Up at the top of this uniquely paved street, on the lot currently occupied by the Edison Arms (that red and beige brick apartment building on the right) once stood Edison Studios, which produced films here in the Bronx from 1907 until the whole operation folded in 1918. Amazingly, you can watch some of the films from that era (along with, even more amazingly, many of the non-narrative "actualities" shot by Edison Studios in the years preceding its move to the Bronx, which offer an incredible view of turn-of-the-century New York, among other places), all of which are now in the public domain. Perhaps the most notable film from the Bronx days is the twelve-minute-long Frankenstein, which can be seen here. (I also found a hilariously obsequious NY Times account of Andrew Carnegie recording a film at Edison in 1914.)
The Dominican Republic's Monumento a los Héroes de la Restauración
Painted more than 80 years ago, this is an ad for the former Bronx borough president, who also served as a congressman earlier in his career. In my past life as an engineer, I spent years working on a major reconstruction of a section of the Bruckner Expressway, but I never had any idea who Bruckner was. Until now!
The pre-eminent 12th-century Torah scholar seemed a bit out of place amongst the assorted pairs of shoes, hotel-grade wall art, and ancient cell phones that composed the bulk of this sidewalk sale.
If you look closely, you can see that the older sign dates back to the days when NYC had a Traffic Department. As far as I can tell, the Department of Traffic was folded into the city's Department of Transportation sometime in the late 1970s or '80s.
For decades, this brave sentry stood guard over, and literally stood in, the Bronx River. In 1970, he was reassigned here, to the grounds of the Valentine-Varian House, which was built in 1758 and is now home to the Museum of Bronx History.
On the evening of October 29, 1945, 9-year-old Joseph Vitolo saw a vision of the Virgin Mary hovering above this rocky outcropping on the Grand Concourse. She instructed him to return to this spot for 16 consecutive nights to say the rosary. He did as he was told, and, as word began to spread, bigger and bigger crowds showed up for the service each evening. On the 16th night, more than 25,000 people arrived to watch little Joseph, each perhaps hoping for a miracle in his or her own life. (Check out these incredible photos of the throngs of spectators!)
As time went on, the crowds dwindled, but Joseph continued making his nightly pilgrimage on and off for years as he searched for his life's direction. In the '60s, he married a woman he met at the shrine, and another worshiper bought the house next to the shrine and became its caretaker, sprucing things up a bit with statues, signs (one of which reads, "This place is for praying only!"), plantings, and walkways. These days, Joseph's body is failing him, and he can only make it up the stairs to the shrine every once in a while. With his wife now deceased, he has considered moving out of New York, but he just can't bring himself to leave the shrine, so integral is its presence in his life.
Just a few blocks from the Queen of the Universe Shrine, this church is where Joseph Vitolo's family came to worship.