Streamline Bronx: The Art Deco Gems of Mosholu Parkway

About the Program

For most of its length, Mosholu Parkway is a highway. Built with WPA funds between 1936 and 1941, it connects the Henry Hudson Parkway to Gun Hill Road, part of the massive public works push that reshaped the Bronx during the Great Depression.

From there, it transforms into a bucolic roadway laid out in 1888 under the New Parks Act, joining Bronx Park to Van Cortlandt Park. That same era set the stage for the Art Deco apartment house boom that followed in the late 1930s. But in the 1950s, we nearly lost the parkway when Robert Moses proposed converting it into a multi-lane highway. Thankfully, that plan was abandoned, and the parkway now forms the backdrop for one of the Bronx's densest and most rewarding concentrations of Art Deco apartment houses, on both sides of the parkway and its adjoining streets.

Join us on this walking tour, led by Bronx Art Deco Apartment House Archive (BADAHA.org) founder John Howard, to see important works by Israel Crausman, a master of the Streamline Moderne style, whose apartment houses shaped much of the Bronx skyline. We'll also see the works of Charles Kreymborg and Herbert Lilien, among the most prolific of Bronx Art Deco apartment house architects plus several buildings in the Early Deco, or "transitional," style, a chance to see the genre before it fully found its voice.

The tour includes six buildings rated "Should Be Landmarked" by BADAHA, so join us for this rare opportunity to explore Moshulu Parkway and see potential future landmarks before official recognition catches up.

About the Guide

John Howard, a Bronxite by marriage, has called the borough home since 1985. Originally from the United Kingdom, John was educated there as an architect before moving to New York City, where he built a career in corporate interior construction.

Combining his professional expertise with his passion for Art Deco, John founded the Bronx Art Deco Apartment House Archive (badaha.org), launched in 2024. The project shines a spotlight on the borough’s remarkable Deco apartment buildings and the talented architects who designed them, with the goal of expanding official recognition and strengthening preservation efforts for these architectural treasures.