5. The Bronx Flatiron
Mount Hope Court, a 10-story (plus penthouse), 110-foot tall apartment building is located on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx and was completed in 1914. The New York Tribune praised Mount Hope Court as “a most imposing structure” and the New York Times admired how “its wide facade of light terra cotta stands out prominently from its high elevation.” Given the building’s location on a triangular block bounded by the Grand Concourse, Mount Hope Place, Monroe Avenue, and E. Tremont Avenue and its resemblance to a noted downtown edifice, Mount Hope Court was also dubbed the “Bronx Flatiron,” a term used even in its own advertising. A luxury building, each apartment consisted of six or seven rooms and building amenities included a rooftop garden with a pergola.
Among its residents was its developer Otto Schwarzler. By the 1950s it was known as the Medical Arts Building, reflecting its use by doctors for residential and professional purposes. In the wake of the South Bronx’s struggles, it was abandoned during the early 1970s but in 1982 was renovated and converted back to residential use as a publicly-subsidized affordable housing development and renamed the Concourse Flatiron. Look out for a mosaic in the Tremont Ave IND subway station that commemorates this triangular building. [Text by Jeff Reuben].