Did you know that, at least according to the New York Jewish Week, the Bronx was once the city’s most Jewish borough but is now the least?
The outlet hopes to shed light on that exact history, also delving into the origins of the borough’s Grand Concourse—the 5.2-mile-long thoroughfare that runs through the Bronx—in a new 90 minutes walking tour led by Sophia Maier, co-founder of the Bronx Jewish Oral History Project.
Tickets for the tour, set to kick off at 11:30am on August 4, are available for $25 plus some fees right here. Let’s hope that, by then, this incessant heat wave will no longer be defining our every waking moment in NYC.
“The Grand Concourse was built during the golden age of the Jewish Bronx in the beginning of the 20th century, and it was home to a predominantly Jewish middle-to-upper class neighborhood in the 1940s and 1950s, full of professionals and their families,” reads the event’s official description. “With its broad streets, art deco design and large apartments, it was the promised land for many upwardly mobile Jewish Bronx residents during that time period.”
Although the majority of monuments and buildings are still there, the genetic makeup of the broough looks very different these days. What turned things around? Where did all the Jews go to? Would they consider ever moving back to the borough? Similar questions will be explored throughout the tour, which will make stops at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (formerly, the Young Israel of the Concourse) and the Andrew Freedman House (a landmark that’s now an artist hub), among other venues.
A few things to keep in mind: the tour will be entirely on foot so make sure to wear comfortable shoes. It will also happen rain or shine, so check the weather and pack an umbrella if precipitation is expected.
An exact starting point address will be sent to you after you buy your ticket but we already know where the shindig will conclude: the formerly kosher Court Deli on 161st Street for an “optional lunch.”
Sounds like the perfect mid-summer weekend walk to us.
