Devanney Triangle

This small park is named after Private Patrick J. Devanney (1889-1918), a Bronx native who enlisted with Company E of the U.S. Army’s 808th Infantry Regiment at the start of WWI. Private Devanney died on October 3, 1918 from wounds inflicted in battle, just seven weeks before the end of the war.

Devanney Triangle rests in the historic central Bronx neighborhood of Tremont, encompassing the smaller communities of Claremont, Mount Eden, and Mount Hope. The area was farmland in 1841, when the New York and Harlem Railroad opened a station that soon became the center of a village. In the 1850s, the village postmaster, Hiram Tarbox, named the town Tremont after the three prominent hills in the area – Fairmount, Mount Eden, and Mount Hope.    

On February 1, 1888, the City of New York acquired the land that is now Devanney Triangle by condemnation with the intent to construct a street. However, the Department of Highways transferred the property to NYC Parks on May 22, 1940, and it was named later that day “to pay tribute to the memory of one who make the supreme sacrifice in the World War.”  Bounded by Burnside Avenue and Grand Concourse, Devanney Triangle opened as a small sitting park with a series of walkways, benches, and decorative trees and greenery, all encompassed by a pipe rail fence. The London plane trees, grass, game tables, and benches make Devanney Triangle a soothing oasis amidst several major thoroughfares.