Our Community

Morris Park and The Bronx

Albert Einstein College of Medicine is located in a quiet residential area of the northeast Bronx surrounded by single-family homes and apartment buildings that make up the neighborhoods known as Morris Park, Eastchester and Pelham Parkway. The neighborhood is also home to Montefiore’s Weiler Hospital and Einstein affiliate Jacobi Medical Center. It is a tight-knit, culturally diverse community, in close proximity to many popular Bronx attractions, as well as to Manhattan and Westchester County.

The Bronx Zoo, the New York Botanical Garden, Yankee Stadium, Orchard Beach and City Island are all within a 15-minute drive of the College of Medicine, as are a broad selection of restaurants catering to all tastes and appetites. For a more expansive overview of local sites and eateries, please see the listings for “The Bronx,” “Manhattan,” “Westchester” and “Elsewhere” below.

You can receive a discount at many of the Bronx venues noted herein with a Bronx Cultural Card, available to students in Joan Junger’s office. For more information about the card, provided by the Bronx Council on the Arts, visit http://www.bronxarts.org/cultural_card.asp. You also can take in many of the sights offered through the card by boarding the First Wednesdays Bronx Cultural Trolley. Click on the trolley link for further information.

Morris Park

The specific neighborhood that Einstein calls home is known as Morris Park, whose boundaries are Pelham Parkway to the north, the Amtrak railroad tracks to the east and south, and the Bronx River Parkway to the west. The neighborhood is served by the Morris Park station on the IRT Dyre Avenue Line (5) and the Bx8 and Bx21 local bus lines, as well as the BxM10 express bus to Manhattan. The IRT station, which is at 180th Street, was constructed in the style of a grand Italian villa in 1912 and has landmark status. (Click on “maps & directions” for further information about traveling between Einstein and the airport, New York City and other nearby locales, as well as by car, subway or transit bus.)

Made up of small one-and two-family homes, Morris Park is a tight-knit community. There are some who say that Morris Park is named after Henry Lewis Morris (d. 1915), who was a prominent landowner in the area, and among the last property owners of the Morris family hailing from Morrisania. Mr. Morris was a direct descendant of Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and he was the founder of one of America’s oldest and most prominent law firms, Morris & McVeigh, established in 1868. There are others who attribute the “Morris” in Morris Park to John A. Morris, whose Westchester Racing Association acquired 152 acres on the outskirts of the old Bear Swamp, in 1888, and built a huge racetrack and clubhouse there. The track was in operation from 1890 to 1904, and burned to the ground in 1910. Today, the neighborhood is best known for its pizza and rivals nearby Arthur Avenue for the distinction of Bronx’s “Little Italy.”

NYC & Area

Manhattan's unrivaled array of theaters, museums, art galleries, concert halls and restaurants offers boundless choices to keep you entertained when you're able to take a break from your studies.