New guide recalls Bronx glory days

Bronxites tend to be at least as proud of their home borough as other New Yorkers, but they have long lacked a reliable guide for the Bronx’s attractions and history.

Bronx Borough Historian Lloyd Ultan and co-author Shelley Olson have come to the rescue with “The Bronx: The Ultimate Tour Guide to New York City’s Beautiful Borough.”

The book seems to leave no corner or crevice of the Bronx uncovered. There are chapters on famous sites like Yankee Stadium and Woodlawn Cemetery along with lesser-known locales like the Valentine-Varian House.

A full chapter on “Wave Hill and the Mansions of Riverdale” features all kinds of gems.

During a recent interview, Mr. Ultan discussed Cleveland Dodge’s mansion Naumkeag, on Independence Avenue and West 247th Street. President Woodrow Wilson consulted with Dodge about a telegraph from the imperial German government asking for peace terms during World War I. On October 12, 1918 in Dodge’s library, the president wrote his response.

“On November 11, 1918, the armistice with Germany was signed. So the process by which the armistice that ended World War One began started in Cleveland Dodge’s mansion in Riverdale. How many people know that?” Mr. Ultan said with a customary glint in his eye.

He went on to say he hopes Riverdale residents take a heightened appreciation of the rest of the borough away from his book.

 “They don’t have to go to Manhattan and they don’t have to go to Westchester County to find areas of diversion,” Mr. Ultan said “There are plenty of places in the Bronx that they can go to of which they are not aware, that they may want to explore and see and investigate.”

“I think it would be advantageous for them and, you know, make them proud to finally write in their return address Bronx, New York, instead of Riverdale, New York,” he concluded. “Sometimes we don’t go because we don’t know, and I think they should go and see what lies in the other side of the escarpment.”