Naming for preservation

The Historic Districts Council in early January 2012 recognized Van Cortlandt Village as a New York City neighborhood in need of preservation. In Van Cortlandt Village, the Fort Independence Park Neighborhood Association has been fighting a handful of land grabs and new housing projects. The community sits atop the ruins of a Revolutionary War fort and was designed by legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. It boasts small Tudor revival homes and during the 1920s became a mecca for socialist factory workers fleeing the tenements of the lower East Side to build cooperative housing. Now that some former co-ops such as the Shalom Aleichem Houses have fallen on hard times and the character of the neighborhood is threatened by overdevelopment, HDC will help FIPNA get it listed on the national historic register, according to Kristin Hart, president of the community group.^[6][7]

Originally named "Yiddish Cooperative Heimgesellschaft",^[6] the historic Shalom Aleichem Houses cooperative housing project was started by socialist Yiddish members of the Socialist and Communist Parties. Construction on the 15-building Neo-Tudor fortress-like structure culminated in 1927. As of January 2014^[update]. The multi-ethnic rental complex is located in what is considered to be the heart of the Van Cortlandt Village community. As part of the Office of the Bronx Borough President's Bronx 2008 historic preservation project, the Shalom Aleichem Co-operative complex is being reviewed for landmark status.^[8]

The community, eventually named for legendary Yiddish author Shalom Aleichem, was founded as one of the country's first housing cooperatives. It failed during the Great Depression and became a rental complex. But the close-knit community produced a generation of successful scientists and artists, and was a virtual neighborhood within a neighborhood. Shalom Aleichem's garden courtyard is still lush and beautiful, tended by its diverse, working class tenants. The complex went through difficult times but in the spring of 2013 was acquired by an owner who has been restoring it to its original grandeur and has proudly renamed the complex, and it is now called the Shalom Aleichem Houses.

Residential

Van Cortlandt Village is a mostly low density residential neighborhood.^[10]

On September 28, 2004, the New York City Department of City Planning approved the rezoning all or portions of 15 blocks in this northwestern Bronx neighborhood (bounded by Van Cortlandt Park South to the north, Fort Independence Park and Sedgwick Avenue to the east, West 231st Street and Albany Crescent to the south, and by Heath Avenue, Fort Independence Street and Orloff Avenue to the west) into Van Cortlandt Village,^[11] which is located within Community District 8.^[12] The zoning changes aimed to preserve the community's low-rise/low-density character by ensuring that new development is compatible in scale, both with the one- and two-family detached homes that prevail in parts of the neighborhood and with the more diverse housing stock in others. The area is predominantly low-density residential, with a significant number of one- and two-family detached and semi-detached houses. Even the multifamily apartment buildings in the area are seldom taller than 70 feet (21 m).^[11]

Its housing stock is diverse, including spacious single-family homes, multiple-family attached homes and postwar co-op buildings. The New York Times describes the area as a "serene enclave of quaint homes, winding streets and abundant trees."^[5] The area is described by Anthony Perez Cassino, a former chairman of Bronx Community Board 8 who helped to rezone the neighborhood, as a "vulnerable" area, owing to the fact that it is more affordable than nearby Riverdale.^[5] A garland of greenery wends through the neighborhood. In the heart of the area, on twisting hilly streets like Giles Place and Cannon Place, are elegant brick homes with porticos and manicured hedges. Along the broader avenues are handsome co-op buildings, capped on the northern end by the Amalgamated Cooperative Houses, one of the city's historically significant co-op complexes. With nearly 1,500 units in 11 buildings, the complex was founded in 1927 by leaders of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, who fashioned it as a sort of proletarian paradise. While some of the descendants of the mostly Jewish immigrants who made up the Amalgamated's original tenants remain, a more diverse collection of residents carry on its legacy, with communal enterprises like children's play groups and art classes.^[8]

As elsewhere in the city, street parking is scarce and some co-ops have resident parking lots.

Commercial

Shopping in the neighborhood is limited to a small but serviceable collection of retailers at the northern end of Sedgwick Avenue.^[10] Shopping was traditionally also available along Jerome Avenue and Broadway.

Close nearby, to the west and southwest of Van Cortlandt Village, two new large commercial shopping malls were constructed and opened in 2014.^[13] The first to open in July 2014 is Riverdale Crossing located at West 237th Street and Broadway, and the second one, opened in fall 2014, is the Broadway Plaza mall located at West 230th Street/Kimberly Place and Broadway.

Parks

The neighborhood abuts Van Cortlandt Park, a 1,110-acre (4.5 km²) swath of forest with various trails and recreational fields.^[14] It is the city's fourth-largest park^[15] and includes the Van Cortlandt Golf Course.^[16] Stretching along part of Sedgwick Avenue is Fort Independence Park, a popular neighborhood spot with handball courts, a basketball court and a playground.^[17]

The Jerome Park Reservoir offers a 2.5-mile (4.0 km) walking-jogging scenic pathway.

Schools

PS 95 on Hillman Avenue serves grades K-8. The Am Park Neighborhood School serves grades PK-5.

The Bronx High School of Science (75 West 205th Street) is about 0.5 miles (0.80 km) from Van Cortlandt Village. DeWitt Clinton High School, is also located nearby on West Mosholu Parkway.

There are various parochial and private schools in the area, including the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Horace Mann School, Riverdale Country School and SAR Academy in Riverdale.

Manhattan College, a small institution of higher education, is located nearby. Lehman College, a senior college that is part of the City University of New York (CUNY), is directly across the Jerome Park Reservoir.

Library

The New York Public Library (NYPL) operates the Van Cortlandt branch at 3882 Cannon Place. The two-story, 5,800-square-foot (540 m²) branch opened in 2019, replacing a smaller one-story branch a few blocks away, which opened in 1969 and consisted of a single room.^[25]