Claremont Park

Bronx, New York

38 acres

Location:

extending from Morris Avenue to Brook Avenue, from E. 170th to E. 174th Streets

History:

"Claremont" was a large estate owned by the Zborowski family.

1852  --  the Village of Claremont established, taking its name from the "Claremont" estate.

1859  -- the owners of the Claremont estate, Elliott and Anna Zborowski de Montsaulain, had a mansion built that overlooked Webster Avenue. The property was beautifully landscape with lawns descending in terraces to the Mill Brook (before Webster Avenue was cut through).

Mullaly (1887:98) described the park this way:  "It is thoroughly country-like and rural, and seems rather a valley in the Catskills than a park in the cilty of New York. . . . it is a lovely valley, lying between hills that border it on the east and west." 

1888 -- A commission purchases Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx Park, Pelham Bay Park, Crotona Park, Claremont Park, St. Mary's Park, Mosholu Parkway, Pelham Parkway, and Crotona Parkway, thereby founding the park system of The Bronx (today covering 24% of the borough's land surface).  Half of Bronx Park and all of Pelham Parkway and Pelham Bay Park were located outside of the city's boundaries of the time.

Around this time, the area as described by Mullaly (1987:98) was "country-like and rural, and seems rather a valley in the Catskills than a park in the city of New York.. . . It is a lovely valley, lying between hills that border it on the east and west."

Once the estate became Claremont Park, the mansion was used by the Parks Department,.

1938  -- the mansion was razed.

Sources:

John Mullaly. 1887. The new parks beyond the Harlem. New York City: Record & Guide.

John McNamara. 1991.   History in Asphalt. Bronx County Historical Society.