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Belmont, the Bronx: Arthur Avenue and Bronx Little Italy

Belmont, New York

Belmont is the Bronx neighborhood Arthur Avenue runs through, and its business improvement district notes that people call it Belmont, Bronx Little Italy or simply Arthur Avenue. Wikipedia gives the bounds as Fordham Road to the north, Bronx Park to the east, East 181st Street to the south and Third Avenue to the west, a crescent shape; Bronx neighborhood lines are contested, so read those edges as one source's account rather than a survey. Irish and German families moved in from the mid-1880s. Construction of the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden from 1898 gave work to Italian immigrants, others laid out the new streets, and NYC Parks records that by the start of the twentieth century Belmont was becoming known as another Little Italy. By 1933 Arthur Avenue was its principal thoroughfare. The neighborhood sits in Bronx Community Board 6.

  1. An indoor market at 2344 Arthur Avenue, which the Belmont BID dates to October 1940 and lists as open Monday to Sunday, 8AM-8PM.

  2. 627 East 187th Street. The parish began early in 1906, in answer to a petition from the Italians living around 183rd Street and Pelham Avenue.

  3. 610 East 186th Street. The branch opened in 1981; Wikipedia records a collection of Italian-language material and of Italian-American work.

  4. Attilio Piccirilli's statue of Christopher Columbus, moved to this Adams Place triangle in 1992 from P.S. 45.

  5. 0.553 acres on East 188th Street between Arthur and Hughes Avenues, one of nine playgrounds opened on July 15, 1934.

  6. An Italian delicatessen on the Arthur Avenue Retail Market's vendor list, at 2344 Arthur Avenue.

  7. 2372 Arthur Avenue. The brothers' own account has them arriving through Ellis Island in 1912 as tailors and opening the grocery in 1915.

  8. 632 East 187th Street. Handmade ravioli and egg noodles; the shop dates itself to 1935, which is its own claim and names no founder.

  9. 2348 Arthur Avenue. Its own site has Mario Madonia opening the bakery over a century ago and his great-grandson carrying it on.

  10. 2374 Arthur Avenue. The butcher's own site gives 1954 and calls the business family-owned; it names no family member.

  11. 2342 Arthur Avenue. Wikipedia says a Sopranos scene was shot here, and that the owner turned down The Godfather's planned mob hit in 1972.

  12. Italian pastries, cakes and coffee at 622 East 187th Street, a building number it shares with Trattoria Tra Di Noi.

The Lorillards, and how Arthur Avenue got its name

NYC Parks' Historical Signs Project traces the ground here to the Lorillard estate, which its text places in the town of Westchester through the nineteenth century. Pierre Lorillard, a French Huguenot born in 1742, built the first tobacco company in New York at One Chatham Street in 1760; during the British occupation he was killed in a dispute with Hessian soldiers, and his widow and two of his five sons carried on the business. In 1792 they purchased a large tract near the Bronx River and built a mansion and a snuff mill there, powered by water from the river. Parks says the snuff mill still stands on the Botanical Garden's grounds.

The plant moved to New Jersey in 1870 and Catherine Lorillard Wolfe inherited the Bronx land. She auctioned the estate, one section of it was divided into streets and avenues, and Parks writes that as a great admirer of President Chester Alan Arthur she had one of those streets named Arthur Avenue. How Wolfe was related to Pierre Lorillard is not settled: three sources reached give three different answers, so this page states none of them.

Nor is the name Belmont itself settled. Wikipedia says only that the family's property became known as the Belmont Estate. The Belmont Business Improvement District's history page goes further and derives the name from an estate the Lorillards called "Belle Mont" — a single source, on a promotional page, which Wikipedia does not carry, and it is repeated here with that attribution and no more. The same page records that the Lorillard mansion was donated to become St. Barnabas Hospital and Medical Center; nothing else this research reached corroborates that.

Arthur Avenue and East 187th Street

A 1913 advertisement printed beside a photograph of new apartment buildings boasted, in NYC Parks' account, of the "phenomenal increase in value of real estate in the 'Italian' colonies." By 1933 Arthur Avenue had become Belmont's principal thoroughfare and the site of a flourishing open-air market with pushcart vendors. Parks writes that the pushcarts are gone but the character of the neighborhood remains much the same, with Italian residents now joined by newcomers of Latino and Albanian origin; Wikipedia adds that Albanians and Puerto Ricans have added to the mixture of businesses on Arthur Avenue and East 187th Street.

The commercial centre is Arthur Avenue itself, and the district extends east along East 187th Street. Where it stops is disputed — of three sources reached, two give Prospect Avenue and one Beaumont Avenue — so no eastern terminus is published here.

The Arthur Avenue Retail Market stands at 2344 Arthur Avenue. The Belmont Business Improvement District's page for it says that since October 1940 the market has been a fixture along Bronx Little Italy's main thoroughfare, and gives its hours as Monday to Sunday, 8AM-8PM, with each vendor keeping its own. The origin usually attached to this market — Mayor Fiorello La Guardia moving pushcart vendors indoors — appears on no source this research reached and is not repeated. The market's operator was not established either, and is not named.

The BID, whose office is at 2396 Arthur Avenue, describes itself as a non-profit organization made up of property owners and commercial tenants dedicated to promoting business development and improving Belmont's quality of life. It names an annual Ferragosto Festival held on Arthur Avenue in September; the page reached carried no year beside the date, so no date is given here.

Two institutions anchor the side streets. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church is at 627 East 187th Street; Wikipedia says the parish was begun early in 1906 by Rev. Daniel Burke and formally established around June 1906, when a store was remodeled as a chapel, in answer to the petition of the Italians living in the neighborhood. Its article on the church puts the basement church at 1907, the upper structure at 1912 and the dedication of the upper church at 1917, while its article on the neighborhood says the church was constructed in 1906; the two disagree, and neither names an architect or any landmark designation. The Belmont Library and Enrico Fermi Cultural Center is at 610 East 186th Street, opened in 1981, and Wikipedia records that it holds a collection of Italian-language material and of work by Italians and Italian-Americans.

Getting there

Metro-North is the closer rail answer, and the section leads with it for that reason. Fordham station, also known as Fordham-East 190th Street station, is at 417 East Fordham Road and is served by both the Harlem Line and the New Haven Line. Wikipedia's article on Belmont names the same station and the same two lines, and the Belmont Business Improvement District's directions say to take Metro-North's Harlem or New Haven line to Fordham. The station is adjacent to the western end of Fordham University's Rose Hill campus, which is not in Belmont.

No subway station is inside the neighborhood. Wikipedia places the closest about a mile west of Belmont, at Fordham Road, served by the B and D trains. That is the IND Concourse Line's Fordham Road station, at the intersection of Fordham Road and Grand Concourse, where the D calls at all times and the B on weekdays only; Wikipedia's infobox puts it in Fordham Heights. The IRT Jerome Avenue Line has a Fordham Road station of its own, at the intersection of Fordham Road and Jerome Avenue, served by the 4 at all times, which Wikipedia places in the University Heights and Fordham neighborhoods. Both are outside Belmont. The BID's own instruction is to take the B, D or 4 train to Fordham Road, then the Bx12 bus heading east.

Wikipedia's Belmont article lists the routes serving the neighborhood as the Bx9, Bx12, Bx15, Bx17, Bx19 and Bx22, plus the Bee-Line BL60, BL61 and BL62 Express. The Fordham station article carries a different list, adding the Bx41 and omitting the Bx19; that list belongs to the station, which is outside the neighborhood, so the two are not merged here.

No ferry serves Belmont. The boundaries Wikipedia gives — Fordham Road, Bronx Park, East 181st Street and Third Avenue — enclose no waterfront, and no source reached names a landing for the neighborhood.

For drivers, the BID's directions page names the Belmont Municipal Parking Field at 2356 Hoffman Street, a metered pay-and-display facility taking quarters, dollar coins, NYC Parking Cards, credit cards and the ParkNYC app. It also names three independent garages: the SBH Health System Parking Garage at 4487 Third Avenue, entered from Quarry Road; the Fordham Plaza Garage at 450 East 189th Street; and Fordham University Parking at 2691 Southern Boulevard, with a stated visitor rate of $25.

Frequently asked questions

How do I get to Belmont?
By Metro-North, most directly. Fordham station at 417 East Fordham Road is on the Harlem Line and the New Haven Line, and the Belmont Business Improvement District's own directions say to take the Harlem or New Haven line to Fordham. There is no subway station inside the neighborhood: Wikipedia puts the nearest about a mile west of Belmont, at Fordham Road, on the B and D. The BID's alternative is to take the B, D or 4 to Fordham Road and then the Bx12 bus heading east. Wikipedia lists the Bx9, Bx12, Bx15, Bx17, Bx19 and Bx22, plus the Bee-Line BL60, BL61 and BL62 Express, as the routes serving Belmont. No ferry serves it.
Why is it called Belmont, and why is the main street Arthur Avenue?
NYC Parks says Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, who inherited the Lorillard land in the Bronx and auctioned the estate, was a great admirer of President Chester Alan Arthur and had one of the new streets named Arthur Avenue. The neighborhood's own name is less settled. Wikipedia says only that the Lorillard property became known as the Belmont Estate. The Belmont Business Improvement District's history page derives it from an estate the family called "Belle Mont", but that is a single promotional source and no other source reached carries the etymology.
When did the Arthur Avenue Retail Market open?
The Belmont Business Improvement District's page for the market says it has been a fixture along Bronx Little Italy's main thoroughfare since October 1940, and gives its hours as Monday to Sunday, 8AM-8PM, with each vendor keeping its own. The origin story usually told about it — Mayor Fiorello La Guardia moving pushcart vendors indoors — is carried by nothing this research reached, so it is not repeated here. The market's operator was not established and is not named.
Which parks are in Belmont?
Three that this research established. Ciccarone Park, 0.553 acres on East 188th Street between Arthur and Hughes Avenues, signed Vincent Ciccarone Playground. D'Auria-Murphy Triangle, 0.31 acres at 2291 Adams Place, which holds Attilio Piccirilli's statue of Christopher Columbus, moved there in 1992 from P.S. 45. And Belmont Playground, 2.213 acres at 670 East 182nd Street. A fourth, the Quarry Ballfields at 565 East 181 Street, straddles the East 181st Street line with East Tremont and is left to that neighborhood. The sweep covered six of the 41 NYC Parks properties in the community board, so this is not a complete roster.
Where can I stay in Belmont?
This page lists nowhere, and that is a gap rather than a finding. A sweep of the City's Legally Operating Businesses register for the Hotel business category across Belmont's three ZIP codes — 10457, 10458 and 10460 — returns twelve Active licences in the neighborhood's community board, two of them created on May 20, 2025 at 500 and 510 East 185th Street. But a licence names a corporate licensee, not a hotel a visitor could book, and no source reached gives a trading name, a description or a booking presence for any of the twelve. So nothing is listed because nothing establishes what is licensed there — not because Belmont has no lodging.
Are the Arthur Avenue food shops still open?
For most of them this research could not establish that, and it says so rather than guessing. Forty Belmont places came through this research, and twelve of them rest on independent evidence dated inside 2026. For the other twenty-eight — Teitel Brothers, Borgatti's, Madonia Bakery, Addeo Bakers, Calabria Pork Store, Vincent's Meat Market, Casa Della Mozzarella, Mount Carmel Wine & Spirits and the rest — nothing independent and current enough was reached to say they are trading now, and for a grocer, a butcher or a cheese shop the absence of such evidence is expected rather than ominous. None is recorded as closed and none is written up here as open. Where a page says only what a place is and where it is, that is the reason. Call ahead.

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