Mott Haven is a residential neighborhood in the southwest Bronx in New York City. Zip codes include 10451, 10454, and 10455. 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 Bronx Kill waterway to the south, and the Harlem River to the west. East 138th Street is the primary east-west thoroughfare through Mott Haven. The local subways are the 4,5,6 line, operating along East 138th Street. The local buses are the Bx1, Bx2, Bx15, Bx17, Bx21, Bx32, Bx33. Mott Haven is served by the Triborough Bridge, the 3rd Avenue Bridge and the Willis Avenue Bridge. The closest Metro-North Railroad stops are Yankees-East 153rd Street and Harlem-125th Street.

Precise data for Mott Haven is difficult to obtain because the available population statistics combine Mott Haven's data with the neighboring Melrose neighborhood. Rough estimates for Mott Haven are that it has a population of upwards of 50,000 people, 70% Hispanic, 25% African-American, 5% White, Asian and Other. 30-40% of the population lives below the poverty linehttp://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/lucds/bx1profile.pdf .

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

The total land area is about one square mile. The terrain is flat by the water sloping upwards toward somewhat hilly terrain around St. Mary's Park. Mott Haven has a mix of parkland, brownstone row houses, brick row houses, old and new apartment buildings, converted factory lofts, public housing complexes, office buildings, commercial and industrial buildings, and railway lines . http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/lucds/bx1profile.pdf

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 the west side of 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 seventeen NYCHA developments in Mott Haven illustrate the various types of public housing initiatives in vogue in New York City over the decades.

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 Lawrence 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 Republican 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 or North New York. 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 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 Avenue bridge is undergoing a wave of gentrification as former piano factories are converted to artists' lofts and condos. Among the buildings renovated in the early 2000s are the historic C. Rieger's Sons Factory and Hertlein and Schlatter Silk Trimmings Factory. 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. Mot Haven is home to the first organic market in the South Bronx.

Public:

Parochial:

4,5 138th Street-Grand Concourse http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/fourline.htm

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