MUSEUM OF BRONX HISTORY

The colonial-era fieldstone house, built c. 1758, in which the Museum of Bronx History is located was donated to The Bronx County Historical Society in 1965. The museum opened in 1968, after the house was restored. Visitors today can see the original fieldstone walls and oak and pine floorboards fashioned by the enslaved African craftsmen of the original owner of the house, Isaac Valentine. The main level of the museum contains three galleries that feature a rich rotation of exhibitions as well as a museum gift store.

The Museum of Bronx History stands in a quiet residential neighborhood at Bainbridge Avenue and E. 208th Street, a short walk from Montefiore Medical Center. The Bronx County Historical Society Research Library and The Bronx County Archives are less than a block away.

Visit the museum of bronx history

Hours

Sat 10:00am–4:00pm

Admission

Members enjoy free admission to the Museum of Bronx History. Free admission for NYC residents also available through Culture Pass NYC.

Private Tours

$25 Adults
$12 Children

Private tours of the Museum of Bronx History outside of its regular hours can be scheduled through Roger McCormack, Director of Education, at [email protected] or 718-881-8900 x107.

Location/Directions

Museum of Bronx History
3266 Bainbridge Avenue
The Bronx, NY 10467

  • Take the D train to E. 205th Street/Norwood (last stop) in The Bronx. Walk north along Bainbridge Avenue.

  • Take the 4 train to Mosholu Parkway stop in The Bronx. Walk east to Van Cortlandt Park East. Go north until you hit Bainbridge Avenue.

  • The museum is also accessible by MTA bus lines Bx10, Bx16, Bx28, Bx30, Bx34, and express bus BxM4.

 
ricky flores photograph fox street 1984

CURRENT EXHIBITS

Museum of Bronx History
3266 Bainbridge Avenue
On Display September 12, 2024–January 26, 2025
Open Saturdays, 10am–4pm
Private tours by appointment throughout the week

Seis del Sur’s HISTORIAS: The Stories Behind the Images is an interactive multimedia exhibition that explores the collective’s early documentary photographs of The Bronx as well as those of friends and colleagues. Their images—many unseen and stretching back decades—reshape the borough’s narrative and personalize it with anecdotes about the images on display at The Bronx County Historical Society’s Museum of Bronx History.

The work of Seis del Sur founding members Joe Conzo, Jr., Ricky Flores, Ángel Franco, David González, Edwin Pagán and Francisco Molina Reyes II covers a range of social, cultural, and political issues affecting Bronxites over the last four decades as it informed our worldviews. In recent years they have dug deep into their archives, finding images for the show that have never been exhibited before.

The welcome addition of Carmen Mojica and Abigail Montes to the mix continues and expands the collective’s commitment to documenting and preserving our community and personal histories.

HISTORIAS: THE STORIES BEHIND THE IMAGES

The Bronx Basketball Hall of Fame

Museum of Bronx History
3266 Bainbridge Avenue
Exhibit Opening: July 18, 2024, 5–8pm
Then Open Saturdays, 10am–4pm
Private tours by appointment throughout the week

The Bronx Basketball Hall of Fame, curated by Derek Doward, CEO of The Bronx Basketball Hall of Fame, highlights the rich histories of basketball in The Bronx, starting from the very early years of the game up to the present, focusing on individuals who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.

  • A Bronx Writers’ History, curated by STAFF 161 (TED), highlights the stories and ongoing creativity of Bronx pioneers of writing (“graffiti”) from the late 1960s and early 1970s. The exhibit also features street art by high school students from Academy for Scholarship and Entrepreneurship and High School for Contemporary Arts.

  • Explore recovered histories of African-American and multiracial residents of the Allerton Coops, located at 2700 Bronx Park East, a hub of working-class radicalism and avant-garde Yiddish and African-American cultures during the 1930s–1960s. Exhibit opens on August 12, 2023, 2–6pm, and will be open for an extended time at the Museum of Bronx History, open Saturdays, 10am–4pm, and Sundays, 1–5pm, and by appointment.

  • Join The Bronx County Historical Society for With Our Hands/Con Nuestras Manos: Arte de Tierra y Mar/Spring Love, which celebrates the Earth Mother ATABEI's creativity and the inspirational love of Puerto Rican women. The exhibit highlights Puerto Rican women’s multifaceted creative efforts to maintain their own lives and histories—both in The Bronx and elsewhere—through political organizing, sculpting, ancestral remembrance, painting, photography, poetry, and more.

  • This exhibition celebrates the rich history of the southernmost neighborhood in The Bronx, Mott Haven.

  • April 11, 2019–October 6, 2019

    Before it transplanted to Hollywood, the movie industry in the U.S. was an East Coast fixture, and early twentieth-century studios included the Biograph and Edison Studios in The Bronx. “BXFlicks” explores this pioneering moviemaking role of the borough, the characterization of The Bronx on film through the decades, and the history of Bronx movie theaters built to showcase this modern innovation in mass entertainment.

  • Utilizing its photographic and research collections, The Bronx County Historical Society has created an exhibition highlighting the many peoples of Latin American origin that call this borough home. These incredibly diverse peoples comprise the largest and fastest-growing demographic grouping in The Bronx today. Yet there is historical evidence of the presence of some of these peoples here dating back centuries.

  • October 12, 2017–April 8, 2018

    Explore the “sleeping places” of those who have come before us. Some burial grounds are long since vanished; others survive into the twenty-first century. Learn what burial secrets your neighborhood may hold as well as burial practices and mourning rituals of Victorians, graveside symbolism, and the famous who still dwell among us.

  • April 5, 2017–October 8, 2017

    2017 marks 100 years since the United States entered World War I and began its emergence onto the international stage that would ultimately transform the nation into a world power. On the cusp of a modern age, Americans enjoyed jazz and ragtime, strove for women’s suffrage, and shattered the country’s insularity by joining the Allies. View life in The Bronx a century ago and its “War to End All Wars.”

  • April 14, 2016–October 9, 2016

    The exhibition was based on the Ferris-Doherty Collection, one of the largest and most historically important collections of The Bronx County Historical Society. It consists of photographs, documents, furnishings, textiles, and personal memorabilia dating back over 300 years. These diverse examples of material culture shine a light not only on the personal lives of the many generations in this family but also on the history and heritage of the settlement of the Town of Westchester since its seventeenth-century foundation, as well as of The Bronx.

  • October 22, 2014–October 4, 2015

    Constructed almost 170 years ago, High Bridge remains an engineering triumph and the oldest surviving bridge in New York City. After extensive restoration, High Bridge reopened to the public in July 2015 as an essential link in the city’s expanding waterfront greenway system. This exhibit explores the rich history of High Bridge.

  • April 8–October 4, 2015

    2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the end of the U.S. Civil War as well as the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, one of the last victims of the conflict. The Bronx contributed a number of infantry and cavalry units to the Union war effort under the New York State volunteer system. Learn about these men and the families and communities they left behind.

  • October 22, 2014–April 5, 2015

    A loan exhibition from the Queens Historical Society and the MTA Bridge and Tunnels Archives celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge.

  • April 9, 2014–October 19, 2014

    2014 marked the 100th anniversary of the creation of
    Bronx County, the last county created in the State of New York. The year was dedicated by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., and there were many events and new initiatives that helped mark and celebrate this milestone.

  • September–October 2014

    Photograph exhibition installed in the Hall Gallery of the Museum of Bronx History for Hispanic Heritage Month and showcased through Open House New York Weekend, October 11–12, 2014.

PAST EXHIBITS