Visitors guide sheds light on borough’s attractions

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The Bronx is known for attractions like the New York Botanical Gardens and the Italian eateries of Arthur Avenue. But what if you want to find a hotel or check out attractions that are off the beaten path? A resource for those kinds of things has long been lacking.

Enter the first annual Bronx Visitors Guide. The publication from the Bronx Tourism Council and Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.’s office colorfully catalogues a wide range of local sights and services.

A glance at the guide, available at the tourism council’s website, offers a helpful and interesting look at the borough.

The 44-page document’s section on accommodations might surprise some readers. Who knew the Bronx has four hotels — and not the kind where customers pay by the hour to do illicit deeds? Along with a Resident Inn by Marriot in Eastchester, there’s a spot called Me Casa Tu Casa on East 150th Street, the Opera House Hotel on East 149th Street and the Andrew Freedman Home & Guest House on the Grand Concourse. It might come as a surprise that you can still rent rooms at the last location, originally founded as a retirement home for rich people who had lost their wealth in the early 20th century.

The guide has just one page devoted to shopping, with the listings limited to three malls; the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, which houses several quality food vendors; and a mention of Fordham Road’s bustling rows of stores. 

The guide’s real riches are found in page after page of attractions, from the City Island Nautical Museum to Woodlawn Cemetery. A close look reveals a number of quirky sights, like the Lorelei Fountain at Grand Concourse and 161st Street, dedicated to 19th-century German poet Heinrich Heine.

A page on greenways is perhaps the best example of the guide and its creators’ optimistic attitude toward the borough. Along with listings of existing paths near Van Cortlandt Park and the Hutchinson River, there is mention of five yet-to-be-built greenways that might have filled the likes of Heine with yearning.

Once complete, those greenways will ring much of the borough’s perimeter and run along part of the Bronx River. The gigantic path in the works includes the Hudson River Greenway, which residents here have spent about 30 years fighting for. 

“Hudson River Greenway runs north-south along the western edge of Manhattan ending at Inwood Hill Park, but plans will have the path going through Riverdale in the Bronx and extend up to Yonkers,” the new guide notes.

tourism, Riverdale Greenway

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