Franklin Triangle

Located at the intersection of Third and Franklin Avenues, Franklin Triangle has borne witness to the storied past of the South Bronx community. The name “Bronx” originated with wealthy Swedish trader Jonas Bronck who purchased 500 acres of land from the region’s Native Americans in 1639. Bronck developed the area into an active trading hub. The South Bronx neighborhood, historically named Morrisania, was once a vast 2,000-acre manor owned by the aristocratic Morris family. The area was sparsely populated until 1840, when Gouverneur Morris, Jr., allowed a railroad to be built across the property. In 1848, Morris sold the land for the development of a new town, Morrisania Village.

In the mid-1880s, when the Interborough Rapid Transit Company’s Third Avenue Line – commonly known as the Third Avenue or Bronx El – crept from Manhattan into the South Bronx, it originally did so along a series of local thoroughfares: Carr Street, Kingsbridge Road, Morse and Fordham Avenues. These roads were united under one name, Third Avenue, in 1891. Third Avenue became the only one of Manhattan’s numbered north-south avenues to makes its way into the Bronx.

Franklin Avenue, the Triangle’s northern boundary and one of the oldest avenues in the borough, climbs northeast up a short yet steep hill. At the hill’s crest sits what was once the Franklin Avenue Armory, the first military facility in the borough. Designed by New York City architect Charles C. Haight (1847-1917) the armory was an early, important example of the Collegiate Gothic architectural style that characterizes many college and high school buildings in the United States today.

Franklin Triangle’s Thornless Honey locust tree provides passersby with ample shade throughout the year’s warmer months. The most common tree in the South Bronx, Honey locusts reach heights of 66–98 feet with life spans of nearly 120 years. After the leaves turn yellow and drop in autumn, strongly scented cream-colored flowers return amidst bright green leaves late each spring.