Bertine Block Historic District

In the 1890s, developer Edward Bertine and architect George Keister built several groups of row houses in this once industrial South Bronx neighborhood. Among these is the Queen Anne-style Bertine Block, for which the district is named. This group of buildings is constructed of brick, stone, slate, and stained glass. Most have tall chimneys rising above such diverse rooflines as mansards and flat roofs, pediments, and steeped and scrolled gables. The brickwork is highly patterned, and the fenestration varied. The district also contains eight low-income tenement buildings, erected in 1897 and 1899, which have Renaissance-inspired details and five-room, railroad flat layouts.

The district was physically unchanged from 1900 until World War II. After the war, however, many of the townhouses were subdivided, and several adjacent apartment buildings were combined. By the 1970s, entire neighborhoods, including those adjacent to the Bertine Block, were being demolished to make space for warehouses and housing projects. Today, the surviving thirty-one buildings that compose this district occupy less than one-half of a block in Mott Haven. ©2014