Mosholu Parkway is a

parkway A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare. The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or connecting to a park from which trucks and other heavy vehicles are excluded. Over the years, many different types of roads have been labeled p ...

in the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. The roadway extends between the

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

(where its southeast end meets the

Bronx River Parkway The Bronx River Parkway (sometimes abbreviated as the Bronx Parkway) is a limited-access Parkways in New York, parkway in downstate New York in the United States. It is named for the nearby Bronx River, which it parallels. The southern terminus ...

) and

Van Cortlandt Park Van Cortlandt Park is a urban park, park located in the borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx in New York City. Owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, it is managed with assistance from the Van Cortlandt Park Al ...

(where its northwest end meets the

Henry Hudson Parkway The Henry Hudson Parkway is a controlled-access highway, controlled-access Parkways in New York, parkway in New York City. The southern terminus is in Manhattan at 72nd Street (Manhattan), 72nd Street, where the parkway continues south as the We ...

). The

New York City Department of Transportation The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) is the agency of the government of New York City responsible for the management of much of New York City's transportation infrastructure. Ydanis Rodriguez is the Commissioner of the Departm ...

is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the roadway while the

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...

is responsible for the surrounding rights-of-way. The parkway is designated as New York State Route 908F (NY 908F), an unsigned reference route, by the

New York State Department of Transportation The New York State Department of Transportation'' (NYSDOT) is the department of the Government of New York (state), New York state government responsible for the development and operation of highways, Rail transport, railroads, mass transit sys ...

Route description

Mosholu Parkway begins at exit 8W of the

. It heads northward as a

boulevard A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway or wide road in a commercial district. In Europe, boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former ...

through the northern parts of the Bronx. The highway crosses through Bedford Park, passing Bainbridge Avenue. It intersects with the Grand Concourse afterwards, with

Jerome Avenue Jerome Avenue is one of the longest thoroughfares in the New York City borough of the Bronx, New York, United States. The road is long and stretches from Concourse to Woodlawn. Both of these termini are with the Major Deegan Expressway whi ...

, Sedgwick Avenue and West Gun Hill Road soon after. Within Van Cortlandt Park, the parkway becomes a

freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...

, with exits for the southbound

Major Deegan Expressway Interstate 87 (I-87) is a north–south Interstate Highway located entirely within the US state of New York. I-87 is the main highway that connects New York City and Montreal. The highway begins at exit 47 off I-278 in the New Yor ...

( Interstate 87) and the

near its northern terminus at the

Westchester County Westchester County is a county located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of New York, bordering the Long Island Sound and the Byram River to its east and the Hudson River on its west. The county is the seventh most populous cou ...

line (where it turns into the

Saw Mill River Parkway The Saw Mill River Parkway (also known as the Saw Mill Parkway or the Saw Mill) is a limited-access road, limited-access Parkways in New York, parkway that extends for through Westchester County, New York, in the United States. It begins at the ...

). A bikeway, part of the

East Coast Greenway The East Coast Greenway is a pedestrian and bicycle route between Maine and Florida along the East Coast of the United States. The nonprofit East Coast Greenway Alliance was created in 1991 with the goal to use the entire route with off-road, s ...

, runs along the northeast side of the parkway from

Bronx Park Bronx Park is a public park along the Bronx River, in the Bronx, New York City. The park is bounded by Southern Boulevard to the southwest, Webster Avenue to the northwest, Gun Hill Road to the north, Bronx Park East to the east, and East 18 ...

to Van Cortlandt Park, connecting through the park to other trails and playing fields and to Broadway.

History

Etymology

There are conflicting accounts as to what "Mosholu" is derived from. According to one account, "Mosholu" is an

Algonquin Algonquin or Algonquian—and the variation Algonki(a)n—may refer to: Languages and peoples *Algonquian languages, a large subfamily of Native American languages in a wide swath of eastern North America from Canada to Virginia **Algonquin la ...

word meaning "smooth stones" or "small stones", and was first applied to the nearby creek now known as

Tibbetts Brook Tibbetts Brook, originally Tippett's Brook or Tibbitt's Brook, is a stream in the southern portion of mainland New York, flowing north to south from the city of Yonkers in Westchester County into the borough of the Bronx within New York City. O ...

. The southern end of the parkway was once home to another creek called Schuil Brook, running under what is now Middlebrook Road, which supplied water to a British fort located on old Van Cortlandt Avenue East during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. According to another etymology, ''Mosholu'' is a contraction of the name of the

Choctaw The Choctaw ( ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States, originally based in what is now Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choct ...

chief Mushulatubbee. The Choctaw were not local to New York, but Mushulatubbee was well known for his assistance to the US during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

. A variant form of the contracted name was given to two ships; the USS ''Mashula'' (launched as USS ''Severn'' in 1867) and the SS ''

Moshulu ''Moshulu'' is a four-masted steel barque, built as ''Kurt'' by William Hamilton and Company at Port Glasgow in Scotland in 1904. The largest remaining original windjammer, she is currently a floating restaurant docked in Penn's Landing, Ph ...

''. The latter ship was apparently named with the understanding that it was a Seneca word meaning ''fearless''.

Context

In the 1870s, landscape architect

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, Social criticism, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the U ...

envisioned a

greenbelt A green belt or greenbelt is a policy, and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or gree ...

across the Bronx, consisting of parks and parkways that would align with existing geography. However, in 1877, the city declined to act upon his plan. Around the same time, ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. Hi ...

'' editor

John Mullaly John Mullaly (1835–1915), known as father of the Bronx's park system, was a newspaper reporter and editor who was instrumental in forming the New York Park Association. He was born in Belfast, Ireland. After coming to the United States, he w ...

pushed for the creation of parks in New York City, particularly lauding the Van Cortlandt and Pell families' properties in the western and eastern Bronx respectively. He formed the

New York Park Association The New York Park Association was formed in 1881 or 1882 (references differ) by John Mullaly and other citizens. The group was concerned about urban growth. The group lobbied for the acquisition of land to create parks and parkways in New York ...

in November 1881. There were objections to the system, which would apparently be too far from Manhattan, in addition to precluding development on the parks' sites. However, newspapers and prominent lobbyists, who supported such a park system, were able to petition the bill into the

New York State Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature, while the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Established in 1777 by the Constitution of New York, its members are elected to two-year terms with no term l ...

, and later, the

New York State Assembly The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature, with the New York State Senate being the upper house. There are 150 seats in the Assembly. Assembly members serve two-year terms without term limits. The Ass ...

(the legislature's

lower house A lower house is the lower chamber of a bicameral legislature, where the other chamber is the upper house. Although styled as "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has come to wield more power or otherwise e ...

). In June 1884, Governor

Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms and the first Hist ...

signed the

New Parks Act The New Parks Act is a New York state law passed in 1884. It provided for the creation of parks in the future New York City borough of the Bronx. The West Bronx had recently been annexed and was largely undeveloped, as was the yet unannexed Eas ...

into law, authorizing the creation of the park system. The system consisted of three parkways and six parks, with

at the center of the system. Bronx Park was connected to Van Cortlandt Park in the northwest via Mosholu Parkway; to

Pelham Bay Park Pelham Bay Park is a municipal park located in the northeast corner of the New York City borough of the Bronx. It is, at , the largest public park in New York City. The park is more than three times the size of Manhattan's Central Park. The p ...

in the east via Pelham Parkway; and to

Crotona Park Crotona Park is a public park in the South Bronx in New York City, covering . The park is bounded by streets of the same name on its northern, eastern, southern, and western borders, and is adjacent to the Crotona Park East and Morrisania nei ...

in the south via Crotona Parkway. There were no direct connections to Claremont Park and St. Mary's Park, the other two parks in the system. The road was reconstructed between 1935 and 1937, including widening the entire parkway, making the section from the Saw Mill to Gun Hill Road, replacing the intersection at Jerome Avenue with an overpass, and installing a wide median between Marion Avenue and the Grand Concourse.

Transportation

The following bus routes serve Mosholu Parkway: * The Bx28 runs between Paul and Bainbridge Avenues when running the full route. Service to Fordham Center is absent north of Van Cortlandt Avenue East. The Bay Plaza-bound provides additional service after 9:35pm on Sundays. * The Pelham-bound and Riverdale-bound serve from East 206th Street to Van Cortlandt Avenue. ** The Bx10 also runs between Sedgwick and Paul Avenues in both directions. * The run on the section of Mosholu that interferes with Southern Boulevard. * Additional service between Grand Concourse and Sedgwick Avenue is provided by the . The

IRT Jerome Avenue Line The IRT Jerome Avenue Line, also unofficially known as IRT Woodlawn Line, is an A Division New York City Subway line mostly along Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. Originally an Interborough Rapid Transit Company-operated route, it was built as part ...

has the Mosholu Parkway station at Mosholu Parkway and Jerome Avenue.

Major intersections

References

External links

Mosholu Parkway page at nycroads.com
{{Protected areas of New York City Parkways in New York City Robert Moses projects Highways in the Bronx Parks in the Bronx