In SoBro, finding hidden ties to iconic Washington

By Andrea Stone January 29 at 5:26 PM

In 1981, the year Steve and I left New York, they made a movie about the place we grew up: Fort Apache, the Bronx. It was a violent cop drama. The South Bronx wasnt pretty, it wasnt safe, and it wasnt where we wanted to be.

Fast forward to now. My husband and I emerge from the subway at Third Avenue and 138th Street to meet Lloyd Ultan, the septuagenarian borough historian and go-to guy for all things Bronx. We are excited to be back.

Ive asked Lloyd, an author of the forthcoming book The Bronx: The Ultimate Guide to New York Citys Beautiful Borough, to show us around this part of SoBro because of its little-known connections to the city weve lived in for 30 years: Washington, D.C.

I already feel a quirky geographical connection to a couple of famous Bronx-born Washingtonians. As a girl, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor lived at 940 Kelly St., a few doors down from future Secretary of State Colin Powell, at 952. Before either of them, though, my grandparents, father, aunt and uncles lived a few blocks down, at 851 Kelly, now a park.

The Bronx made all of us. But it also made two all-but-forgotten Founding Fathers and some of the most iconic structures in our nations capital.

Lloyd begins our journey in the heart of gritty, industrial Mott Haven, the place where the Bronx began. Standing in the shadow of the Major Deegan Expressway, we stop at a complex of red brick buildings on the west side of Third Avenue near the Harlem River and look up at a ghostly sign: J. L. Mott Iron Works. Jordan L. Mott, inventor of the coalburning stove, established a foundry here in 1828, giving the area his name and launching one of Americas earliest industrial parks.

Before World War I, German immigrants made the Bronx the piano manufacturing capital of the United States. The old Estey Piano company, housed in the landmark Clocktower building, is now home to artists studios.

The South Bronx may be, based on the 2010 Census, the poorest congressional district in the nation, but on Bruckner Boulevard, along a well-established Antiques Row, signs of gentrification are everywhere. A freshly painted mural on a new gallery advertises an exhibit of 1970s and 80s Bronx graffiti artists.

Across the street, scaffolding envelops a former furniture store being turned into market-rate apartments. The building sits on the site where the first European settler, Jonas Bronck, built his farmhouse in 1639. The only New York City borough attached to the mainland is named for the Swedish sea captain. I know that because I wrote a paper about him in third grade.

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In SoBro, finding hidden ties to iconic Washington