The Jerome Park Racetrack - 1886 to 1894

 

The Jerome Park Racetrack became the site of the Croton Aqueduct Reservoir

 

The Jerome Park Racetrack was a thoroughbred horse racing facility that was built on the Bathgate estate in the Northwest part of Fordham, Westchester County (later, the Bronx, see map above) by New York by financier Leonard W. Jerome and August Belmont, Sr. and opened in 1866. A clubhouse occupied a rise on the East end of the property that looked over the race course. Jerome Park Racetrack closed on Oct 4, 1894 to make way for the Croton Aqueduct Reservoir that was to be built on the racetrack site.  August Belmont, Jr. relocated his father's racing operations and the Bemont Stakes race, (named to honor his father),  to Morris Park Racecourse in 1890  after the death Mr. Belmont, Senior.  No doubt, that August Belmont, Jr. had a hand in the selection of the site for the reservoir. The Jerome Park Railway was built in 1880 as the result of the influence of the director of the Jerome Park Racetrack, August Belmont Sr. The Jerome Park RR Right-Of-Way (ROW) went from a junction with the New York Central (Harlem River) RR North of the Botanical Gardens Station (behind the 52nd Police Precinct Bldg), crossed Webster and Decatur (Norwood) Avenues to arc across what became Mosholu Parkway at where Bainbridge and Briggs Ave (PS#8) meet at the parkway and the ROW continued to where the current IRTJerome Ave Line Bedford Park station is located. That is where the Jerome Park Racetrack Clubhouse and grandstand were located on that rise.

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Mosholu Parkway was created at the end of the Nineteenth century.

The Croton Aqueduct project required a large reservoir to be excavated on the land that was occupied by the Jerome Park Racetrack. The excavated fill was, for the most part, transported by rail to the East Bronx to create the land around Hunts Point. See "Handling Excavated Material at Jerome Park Reservoir" in

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An extension of the Jerome Park RR that branched off the original line in between Decatur (Norwood) and Hull Avenues - 'a single line of track has been laid for a distance of 4 miles, through Bedford Park, across the Harlem Railroad tracks, through Bronx Park (trestle across the Bronx River) and down Pelham Bay Parkway to the stretch of tide lands formed by the head waters of Westchester Creek and Westchester Bay, which is known as the Meadows.'

​The parkway was designed to be a level roadway from Jerome Ave to the  Botanical Gardens. 

​So, the Eastern section of the parkway required  a massive amount of fill to span Webster Ave and the New York Central RR ROW to connect with the extension of Southern Blvd and the entrance to the Botanical Gardens.

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That fill was also used to create the Woodlawn Road entrance to Bronx Park. The upper section of Woodlawn Road was later renamed to Banbridge Ave and the lower section became East 204th St. When the 204th St entrance to the park was closed, that section of 204th St East of Webster Ave became known as the 'Dead-End'.

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One of the interesting historical facts of the construction of the Jerome Park Reservoir and Mosholu Parkway is that the former Jerome Park Racetrack RR was used to transport the excavated fill to the East Bronx and to the Webster Ave and Woodlawn Road grades. The Mosholu Parkway and French Charley hills at Webster Ave were actually man-made from the excavated material from the Jerome Park Reservoir.  

 

The Mosholu Parkway bridges over Webster Ave and the New York Central ROW  (in the main image) were completed in 1903.

The Jerome Park Railway ended operations in 1906 upon the completion of Jerome Park Reservoir and the Woodlawn Road extension.  The RR ROW East of the NY Central RR tracks was lost in the redevelopment of the land for the Botanical Garden Fruitium area below the Woodlawn Road entrance. The site of the wood trestle over the RR Tracks was located behind the Park station adjacent to the playground that was built there also.

The railway West of Webster Ave was removed and the ROW became private land. However, the ROW continued as a path to the reservoir for many years and was outlined in maps of the area for several years. 

The RR junction behind the 52nd Police Precinct building remained as a coal and freight siding East of Webster Ave until about 1970.

The reinforced concrete arch bridge at Jerome Ave (named for Leonard W. Jerome) and the IRT Jerome Ave El station were constructed in 1916 and completed in 1918 along with the Bedford Park Station on the site of the former racetrack clubhouse and grandstand.

The steel arch Third Ave El structure on Webster Ave that spanned Mosholu Parkway was started in 1918 and was completed in 1920.

The WWI Monument was erected at the intersection of the parkway and Hull and Marion Ave in 1924.

The IND Concourse Subway Yard,  built in 1928,  occupies some of the unused excavated Jerome Park Reservoir land and the tunnel portral is below where the Grandstand and Clubhouse  were on the rise now occupied by the Jerome Ave Line Bedford Park Station.

Dewitt Clinton HS on Mosholu Pkwy at the North end of the reservoir was opened in 1929.

PS#80 at Van Cortlandt Ave was built in 1930.

Hunter (now Lehman) College OPENED IN 1931 on a section of the unused excavated reservior land.

A second Mosholu Pkwy  bridge over the NY Central ROW, North of the original, was built in 1938, but remained unused except for temporary rerouting when the original bridge was closed for repairs and rebuilding.

On March 3, 1959, the new Bronx High School of Science building opened on another section of the unused excavated Reservior land.

The Third Ave El ended operations in 1973 and  the Webster Ave steel arch viaduct structure over Mosholu Pkwy  was removed in 1975.

HISTORY of the Jerome Park Racetrack and Mosholu Parkway