The Bronx

===Parks and open space===
{{See also|Category:Parks in the Bronx}}

[[File:Bronx transit and landmarks in 1896 (NY Times) - re-tinted.png|thumb|410px| An 1896 '' [[The New York Times|New York Times]]'' map of parks and transit in the newly annexed Bronx. [[Marble Hill, Manhattan|Marble Hill]] is in pink, cut off by water from the rest of Manhattan in orange. [[Van Cortlandt Park|Van Cortlandt]], [[Pelham Bay Park|Pelham Bay]] and [[Crotona Park]]s are light green, as is [[Bronx Park]] (now home to the [[New York Botanical Garden]] and [[Bronx Zoo]]), [[Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York)|Woodlawn Cemetery]] medium green, sports facilities dark green, the not-yet-built [[Jerome Park Reservoir]] light blue, St. John's College (now [[Fordham University]]) violet, and the city limits of the newly expanded New York red.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1896/05/17/archives/future-of-new-wards-newyorks-possession-in-westchester-county.html "Future Of New Wards; New-York's Possession in Westchester County Rapidly Developing; Trolley and Steam Road Systems Vast Areas Being Brought Close to the Heart of the City – Miles of New Streets and Sewers. Botanical and Zoological Gardens. Advantages That Will Soon Relieve Crowded Sections of the City of Thousands of Their Inhabitants."] ''[[The New York Times]]'', Wednesday, May 17, 1896, page 15. Accessed August 23, 2021. This is a very useful glimpse into the state of the Bronx (and the hopes of Manhattan's pro-Consolidation forces) as parks, housing and transit were all being rapidly developed.</ref>]]
{|class="wikitable" style="float:right; clear:right; margin-left:1em; text-align:right; font-size:88%; width:auto; background:honeydew"
|-
! colspan="6" style="background:#88ff88"| Sample of open spaces and parks in the Bronx
|-
! Acquired
! Name
! acres
! sq. mi.
! hectares
|-
| 1863||[[Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx|Woodlawn Cemetery]]||400||0.6||162
|-
| rowspan="5"|1888||[[Pelham Bay Park]]||2,772||4.3||1,122
|-
| [[Van Cortlandt Park]]||1,146||1.8||464
|-
| [[Bronx Park]]||718||1.1||291
|-
| [[Crotona Park]]||128||0.2||52
|-
| [[St. Mary's Park (Bronx)|St. Mary's Park]]||35||0.05||14
|-
| 1890||[[Jerome Park Reservoir]]||94||0.15||38
|-
| 1897||[[St. James Park (Bronx)|St. James Park]]||11||0.02||4.6
|-
| 1899||[[Macombs Dam Park]] †||28||0.04||12
|-
| 1909||[[Henry Hudson Park]]||9||0.01||4
|-
| rowspan="2"|1937||[[Ferry Point Park]]||414||0.65||168
|-
| [[Soundview Park (Bronx)|Soundview Park]]||196||0.31||79
|-
| 1962||[[Wave Hill]]||21||0.03||8.5
|- style="background:#e8f8a5;"
| style="text-align:left;" colspan="2"|''Land area of the Bronx in 2000''||''26,897''||''42.0''||''10,885''
|- style="background:#d5f5f5;"
| style="text-align:left;" colspan="2"|''Water area''||''9,855''||''15.4''||''3,988''
|- style="background:#ccee88;"
| style="text-align:left;" colspan="2"|''Total area''<ref name="GR1"/>||''36,752''||''57.4''||''14,873''
|-
| colspan="6" style="background:#88ff88;"|† ''closed in 2007 to build a new park & [[Yankee Stadium]]''<ref>[http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_newsroom/press_releases/press_releases.php?id=19967 Last Section Of Macombs Dam Park Closes To The Public For Redevelopment ''On-site construction begins on Garage A and the New Macombs Dam Park''], Press Release, November 1, 2007, [[New York City Department of Parks and Recreation]] retrieved on July 19, 2008</ref>
|-
| colspan="6" style="background:#88ff88;"|''Main source:'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20140702121744/http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/your_park.html New York City Department of Parks & Recreation]
|}

Although Bronx County was the third most densely populated county in the United States in 2022 (after [[Manhattan]] and [[Brooklyn]]),<ref name=CensusDensity2022/> {{convert|7000|acre|km2}} of the Bronx—about one fifth of the Bronx's area, and one quarter of its land area—is given over to parkland.<ref name="blooming">[https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20080630/ap_tr_ge/travel_trip_wild_green_bronx Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is blooming!] by Beth J. Harpaz, Travel Editor of The [[Associated Press]] (AP), June 30, 2008, retrieved on July 11, 2008 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501203753/http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20080630/ap_tr_ge/travel_trip_wild_green_bronx |date=May 1, 2011 }}</ref><ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/nyregion/bronx-parks-nyc.html What Is New York's Greenest Borough? Probably Not the One You Think.] by David Gonzales of ''[[The New York Times]]'', December 5, 2022</ref> The vision of a system of major Bronx parks connected by park-like thoroughfares is usually attributed to [[John Mullaly]].

[[Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York)|Woodlawn Cemetery]], located on {{Convert|400|acres}} and one of the largest cemeteries in New York City, sits on the western bank of the [[Bronx River]] near [[Yonkers, New York|Yonkers]]. It opened in 1863, in what was then the town of Yonkers, at the time a rural area. Since the first burial in 1865, more than 300,000 people have been interred there.<ref>[https://www.lehman.edu/vpadvance/artgallery/publicart/sites/woodlawn.html Woodlawn Cemetery], [[Lehman College]]. Accessed January 2, 2024. "Woodlawn Cemetery, first called Wood-Lawn, is located at the northern border of the Bronx. In 1863 Reverend Absalom Peters and the cemetery trustees bought 313 acres (now 400 acres) of farmland for a rural cemetery which New Yorkers could reach by a special Harlem River Railroad train. The first burial to take place at Wood-Lawn was in 1865 and since then it has become the final resting place of more than 300,000 people."</ref>

The borough's northern side includes the largest park in New York City—[[Pelham Bay Park]], which includes [[Orchard Beach, New York|Orchard Beach]]—and the third-largest, [[Van Cortlandt Park]], which is west of Woodlawn Cemetery and borders [[Yonkers, New York|Yonkers]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/VanCortlandtPark|title=Van Cortlandt Park : NYC Parks|website=Nycgovparks.org|access-date=August 26, 2017}}</ref> Also in the northern Bronx, [[Wave Hill (New York)|Wave Hill]], the former estate of [[George Walbridge Perkins|George W. Perkins]]—known for a historic house, gardens, changing site-specific art installations and concerts—overlooks the [[New Jersey Palisades]] from a promontory on the [[Hudson River|Hudson]] in [[Riverdale, Bronx|Riverdale]]. Nearer the borough's center, and along the [[Bronx River]], is [[Bronx Park]]; its northern end houses the [[New York Botanical Gardens]], which preserve the last patch of the original [[Tsuga|hemlock]] forest that once covered the county, and its southern end the [[Bronx Zoo]], the largest urban zoological gardens in the United States.<ref name="fordzoo"/> In 1904 the Chestnut Blight pathogen (''[[Cryphonectria parasitica]]'') was found for the first time outside of [[Asia]], here, at the Bronx Zoo.<ref name="VanDerPlank" /> Over the next 40 years it spread throughout [[eastern North America]] and killed back essentially every American Chestnut (''[[Castanea dentata]]''), causing ecological and economic devastation.<ref name="VanDerPlank">{{cite journal | year=1965 | publisher=[[American Association for the Advancement of Science]] (AAAS) | journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] | issn=0036-8075 | volume=147 | issue=3654 | last=Van der Plank | first=J. E. | title=Dynamics of Epidemics of Plant Disease | doi=10.1126/science.147.3654.120 | pages=120–124| pmid=17790685 | bibcode=1965Sci...147..120V | s2cid=220109549 }}</ref>

Just south of [[Van Cortlandt Park]] is the [[Jerome Park Reservoir]], surrounded by {{convert|2|mi|km|0}} of stone walls and bordering several small parks in the [[Bedford Park, Bronx|Bedford Park]] neighborhood; the [[reservoir]] was built in the 1890s on the site of the former [[Jerome Park Racetrack]].<ref>[http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=11042 Jerome Park] ([[New York City Department of Parks and Recreation]], retrieved on July 12, 2008).</ref> Further south is [[Crotona Park]], home to a {{convert|3.3|acre|ha|adj=on}} lake, 28 species of trees, and a large swimming pool.<ref>[http://nycgovparks.org/parks/crotonapark Crotona Park] [[New York City Department of Parks and Recreation]], retrieved on July 20, 2008</ref> The land for these parks, and many others, was bought by New York City in 1888, while land was still open and inexpensive, in anticipation of future needs and future pressures for development.<ref>Article on the Bronx by [[Gary Hermalyn]] and Lloyd Ultan in ''[[The Encyclopedia of New York City]]'' (1995 – see [[#Further reading|Further reading]] for bibliographic details)</ref>

Some of the acquired land was set aside for the [[Grand Concourse (Bronx)|Grand Concourse]] and [[Pelham Parkway]], the first of a series of [[boulevard]]s and [[parkway]]s ([[thoroughfare]]s lined with trees, vegetation and greenery). Later projects included the [[Bronx River Parkway]], which developed a road while restoring the riverbank and reducing pollution, [[Mosholu Parkway]] and the [[Henry Hudson Parkway]].

In 2006, a five-year, $220-million program of capital improvements and natural restoration in 70 Bronx parks was begun (financed by water and sewer revenues) as part of an agreement that allowed a [[Croton Water Filtration Plant|water filtration plant]] under Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortlandt Park. One major focus is on opening more of the [[Bronx River]]'s banks and restoring them to a natural state.<ref>[http://nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/croton/html/main_page.html Bronx Parks for the 21st Century] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080617231525/http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/croton/html/main_page.html |date=June 17, 2008 }}, [[New York City Department of Parks and Recreation]], retrieved on July 20, 2008. This links to both an interactive map and a downloadable (1.7 MB PDF) map showing nearly every public park and green space in the Bronx.</ref>