⁴ᴷ⁶⁰ Walking NYC: Parkchester, The Bronx neighborhood tour

September 20, 2026 - 1:30 PM 69°F / 21°C (light rain) Walking tour (without narration) of the Parkchester neighborhood of The Bronx, New York, via the following route: southbound on Unionport Road → Bronx Unionport Parkchester Park → eastbound on Metropolitan Avenue → southbound on Castle Hill Avenue → westbound on Westchester Avenue → Hugh J. Grant Circle → northbound on Metropolitan Avenue. Filmed with GoPro Hero 12. Highlights: 00:00 - Walking southbound on Unionport Road 05:02 - Bronx Unionport Parkchester Park 07:58 - Walking eastbound on Metropolitan Avenue 14:52 - Walking southbound on Castle Hill Avenue 17:53 - MS 127 (Castle Hill Middle School) 23:19 - Castle Hill Avenue (6 line) subway station 23:40 - Walking westbound on Westchester Avenue 30:12 -Parkchester Library 32:14 - Hugh J. Grant Circle, Parkchester (6 line) subway station 33:12 - Walking northbound on Metropolitan Avenue From Wikipedia: "Parkchester is a planned community and neighborhood originally developed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and located in the east Bronx, New York City. The immediate surrounding area also takes its name from the complex. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are East Tremont Avenue to the north, Castle Hill Avenue to the east, Westchester Avenue to the south, East 177th Street/Cross Bronx Expressway to the southwest, and White Plains Road to the west. Metropolitan Avenue, Unionport Road, and White Plains Road are the primary thoroughfares through Parkchester. The housing development has the same origins as Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village, and Riverton Houses in Manhattan, which were also originally developed and owned by MetLife. The name was later unofficially applied to the entire neighborhood surrounding the apartment complex. The name "Parkchester" itself was derived from the two neighborhoods on each side of the site of the housing development — Park Versailles and Westchester Heights. MetLife displayed an intricate scale model of the proposed development at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The model showed all of the buildings and facilities, and was accurate down to inclusion of each of the 66,000 windows in the complex. The 51 groups of buildings were planned to house 12,000 families. The Parkchester residential development was originally designed and operated as a self-contained rental community for middle-class white families new to home ownership. MetLife chairman Frederick H. Ecker said that Black renters were excluded because "Ne****s and whites don't mix." It was built from 1939 to 1942 (despite emergency building restrictions during World War II) on the farmland of the New York Catholic Protectory, a home for orphaned and troubled boys conducted by the Brothers of the Christian Schools, which relocated to Lincolndale, Westchester County, where it still exists. Macy's opened their first branch store after their 34th Street flagship store in Parkchester in 1941. The Fair Housing Act, enacted in April 1968, prohibited discrimination in renting, which, along with mounting pressure from the NAACP and other groups, forced a change in policy. In the face of charges by the New York City Commission on Human Rights that Metropolitan Life had been engaging in "deliberate, intentional and systematic" racial discrimination and claims that Parkchester had rented only 25 apartments to Black or Hispanic tenants in its history, Metropolitan Life agreed to open rentals without considering racial backgrounds at Parkchester and its other apartment complexes. In 1974, approximately one-third of the complex was converted to condominiums, with the remaining portion, now Parkchester South Condominium converted later, in 1986. The complex is best known for its broad, tree-lined walkways between the distinctive red-brown buildings, and for its Works Progress Administration-style terracotta decorations on the buildings, that represent animal and human figures of many types. Many of these are the work of sculptor Joseph Kiselewski. In 2015 Parkchester celebrated its 75th anniversary with a family event on the Parkchester North Ball Field. In August 2024, the New York City Council voted to rezone 46 city blocks in Parkchester, Van Nest, and Morris Park, around the Metro-North Railroad's Parkchester/Van Nest and Morris Park stations, as part of the Penn Station Access project. The city government also promised to spend $500 million on infrastructure upgrades around these stations. The rezoning was intended to encourage development around these stations. As a result, up to 7,000 housing units could be constructed in the three neighborhoods."