francebrun

Albany Crescent is literally a crescent, it starts at Bailey Avenue. It curves westward around in a crescent until it reaches Bailey Avenue again, near 233rd Street. While mainly residential, with apartment buildings, there is an irish bar on the corner of 231st street, and next to that, quite unexpectedly, a Chinese Buddhist temple, called the Temple of Enlightenment. I live near here, but I have never visited that temple, or seen anyone coming and going, and it is surprising to find this here, where there is no Chinese population that I have ever seen.

There is a gas station where Albany Crescent ends at Bailey Avenue, and a firehouse across the street from the gas station, on Bailey Avenue itself. Part of Albany Crescent has buildings only on the east side of the street, as the west side is the Major Deegan Expressway. I happen to like this area a lot, but I suspect that between the gas station, firehouse, and the parkway, it might tend to be a bit noisy right there if you lived in one of those buildings.

Here's the trivia part: It is called Albany crescent, because not too far from here was the old Albany Post Road, which connected with what is now Kingsbridge Road, during colonial and revolutionary times. That road, as you might imagine, brought the post, or the mail, all the way to Albany, the state capitol. Trust me, I'm a licensed tour guide, and the Bronx is a very historical area!

Post Road starts by Manhattan College Parkway, right by the end of the number one subway. It is a short walk from Van Cortlandt Park. The first part of it, as you go up the hill, gets a lot of traffic, because many people use it to travel up to Riverdale Avenue. It is also one of the main roads to the Horace Mann School, and it can be very busy at the beginning and ending of the school day.

The Irish Christian Brothers, connected with nearby Manhattan College, have a building here that looks like a nice apartment building, and there is another very nice, pre-war building facing onto the street. There are many trees. This is a very quiet and out of the way place, but very close to transportation and the park.

Post Road does end behind Horace Mann School, and pick up again several blocks north, where it is a quiet area with single family homes in the $800,000 range.

Kimberly Place is a small street that originates at Godwin Terrace and ends one short block east of Broadway. It's two blocks long. The block between Godwin Terrace and Broadway has an apartment building on the corner, a public school across the street, and the end that joins Broadway is just the side of an electronics store and a diner, making that apartment building the only building with an address on Kimberly Place. I often find parking on this little street. On the east side of Broadway, the street ends in a public parking lot, the kind where you park yourself and keep the keys. On the other side of the parking lot is the Deegan Expressway. Perhaps Kimberly place was once longer, before they built the expressway.

The biggest draw to this area is convenience, as it is near the 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, and 20 buses, and the number one subway, not to mention all kinds of shopping, such as supermarkets, 99 cent stores, electronics, home accessories, pet store, walgreen's, duane reade, restaurants, and post office.

Naples Terrace originates at Kingsbridge Road, and ends in a dead end, two blocks further on. It's the kind of street that you find in the Bronx, just a block away from a commercial area, that gives you a private feel. This is due to the dead end.

Naples Terrace is lined with really nice, pre-war buildings, many of which have large courts at their entrances, where the supers plant nice plants and there are flowers in summer. The apartments are nice, and the ones that face east and south onto 231st street have plenty of light. Naples Terrace is one of the step streets of the Bronx and upper Manhattan. Due to the terrain, the street itself ends and there is a long staircase leading down to Broadway. There is another one on Godwin Terrace, leading down to 231st Street. These steps are part of the character of the neighborhood, and a great added convenience if you don't mind climbing stairs.

When you are here, you are just one block away from so many conveniences, like the Stop n' Shop, Staples, 99 cent stores galore, dry cleaners, restaurants, drug stores, etc. Many doctors have their offices in these buildings on Naples Terrace and on Kingsbridge Avenue. I think you would like it if you were looking for something residential, yet close to everything.

When I first moved to this area, I was hoping to get an apartment on Naples Terrace, but I found something else nearby before I could get in there. But I would recommend it to anyone as being nice, safe, and convenient.

Manhattan College Parkway, predictably, gets it name from Manhattan College. It begins on the East at Broadway, right where the number one subway ends. There are no buses that go up there, so you would have to take a taxi, as it probably wouldn't be practical to walk unless you were going only part way.

In the beginning, there are some apartment buildings and a restaurant, and then you get to some really lovely apartment buildings and a home for the elderly. You will pass Manhattan College on your right. Then the road bears left and heads up the hill.

Like most of Riverdale, Manhattan College Parkway is green and leafy. As you continue on, you start coming to beautiful big private houses, many of them selling for much more than a million dollars, even in this market. Riverdale is a place that is in the city but still maintains a suburban feel. The drawback is the lack of public transportation, but at the same time, that's also part of it's charm and contributes to the suburban feel. Unless you are a kid, this will not be an issue for you if you live here, as I am sure that all residents have at least one car, a necessity in this neck of the woods.

Greyston Avenue is a street that starts unobtrusively at Waldo Avenue and goes through part of Riverdale. Towards the Waldo Avenue side, you have shopping on the main road, Riverdale Avenue. There is a small market there, a bakery, a liquor store and a drug store, also some restaurants and a pub.

Greyston Avenue itself is mainly residential, mostly nice apartment buildings. Very quiet, and a nice place to walk or take the kids to play, as there is a playground there, McLaughlin playground. It has playground equipment, benches, and game tables, and it's a big attraction for people with young children. Like most of Riverdale, Greyston Avenue has a lot of trees and is a quiet, residential area.

This street tends to be much busier with traffic than the surrounding area of Marble Hill, which is a bit quieter. There are three good things about this street. One is that it is very convenient to transportation. Metro North stops here, the number one subway is on the corner, and several buses go by, to Manhattan and other parts of the Bronx.

The next good thing about it is that it is convenient to shopping. There is a Target on the next street, along with an Applebee's, Marshall's, and some other stores. There is a Planet Fitness across Broadway.

The third good thing is the great view of the Hudson, Columbia University's Baker Field, and Inwood Hill Park, because this street is right on the North River.

Drawbacks would be that it can be kind of noisy and there can be some drama on the street from time to time, on the corner of Broadway. Not much in the way of nightlife here, but why do you need that when Manhattan is so close by?

Corlear Avenue, like Van Corlear Place, was named for the Van Corlear family, early Dutch settlers in the area. Van Corlear was the man chosen by Governor Peter Stuyvesant to travel to the mainland for reinforcements when New Amsterdam was threatened by the British. This incident was written about by Washington Irving in his famous book, "Father Knickerbocker's History of New York".

This having been said, modern day Corlear Avenue is probably not much more exciting than it was in the days when Anthony Van Corlear was running back and forth into Manhattan. It is just another one of the residential streets of the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx. The advantage, as Mr. Van Corlear and his family knew, is that you are very close to Manhattan. Modern day residents will find that the number 1 subway is a couple of blocks away, and the number 1, 10, and 7 buses stop on intersecting 231st street. You can also catch the number 9 bus on Broadway. The 7 will take you to the A train, so you can get almost anywhere pretty quickly by local standards.

There is also good shopping in the area, with services such as dry cleaners and nail salons, as well as a Stop n' Shop and a Target.

Kingsbridge Avenue originates at Terrace View Avenue, in the Marble Hill section of the Bronx. Marble Hill was at one time a part of the island of Manhattan, but was cut off when a shipping channel was dug.

Kingsbridge is so named because it once led to the first bridge connecting the island of Manhattan with the mainland. It was called the King's Bridge. (This was before the Revolutionary War.) It was via the King's Bridge that George Washington re-entered Manhattan after the British left for the last time. This is the basis for the name of the entire area, the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx.

Modern-day Kingsbridge Avenue is mainly residential, and for most of it, lined with apartment buildings of five or six storeys. Many of them are walk-up buildings, built in the early part of the twentieth century. The main shopping area is 231st street, with many small stores and service businesses, such as dry cleaners and nail salons. There is a branch of the New York Public Library on 231st Street. There is a Target and a Stop n' Shop in the neighborhood. The Fiftieth Police Precinct is located on the corner of Kingsbridge Avenue near its end at 238th Street.

Godwin Terrace is a comparatively short street, located in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx. It starts at W. 230th Street and runs north for several blocks. When it crosses 231st Street, it has a section with a typical feature of this part of the Bronx-the step street. You have to go up a long flight of stairs to get to the next section.

The best thing about Godwin Terrace is its extreme convenience. You are one block from the #1 Subway, and you can easily catch the 7, 10, 20, or 9 buses, which will take you all over the Bronx and into Manhattan. The number 7 bus will take you to the A train in Upper Manhattan. You also have many stores there. On 231st street, you have Chinese restaurants and chicken places, bodegas, nail salons, tailors, dry cleaners, a Dunkin' Donuts, coffee shops, newsstands, and a branch of the New York Public Library. Nearby there is a Walgreen's, a Duane Reade, a Stop n' Shop, and a Staples. If you like the gym, there is a Bally's on 231st Street, and a place called Astral Fitness on 230th Street, which is very nice. You are also not far from Van Cortlandt Park, which has all kinds of facilities, such as a municipal golf course, a free public swimming pool (outdoors), handball courts, and plenty of trails.

There are many bars in the neighborhood, and a couple of them have music, but I have never gone to any of them.