Mott Haven is a low income residential neighborhood geographically located in the southwest Bronx. The neighborhood is part of Bronx Community Board 1. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise are: East 149th Street to the north, the Bruckner Expressway to the east, the Major Deegan Expressway to the south, and the Harlem River to the west. East 138th Street is the primary thoroughfare through Mott Haven. The local subway is the 6 line, operating along East 138th Street. Zip codes include 10451, 10454, and 10455. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 40th Precinct. New York City Housing Authority property in the area is patrolled by P.S.A. 7 at 737 Melrose Avenue located in the Melrose section of the Bronx.

Mott Haven has a population of 50,000. For decades Mott Haven has been one of the poorest communities in America. Over half the population lives below the poverty line and receives public assistance (AFDC, Home Relief, Supplemental Security Income, and Medicaid). Almost half the population resides in units managed by the NYCHA. Mott Haven has the highest concentration of Puerto Ricans in all of New York City. There is also a significant African American population and a small but growing community of Central Americans along East 138th Street. The vast majority of homes are renter occupied.

In recent years, artists and professionals have begun to move into industrial lofts and brownstones in the south part of Mott Haven. Most businesses however continue to serve the majority poor and working class Latino population.

Mott Haven is dominated by public housing complexes of various types. There is a high concentration of older tenement buildings between these developments. Newly constructed subsidized attached multi-unit rowhouses and apartment buildings have been constructed on most vacant lots in the area. The neighborhood contains the highest concentration of NYCHA projects in the Bronx. The total land area is about one square mile. The terrain is somewhat hilly.

Three Historic Districts are located in Mott Haven: Mott Haven, Mott Haven East and the Bertine Block:

St. Ann's Episcopal Church is located on St.Ann's Avenue between East 139 and East 141st Streets. It is The Bronx' oldest church, having been built in 1841 and dedicated to Gouverneur Morris' mother Ann. Notable figures buried there include Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Goveurneur Morris, and former mayor of New York R.H.Morris.

The area that is now called Mott Haven was originally owned by the Morris family. A small part of the larger swath of land known as Morrisania, it was purchased by Jordan Mott for his iron works in 1849. A vestige of the iron works can be seen just west of the Third Ave. bridge on E. 134th St. St. Ann's Church (ECUSA) on St. Ann's Avenue is the resting place of Lewis Morris, Gouverneur Morris and other members of that powerful colonial family, and a Registered Historic Place.

As the city below grew, the area quickly developed residentially. At the same time, an upper-middle class residential area, marked by brownstones built in an elaborate and architecturally daring fashion, started to grow along Alexander Avenue by the 1890s. (Doctors Row a/k/a the Irish Fifth Ave.) A series of brownstones on E. 134th St, east of Willis Ave., was known as Judges' Row. Soon after, the Bronx grew more quickly, especially with public transit into the area, including the IRT Ninth Avenue Line. By the early 20th century, the population density of the area supported the construction of many tenement style apartment buildings.

From the end of the 19th century through the 1940s, Mott Haven was a mixed German-American (north of E. 145th St.)and Irish-American neighborhood (south of E. 145th St), with an Italian enclave west of Lincoln Ave. The derogatory term "pig" for a policeman is thought to have originated here because of a tough Irish cop who wielded his night stick on Willis Ave. drunks without mercy, known as Paddy the Pig of the 40 Pct.

One of the largest parades in NYC took place here in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was organized by Sean Oglaigh na hEirann, the veterans of the Irish Repulican Army, who marched every Easter Sunday, down Willis Ave. from the Hub to E. 138th st., thence west to St. Jerome's. The Star of Munster Ballroom at the NE corner of Willis Ave. and E. 138th St., was a center of Irish music for decades. It was speculated at one time that there were more bars on Willis Ave than on any other city street, given its short distance. More recorded Irish musicians lived in Mott haven than in any place outside of Ireland.

The first Puerto Rican settlements came in the late 1940s along the length of Brook Ave. African-Americans came into the area when Patterson Houses were built.

Mott Haven and Port Morris were the first neighborhoods to give rise to the term "South Bronx". Together, they were originally known as the North Side. This area was part of New York County after the incorporation of Greater NY in 1898. The Chase Manhattan Bank at Third Ave. and E. 137th St., was originally the North Side Board of Trade Bldg (1912). It later became the North Side Savings Bank, which became Dollar Dry Dock, which became Chase.

In the 1940s when the Bronx was usually divided into the East Bronx and West Bronx, a group of social workers identified a pocket of poverty on East 134th Street, east of Brown Place and called it the South Bronx. This pocket of poverty would spread in part due to an illegal practice known as block-busting and to Robert Moses building several housing projects in the neighborhood. The poverty greatly expanded northward, following the post-war phenomenon colloquially referred to as white flight, reaching a peak in the 1960s when the socioeconomic North Bronx-South Bronx boundary reached Fordham Road. At this time a wave of arson destroyed or damaged many of the residential, commercial, and industrial structures in the area. Today the North Bronx-South Bronx distinction remains more common than the traditional East Bronx-West Bronx distinction, and some still regard Fordham Road as the boundary.

Many social problems associated with poverty have plagued the area for years. However, in recent years, crime has fallen significantly, mirroring the declines in crime in the rest of the city; for example, the murder, robbery, and burglary rates are down by 80% since 1990, and now the rate of major crime is below the national average. However, Mott Haven continues to have social problems; the neighborhood sees significantly higher drop out rates and incidents of violence in its schools than the national average. In some schools in the area, students must pass through metal detectors to enter the buildings; a practice criticized by many for being reminiscent of a prison environment and purportedly encouraging bad behavior. Other problems in local schools include low test scores and high truancy rates. Drug addiction is also a serious problem and, due to a lucrative drug trade in the area, many addicted reside within the community. Many attribute the high rate of usage to peer pressure on young people who come from broken homes. A high proportion of households in the area are headed by a single mother, many of whom had their children at a young age and struggled to provide for them, and this also contributes to the high poverty rate. The incarceration rate in the area is also very high.

The area is patrolled by the 40th Precinct located at 257 Alexander Avenue. NYCHA property in the area is patrolled by P.S.A. 7 at 737 Melrose Avenue located in the Melrose section of the Bronx.

After a wave of arson ravaged the low income communities of New York City throughout the 1970s, many if not most residential structures in Mott Haven were left seriously damaged or destroyed. The city began to rehabilitate many formally abandoned tenement style apartment buildings and designate them low income housing beginning in the late 1970s. Also many subsidized attached multi-unit townhouses and newly constructed apartment buildings have been or are being built on vacant lots across the neighborhood.

Mott Haven has in recent years experienced, along with the rest of the city, a rise in housing values, as many buildings, including some which had been abandoned, were renovated and sold, and a number of new apartment projects were built. The area adjacent to the Third Ave. bridge is undergoing a wave of gentrification as former piano factories are being converted in artists' lofts and condos. The area, once known as Piano Town is being marketed as SoBro. That area was previously mis-identified as Port Morris, which is east of the Bruckner Expressway. Commercial development in the neighborhood has also accelerated. It has yet to be seen what the effect of the collapse of the housing bubble will have on the neighborhood.

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