Bronxville Then and Now: Pondfield Road

Few areas in the Village of Bronxville have in the last century or so undergone a transformation like Pondfield Road has. Ponfield began as a rural country lane, and even up until the 1920’s was still mostly residential, with village shops and offices located elsewhere in Bronxville.

The conversion from residential byway to sprawling commercial district would be swift one, however, and be completed over the course of a single generation. One group of residents would have witnessed the full circle of change themselves, as private homes were sold and demolished to make way for store front property.

The archive photo (above) shows Pondfield Road as it looked around 1920. The picture is taken at the corner of Kraft Ave, looking north towards the old Hotel Gramatan that can be seen in the distance.

One of the interesting things about life in the Village in the 1920s was that one of the many duties of the Bronxville Police Department was to make sure the grass areas on the sidewalks were landscaped and maintained.

In the archive photo, present-day  would be on your right, and  would be on your left. As you can see, the road itself would have been a combination of gravel and dirt, although this would quickly change with more and more automobiles making their way into the Village in the next decade.

With the final house from Pondfield’s residential days razed in the early 1960s, the road would quickly turn into the budding and energetic commercial strip that we know today, providing a vibrant business district for local residents as well as helping attract patrons from nearby towns.

Pondfield Road, like much of the Village of Bronxville, has undoubtedly undergone a massive transformation over the last century, but archive photos such as the one of Pondfield Road above evoke the charm and character of the Village back then, and allow us, even if only for a moment, to honor the past in the present.