Throgs Neck

Throggs Neck (also known by Robert Moses' alternate spelling, Throgs Neck) is a narrow spit of land in southeasternon borough of the Bronx in New York City. It demarcates the passage between the East River and Long Island Sound. "Throggs Neck" is also the name of the neighborhood of the peninsula, bounded on the north by East Tremont Avenue and Baisley Avenue, on the west by Westchester Creek and on the other sides by the River and the Sound. Throggs Neck was largely exempt from the severe urban decay that affected much of the Bronx Borough and boasts a diverse housing stock of middle-class neighborhoods.

Throggs Neck is at the northern approach to the Throgs Neck Bridge, which connects the Bronx with the neighborhood of Bayside in the borough of Queens on Long Island. The Throgs Neck Lighthouse stands at its southern tip. Historically, the spelling is with two "g's," and while NYC Parks Commissioner and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority Chairman Robert Moses shortened it to one "g" after deciding that two would not fit on many of the street signs, residents continue to recognize the traditional spelling.

History
The peninsula was called Vriedelandt, "Land of Peace," by the Dutch. The current name comes from Rev. John Throckmorton or Throgmorton, an English Quaker whom the Dutch allowed to settle in this peripheral area in 1642, with 35 of his flock. The settlement was eventually driven out by an uprising of Native Americans; Throckmorton resettled in New Jersey. , In 1668, the peninsula appeared on maps as "Frockes Neck." The peninsula was virtually an island at high tide: in 1776, George Washington's headquarters wrote of a potential British landing at "Frogs Neck." At the bridge over Westchester Creek, now represented by an unobtrusive steel and concrete span at East Tremont Avenue near Westchester Avenue, General Howe did make an unsuccessful effort to cut off Washington's troops on October 12, 1776: when the British approached, the Americans ripped up the plank bridge and opened a heavy fire that forced Howe to withdraw and change his plans; six days later he landed troops at Rodman's Neck to the north, on the far side of Eastchester Bay.

In the 19th century, the area remained the site of large farms, converted into estates after the Civil War; here Frederick C. Havemeyer, the sugar magnate, and Collis P. Huntington, the railroad builder, had country places. Throgs Neck Park is a small public park that faces Throggs Neck from the opposite shore at the end of Myers Street; it was acquired as a public place in 1836. From 1833 to 1856, the construction of Fort Schuyler brought in laborers and craftsmen, many of whom were immigrants from Ireland, to settle in the area with their families. By the late 19th century, the area had developed into a fashionable summer resort, which also contained large German beer gardens, to which the residents of Yorkville arrived by steamboat service up the East River. The 19th-century steamboat landing at Ferris Dock on Westchester Creek stood at present-day Brush Avenue north of Wenner Place; the road to it bore the name of the steamboat Osseo. The Ferris family were 18th-century residents whose Ferris Point at the southeast corner of Throggs Neck neighborhood now supports the Hutchinson River Parkway (formerly Ferris Lane) ramp to the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge and Ferry Point Park. The last two of several large and handsome 18th-century Ferris houses in the neighborhood lasted until the 1960s, when the James Ferris house overlooking Eastchester Bay was hastily demolished in 1962 and the Watson Ferris house was demolished in 1964 by its occupants, the Tremont Terrace Moravian Church. The James Ferris house had been commandeered by Admiral Richard Howe as his headquarters in October 1776, when James Ferris was sent to the prison hulks in New York harbor, where he died in 1780. In the decades after the incorporation of the Bronx into the City of Greater New York in 1898, transit lines were extended to the neighborhood, bringing in many Italian farmers and tradesmen. The large estates largely became converted into smaller row homes.

In 1932, Fort Schuyler closed as an active military installation and became the campus for cadets of the State University of New York Maritime College. In 1961, with the building of the Throgs Neck Bridge as well as the adjacent parkways, the neighborhood lost its comparative isolation. Today the neighborhood has several beach clubs and a diverse housing stock, including middle-class homes and up-market waterfront condominiums as well as the Throggs Neck Houses, built in 1953 as one of the first low-income public housing projects in New York City and later expanded twice. In 1984, the New York Times described Throggs Neck as one of the last middle- and upper-middle-class areas in the Bronx, noting that the area "seems like a well-kept suburb." Even in the mid-1980s, after the city failed to pave neighborhood streets properly, waterfront condominiums sold for as much as $416,468 in 2005 dollars. During the 2000 Census, the median household income for census tracts within the neighborhood ranged from $18,000 to $85,000 in poorer areas surrounding the Throggs Neck Houses to $85,000-$100,000 in the waterfront areas near the Throgs Neck Bridge.

Transportation

 * Bx5: to Pelham Bay Park or Simpson St station (via Story Ave.)
 * Bx8: to 225th St. station or Locust Point (via Williamsbridge Rd.)
 * Bx40/42: to Morris Heights (via Tremont-Burnside Aves.)
 * QBx1: to Flushing, Queens or Co-op City
 * BxM9 Express: to Midtown
 * The 6 (Lexington Avenue Local): operates between Pelham Bay Park, the Bronx and Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall, Manhattan at all times.

Popular culture

 * Summer of Sam, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are just a few of the films and television programs filmed in Throggs Neck.


 * Awakenings with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro was shot there.