Mosholu Parkway is a hybrid

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 ...

-standard

parkway A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare.''"parkway."''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Apr. 2007). The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or ...

and grade-level roadway in the

New York City borough New York City is composed of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of New York State, making New York City the largest U.S. municipality situated in mult ...

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...

, constructed from 1935 to 1937 as part of the roadway network created under

Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded ...

. The roadway extends for 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 long parkway in downstate New York in the United States. It is named for the nearby Bronx River, which it parallels. The southern terminus of the parkway is at Story Aven ...

) and

Van Cortlandt Park Van Cortlandt Park is a park located in the 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 Alliance. The park, the city's third-lar ...

(where its northwest end meets the

Henry Hudson Parkway The Henry Hudson Parkway is a parkway in New York City. The southern terminus is in Manhattan at 72nd Street, where the parkway continues south as the West Side Highway. It is often erroneously referred to as the West Side Highway throughout its ...

). 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 Depart ...

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 ecolo ...

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 systems ...

Route description

Mosholu Parkway begins at exit 8E of the

. It heads northward as an arterial boulevard 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 which r ...

, Sedgwick Avenue and West Gun Hill Road soon after. Within

, the parkway becomes a limited-access freeway, 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. It is most of the main highway between New York City and Montreal. The highway begins at exit 47 off I-278 in the New York ...

( Interstate 87) and the

near its northern terminus at the

Westchester County Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population ...

line (where it turns into the Saw Mill River Parkway). 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. In 2020, the Greenway received over 50 million visits. The nonprofit East Coast Greenway Alliance was created in 1991. ...

, 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 180 ...

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. Or ...

. 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 a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

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

Choctaw The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are ...

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 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It be ...

. 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, Phil ...

''. 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, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co- ...

envisioned a

greenbelt A green belt 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 green wedges, which ...

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 wo ...

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 C ...

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; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan comp ...

, 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 one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has co ...

). In June 1884, Governor

Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...

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 New York City borough of the Bronx, which at the time was largely undeveloped. Three parkways and six parks were established as part of the New ...

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

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 pa ...

in the east via

Pelham Parkway The Bronx and Pelham Parkway, also known formally as the Bronx–Pelham Parkway but called Pelham Parkway in everyday use, is a parkway in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. The road begins in Bronx Park at the Bronx River Parkway and ...

; 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 neigh ...

in the south via Crotona Parkway. There were no direct connections to

Claremont Park Claremont Park is a park in the Morrisania section of the Bronx in New York City. The land on which the park sits was once part of the Morris family estate. It became a municipal park in 1884 as part of the New Parks Act. Description Clar ...

and St. Mary's Park, the other two parks in the system.

Reconstruction

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

Bx28 The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) operates a number of bus routes in the Bronx, New York, United States. Many of them are the direct descendants of streetcar lines (see list of streetcar lines in the Bronx). All local buses are ope ...

runs on Mosholu Parkway between Paul Avenue and Bainbridge Avenue. The Bx1, Bx2, Bx10, Bx26, Bx38 runs to/from Fordham and the BxM4 have short segments on Jerome Avenue. The

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

has the

Mosholu Parkway station The Mosholu Parkway station is a local station on the IRT Jerome Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of Mosholu Parkway and Jerome Avenue in the Bronx, it is served by the 4 train at all times. This station was ...

at Mosholu Parkway and Jerome Avenue.

Exit list

References

External links

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