Spotlight: MOTT HAVEN By Samuel Brooks Photo Credit: Robert Benimoff
A mural depicting the arrival of Jonas Bronck in 1639 painted by American artist James Monroe Hewlett (1868 - 1941). This image is one of four illustrating the history of The Bronx and can be seen in Veteran’s Memorial Hall at The Bronx County Courthouse located at 851 Grand Concourse.
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Photo Credit: The Bronxer
n 1639 Jonas Bronck, a Nordic European settler, along with his Dutch wife, Teuntje Joriaens, and indentured servants were the first European settlers to establish their farmstead at the confluence of the Harlem River and Bronx Kill overlooking Randall’s Island, the area that is now referred to as Mott Haven. The Bronx is named after Jonas Bronck. In 1670 the Morris family, originally from Great Britain, but arriving here from the West Indian island of Barbados, acquired much of the area and established a large manor called Morissania. In 1841 and 1848, Jordan L. Mott, the neighborhood’s namesake, purchased sizable tracts of land from the Morris family and established the J.L. Mott Iron Works in Mott Haven. During that period, Mott Haven was a heavily Irish neighborhood. German immigrants also began to arrive in the middle of the nineteenth century. By the 1890s, Jewish from Eastern Europe also began to arrive in Mott Haven. In the early 1940s, Blacks and Puerto Ricans from Harlem and East Harlem Designated on April 5, 1994, the Mott Haven East Historic District started to flock to Mott consists of row houses, a church and tenements on East 139th and 140th Streets, between Willis and Brook Avenues. 427 Haven. By the early 1950s, East 140th Street was the residence of builder William O’Gorman who developed much of the area in this historic district. much of the Irish, German and Jewish began to leave PAGE 8
