Full Circle

Annexing the Bronx made perfect sense from the perspective of nineteenth-century New Yorkers. The city of New York was growing northward up Manhattan island and, while it had not yet filled all of the space, the end of that form of expansion was in sight. The semi-rival city of Brooklyn had far more space to expand and, prior to the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, discussion of New York and Brooklyn being something other than rivals was rare. The area we call the Bronx, on the other hand, was the semi-rural south end of Westchester County, with a handful of small towns and some farms. New York annexed the portion west of the Bronx River in 1874, and the part east of the river in 1895. By the latter date, the work of annexing Kings County (and therefore Brooklyn) and the western half of Queens County (what is now Queens, with the eastern half eventually becoming Nassau County) was in motion. The area south of 180th Street and west of the Bronx River used to be, in general…