SomeThoughts about the Grand Concourse

The NY Times of Friday, June 5, 2009 has an article about an intriguing new museum - a Museum of Trees - planned for the Bronx's famed Grand Concourse.

Here's a link to the article which includes a multimedia presentation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/nyregion/07about.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Grand%20Concourse%20Museum%20of%20Trees&st=cseA Museum of Trees That Speak of History

Jim Dwyer's opening paragraph reads:
The notion that the Grand Concourse could be turned into a long boulevard of talking trees — a tree museum, with trees connecting to oral guides of Bronx history — came to Katie Holten one day when she was traipsing along the boulevard near the Cross Bronx Expressway.

I hope people read the entire article but for those pressed for time, the Times has included a pdf of the brochure/prospectus:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/TreeMuseumInfo.pdf

I've been fascinated by the Concourse for as long as I can remember. My college roommate and I bonded in part because her Russian immigrant grandparents and my Irish immigrant grandparents lived not far from each other on either side of the Concourse; hers to east, mine to the west. Years before college, I'd walked along the Concourse with my parents or my grandparents to shop or visit friends and relatives who lived there. During Easter Week vacations in the City, my grandfather and I regularly visited Catholic churches along the Concourse to see how they'd decorated their altars for Easter (I think there was some religious point to this but I forget what it was. For me the appeal was each spectacular display of flowers and altar finery.) I don't think there were too many neighborhoods in the NYC where Pop (a motorman for the IRT and IND lines) couldn't find a favorite saloon or luncheonette, so the church and flower tours included sampling Cokes with maraschino cherries and ham sandwiches along the way.

Lately, I've been watching a classic television show - Naked City - and it's hard to miss how often scenes were filmed along the Concourse and near the Bronx County Courthouse. The show's fictional 65th precinct was located in the theatre district of Midtown Manhattan but the Naked City production headquarters were at the Biograph Studios, (aka Gold Medal Studios) located about a mile east of the Grand Concourse at 807 E. 175th St. It was convenient to shoot in the area and the wide boulevard and tall (but not skyscraper-tall) buildings provided a very attractive cityscape that filmed well in all sorts of weather and at different times of the day.

Wikipedia has a succinct history of the studio, at one time the largest production facility outside the Los Angeles area:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biograph_Studios

For more on the history of the Grand Concourse and pictures of its wonderful architecture, take a look at these two articles from Forgotten New York:
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/Grand%20Concourse/concourse.html
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/concourse2/concourse.html