Morrisania, South Bronx (Part 1)

Following our departure from East Harlem’s 110th St. station on the 6 train, we got off at the 125th St. station and transferred to the 4 train. It was my first time taking the subway to the Bronx (I had taken the Metro-North train to Fordham station the very first time) and it was surprisingly crowded for an uptown train.

We quietly made jokes in a corner of the train about having to run to our destination as soon as we reached our stop at 167 St. station. The train emerged from the underground depths as it reached Mott Haven, a neighbourhood that once had a reputation that can only be rivalled by the likes of Brownsville, although I read that South Bronx is starting to gentrify with busloads of tourists visiting the birthplace of hip-hop.

The Bronx, especially South Bronx, used to look like a war zone in the late 20th century. Primarily, this was due to aggressive rent control policies that made it impossible for landlords to make any money from renting out their apartments to current tenants. As a result, the only feasible way out for them was arson, to claim insurance for their apartments and to ensure new tenants move in, so that they can charge current rates.

Back to the present, there were people attempting to enter the subway while others were trying to alight from the tightly packed subway, resulting in one guy declaring that he’s going to punch the next person who gets in before letting people alight first (something that I silently supported), and I recall he almost was ready to fight another person who wanted to pick a fight with him. At this point, I was beginning to doubt whether it was a good idea to take the subway in the end.

Luckily, we reached our stop without any issue at 167 St. station, located in the Morrisania neighbourhood. It was an outdoors station, so we made our way downstairs to the station exit area. There was an MTA staff member standing guard by the emergency exit, possibly to deter fare evaders which I guess might be a more pervasive problem there.

As we exited the station, there was a Baskin Robbins ice cream parlour downstairs, and Gregor grabbed a quick coffee while Arby and I surveyed the area outside. Despite Morrisania being known as a pretty ghetto neighbourhood, the area around us seemed fine enough with everyone going about their own business. Even so, I decided to limit my photo-taking out in the open, just in case.

I recall we walked around a bit but the area we were walking in seemed pretty sketchy, so we did not linger around and decided to head back towards the destination.

As we reached the destination, there was a member of the Open House New York waiting there, and told us the next tour would be in a bit. Apart from the three of us, no one else arrived after us and I took the opportunity to finish up the remainder of my take-away lunch from A Taste of Seafood (which still tasted good albeit slightly cold) on the steps of the building.

Soon, the OHNY staff called out to us and said they were going to start, and I hastily gulped the remainder of the lunch down, vowing to go back to A Taste of Seafood if I was ever in the area again. We made our way to the basement entrance and saw there were a few others already waiting there, although it seems like most people had not bothered venturing into the Bronx for this weekend (Most other OHNY places in Brooklyn and Manhattan were fully booked with snaking queues).

The tour began soon after, and we were soon introduced to the history of the building. It is currently known as the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDco), but it was known as the Morrisania Hospital, which operated from 1926 – 1976, before it was abandoned for two decades and subsequently awarded to WHEDco.

After a brief introduction of the history of the building, we were about to take the elevator to the ninth floor to take in the breath-taking view of New York City. To my knowledge, there are no rooftop bars (at least in South Bronx) in the area, so this would be a rare sight, to be able to see the Yankee Stadium and other skyscrapers that are part of the Manhattan skyline from this angle (the photo of the blog’s cover page is one of the photos I took from here).

I will share short videos and more photos of the view in the next post!