth century. He lived with his wife, Elizabeth Ensler, and their ten children in New York City, but produced gravestones that can be found across the Hudson Valley, Long Island, and New Jersey, and even in Pennsylvania and South Carolina. As a stone mason, he worked on New York City Hall and made milestones for the Albany Post Road.
The stone in the photos above and below was created by Zuricher out of red sandstone for James Wright, who died in 1776. The decoration at the top is a round-faced cherub head with a crown of spiraling curls and quite distinctive wings, in which the feathers are laid out in a grid. There is also some sort of decorative flourish at the very top.
Anyone who has read James Deetz’s masterpiece In Small Things Forgotten can tell you that there are three major phases of gravestone iconography in early New England and New York: death’s head, cherub, and urn and willow. The cherub was a direct descendant of the death’s head, and retained some of its features in a vestigial or reinterpreted state. For instance, that little nub of a chin at the bottom of the cherub’s face evolved out of the jaw of the death’s head – shown in this example. Furthermore, this stone represents the “missing link” between the death’s head and the cherub.
It seems that Zuricher dealt exclusively in cherubs, which would make sense for the time period in which he worked (about 1749 to 1778).
