Bronx Park, the Bronx: A Garden and a Zoo in One Park

Much of Bronx Park came to the city under the 1884 New Parks Act, from Fordham University and from the Lorillard family, who had operated a snuff mill beside the Bronx River. Fordham's Rose Hill campus spanned over 100 acres before that transfer reduced it, and the campus now stands immediately west of the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden; a 138-plot cemetery on the campus was relocated in 1890 from its original location at what is now the Garden.

The river is the park's spine. It runs 2 miles (3.2 km) through Bronx Park, on a course of roughly 24 miles (39 km) from Westchester County to the East River that also carries it through the Garden and the Zoo. Lake Agassiz and Bronx Lake lie inside the park, along with waterfalls and ponds, and a 35-acre "Forever Wild" nature preserve occupies part of the northern section.

Fordham Road divides Bronx Park between its two institutions, and both the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden stand at the road's eastern terminus in the park. The Garden was founded on April 28, 1891 by an act of the New York State Legislature and holds the northern 250 acres. Cornelius Vanderbilt II, Andrew Carnegie and J. P. Morgan were among its principal officers; Nathaniel Lord Britton served as secretary and led the fundraising campaign with his wife, Elizabeth Gertrude Britton, taking the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London as the model. The Bronx Zoo holds 265 acres in the southern section and opened on November 8, 1899, four years after members of the Boone and Crockett Club — principally Madison Grant and C. Grant LaFarge — founded the New York Zoological Society. William Temple Hornaday was its first director, and served thirty years.

One older building on the Garden's grounds predates both institutions. The Lorillard Snuff Mill, built around 1840 on Snuff Mill Road, was designated a New York City Landmark in 1966, before any designation the Garden or the Zoo carries, and became a National Historic Landmark in 1977.

Routes here run to a named gate rather than to the park as a whole, so which entrance you want decides which one to take.

By subway, the B, D and 4 stop at Bedford Park Boulevard; from there the Bx25 and Bx26 run east to the Botanical Garden's Mosholu Entrance, which is also reached on foot down Bedford Park Boulevard to Southern Boulevard. The 2 stops at Allerton Avenue for the Garden's East Gate — west on Allerton, then south on Bronx Park East to Waring Avenue — and that gate is pedestrian and daytime access only. The 2 also stops at Pelham Parkway for the Zoo, whose Bronx River entrance, Gate B, is west of there on foot. The Zoo's own page adds the 2 or 5 to West Farms Square–East Tremont, East 180th Street or Pelham Parkway without naming a gate for any of the three, so none of those is tied to an entrance here.

Metro-North's Harlem Line has a station named Botanical Garden, which serves the Garden's Mosholu Entrance.

Buses run to specific entrances too. The Bx19, Bx12, Bx22, Bx9 and Bx17 serve the Garden's Main Entrance at 2900 Southern Boulevard, and the Bx25, Bx26, Bx41 and Bx34 the Mosholu Entrance at 2950 Southern Boulevard. At the Zoo, the Bx9 and Bx19 stop at 183rd Street and Southern Boulevard for the Southern Boulevard pedestrian entrance, Gate C, as do the Bx12 and Bx22 at Fordham Road and Southern Boulevard, south on foot to the same gate. The Q44 from Queens stops at 180th Street and Boston Road, north on foot to the Asia entrance, Gate A. The BxM11 express, which stops along Madison Avenue between 26th and 99th Streets in Manhattan, runs direct to Gate B.

Neither institution's own directions page names an NYC Ferry landing.

The Garden's remaining gates are the Main Entrance, which takes vehicles and buses, and the Everett Garden Gate on Southern Boulevard at Fordham, for school groups only. The Zoo has a car-service drop-off at the Southern Boulevard gate, at Southern Boulevard and 185th Street.