Unloved by the neighbors, just like its poor brother over at Spring Creek
Nearly a century ago, in 1914 or 1915, the southernmost stretch of the Bronx River, seen here from the shore of Soundview Park, stood in for the frigid north Atlantic during the shooting of a film re-enactment of the Titanic disaster. According to our old friend John McNamara:
Carpenters built a realistic hull of the transatlantic liner, complete to portholes and lifeboats, which was then anchored in the river. Extras were hired, provided they knew how to swim, and the final touch was a replica of an iceberg — a jagged combination of wood and canvas, painted a dazzling white, that was towed past the Titanic.You can read Mr. McNamara's article in its entirety here. (The "work-shops, dressing-rooms and studios" it mentions were located just across the river in Hunts Point.)
Actual filming was done at night under flares and arc-lights, and Hunts Pointers on shore watched the extras diving and jumping overboard, the repeated scenes of life-boats being lowered, and the sinking of the big ship. This last was accomplished by having the Titanic collapse in horizontal sections until the funnels were at waterlevel. The scenes were shot over and over again, until the wet actors and actresses shook with cold despite the mild weather.
Virgil is hardly the only representative of Greco-Roman antiquity out here on the streets of Castle Hill. His companions include Homer (Avenue), Cincinnatus (Avenue), Caesar (Place), and Cicero (Avenue). According to John McNamara's History in Asphalt, these roadways were given their classical appellations by an early 20th-century realtor named Solon L. Frank.
I've probably seen around 400 of these things by now, and I still have absolutely no clue who puts them up.
The name is supposed to sound vaguely Danish, and the cartons once featured a map of southern Scandinavia, but this ice cream company was born right here in da Bronx, and "Häagen-Dazs" is just a bunch of jibberish that means as little in any Nordic language as it does in English. In fact, the umlaut and the digraph "zs" do not even exist in Danish!
Opened in 1942 for the families of World War II servicemen, this development of 43 low-rise apartment buildings was the first public housing project in the Bronx.
In the 1920s, James Novelli "was much in demand as a sculptor of funeral and public monuments"; among other works, he created three war memorials in the city during that decade. With the onset of the Great Depression, however, his "career languished, and after growing increasingly despondent, Novelli took his own life in 1940."
Sadly, as we've seen, his artwork hasn't fared much better over the years. The Winfield War Memorial (a.k.a. Victorious America) has been repeatedly damaged by automobiles, getting decapitated in 1989 and dragged onto the BQE in 2001. And the Saratoga Park War Memorial had its bronze scrolls stolen in 1970, which proved to be just a prelude for the theft, three decades later, of its half-ton centerpiece, a statue that was later found cut up into hundreds of pieces.
There has, thankfully, been one exception to this trend of drama and disfigurement: Novelli's 1928 Clason Point World War I Memorial, above. 85 uneventful years and counting!
This '87 Jeep is now old enough to qualify for "Historical" license plates in New York State.
