Parkchester

HOUSING WORKS The Parkchester complex, here and right, is filled with surprises.

Plus:

• Endangered zones: The Bronx

This is no ordinary housing project. Though it isn’t talked about much now, the Parkchester apartment complex (Metropolitan Ave between Castle Hill and Westchester Aves) was once celebrated for its whimsical design and middle-class comfort. Developed in 1939 by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (which also constructed the middle-class bastion Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan), Parkchester is alive with decorative detail. While walking through the complex along Metropolitan Avenue and its accompanying streets, cast your gaze up to the facades and doorways; you’ll see a squeezebox player, a fireman readying a hose, a shapely dancer, a child embracing a goose and many other entertaining terra-cotta figures fashioned by the Seaboard Terra Cotta Corporation.

After your Parkchester promenade, head east on Westchester Avenue about 14 blocks (or take the subway to the Westchester Sq–East Tremont Ave stop) to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church(2500 Westchester Ave at Rowland St). This impressive sanctuary was designed in 1855 by Leopold Eidlitz, when the area was an isolated country village along the Westchester Turnpike, and then rebuilt in 1877, following a fire. Make sure to inspect the ancient churchyard, where stones from the 1600s and 1700s are topped with angels and skulls (skulls typically symbolized death, sin or the flight of the soul; this somewhat morbid practice was dropped in the early 18th century).

Nearby Westchester Square, one of the Bronx’s main crossroads, is also steeped in history: It was the site of a major Revolutionary War skirmish and recently celebrated its 350th birthday, making it one of the oldest enclaves in the borough. (That empty chair in the square is an unusual sculpture titled Seat, installed in 1987 by New York City–born artist David Saunders.) Look over to Lane Avenue between Westchester Avenue and Benson Street and note the small, dark brownstone with a chiseled 18 on one side of the arched door and a 90 on the other, indicating the date it was built. This is the Huntington Free Library and Reading Room(9 Westchester Sq, 718-829-7770), given to the community by local resident Peter Van Schaick; its architect, Frederick Withers, also designed the alluringly eclectic Jefferson Market Library in GreenwichVillage. The reading room here (open weekdays by appointment) features a large, fascinating map of Throgs Neck in the 1850s, drawn by the late Bronx historian John McNamara, and a visitors’ register with some well-known names, including that of Booker T. Washington (who dropped by in 1892 and 1894). History wonks will delight in seeing the piping for the room’s original gas lighting, visible near a bookshelf.

A brief walk up Williamsbridge Road from Westchester Square will reveal a final glimpse of the bygone Bronx: a three-story structure clad in glazed white brick, featuring a dramatic arched entrance topped by a terra-cotta lyre and tragedy mask. The Bronx has perhaps the five boroughs’ greatest population of converted theaters; this building was intended to be a grand theater during the silent-film era, but the money ran out and the curtain never rose (apartments and stores now fill the space). The locals, appreciative of this architectural quirk in their midst, call it “the White Elephant.”

Subway: 6 to E 177th St–Parkchester. Bus: Bx4 on Westchester Ave.