| Edification value |  |
|---|---|
| Entertainment value |  |
| Should you go? | |
| Time spent | 17 minutes |
| Best thing I saw or learned | Samantha Holmes’s piece for Starlight Park, made of carousel horses rising out of the earth, like a zombie amusement ride or the merry-go-round of the apocalypse.
 The model is sort of slapdash charming, I trust the real one will be more impressive. |
Founded in 1987, the Bronx River Art Center (BRAC for short) occupies a building indeed located right next to the Bronx River. It just reopened after a thorough renovation, with a distinctive paint job that features terrific branding and makes it very easy to spot from the West Farms Square elevated station.
BRAC serves its community as a performance, exhibition, and studio space, and includes a small art gallery in its lobby.
The gallery at the Bronx River Art Center is fairly plain. I have no idea what it looked like pre-renovation, but post-renovation it’s a neutral, nondescript space. Big windows look out onto busy East Tremont Street. Continue reading “Bronx River Art Center”
It’s a unique hybrid of art deco and Egyptian Revival, complete with an awesome, streamlined, funeral barge.
An assortment of display cases feature Jewish ritual and cultural objects, organized largely by type, with helpful explanations for those not conversant with them. I expect most Hebrew Home residents would have more than passing familiarity with Jewish rites and tradition. I appreciated that the curators include rare random visitors like me as part of the intended audience.
If you’re looking for Judaica, there are better and more convenient institutions to visit. However, the collection gains unique significance by virtue of its location. Jewish or not, if you’re planning to grow old someday you might find it worthwhile visiting the place, the art, and the residents.
The Museum of Bronx History occupies the 1758 Valentine-Varian House. Ten years younger than the 
Both New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers alike tend to think of the Bronx as entirely, unremittingly gray: paved urban overdevelopment at its very worst. In reality, the Bronx features large expanses of green.
The wall text observes that since the 1954 Hague Convention, walking off the battlefield with lost coin collections is no longer Kosher. So it’s lucky Fordham acquired its when it did.
Tucked away in the main library at Fordham University’s Bronx campus is an unexpected little museum of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art, which opened in 2007. William and Jane Walsh donated their collection of about 270 objects to the school, the thought being that having a small museum of classical antiquity close at hand might inspire students pursuing a liberal arts education.
As a Columbia alum, I’m slightly jealous. I can imagine the resonance of reading Sophocles, Thucydides, or Cicero in the presence of objects from the cultures that shaped those works. Then again, our library is 
The Fordham Museum offers a quiet, competent display of an interesting collection in a beautiful academic setting. It’s great if you like communing with art solo: a kid studying was the only other person when I went. And a guard popped in briefly to make sure I wasn’t pilfering votive objects.
Baby Bootlegger was a 1924, 29-foot 10-inch speedboat with a 240 horsepower engine. She was designed by George F. Crouch, built by Henry B. Nevins of City Island, and owned by Caleb Bragg. She won the Gold Cup in 1924 and 1925 and I’m sure no rum was ever run in her.
In addition to various books, copies of Yachting magazine going back to the 1930s, and neat ship models, the library currently houses a temporary show of local artwork memorializing the City Island Bridge, recently torn down.
Then again, I have to say much of the collection feels random and not very important. For example, the museum has an array of outboard motors that look like they date to the 1940s-1960s. Whose outboard motors were they? Are they historically important for some reason? Who made them and why? There’s a case of arrowheads. A bunch of old bottles. Old cameras. Nothing feels…documented. The artifacts kind of tell a City Island story, in that they all presumably were used there at some point. But they don’t tell it in coherently. And they crowd out things that would give a better understanding of the island’s people and times.
Long ago (1654) and far away (under an oak tree on what is now the frontier of the Bronx), a, Englishman named Thomas Pell signed a treaty with the local Siwanoy/ Lenape Indian tribe. He gained ownership of either 9,166 acres (City of New York, Friends of Pelham Bay Park, other reputable sources) or 50,000 acres (Bartow-Pell Mansion printout, Wikipedia) of land. While his descendants sold off the massive holding over time, in 1836 Robert Bartow, scion of the Bartow-Pell family, bought back part of the original estate and started building a fine country house and working farm on it. In 1842, he and his wife Maria Lorillard Bartow, their seven kids, and assorted Irish servants moved out from the filth and hubbub of New York City. The family resided there for over 40 years.
A scale model of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in full swing during World War II. I can only imagine the hours and focus and attention it required YNC Leo J. Spiegel USN (Ret.) to build it. Scaled at 1 inch = 50 feet, it depicts 46 naval vessels (all called out by name on a sign below), 273 shipyard buildings, 8 piers, 6 drydocks, and 659 homes in the surrounding area. 
That’s Schuyler as in General Philip Schuyler, father of the Angelica, Elizabeth, and Peggy Schuyler and so Alexander Hamilton’s father-in-law. It’s a tenuous Hamilton connection, but I’ll take it.
Finally, I discovered a door with a small brass plate. This may be the most stealthy museum I’ve yet visited. I tried the door, and it opened. So in I went.
