About Riverdale

Riverdale is a unique neighborhood that is located in the Northwestern section of the Borough of The Bronx, but is perhaps even more culturally and geographically linked to Manhattan than to any other area of New York City. Riverdale occupies a ridge bounded by the Hudson River to the west, the Harlem River to the south, the Westchester County Line and City of Yonkers to the north, and Van Cortlandt Park and Broadway to the east.
 
As described by the editors of The Riverdale Press, our own Pulitzer Prize-winning local newspaper, “Riverdale is a place of high-rises, private homes and sprawling estates. It’s a community of private schools and privilege,” but also “a place where every kid gets a chance at a decent education through public and parochial schools that are second to none.

“It’s an Irish enclave, a Jewish refuge, a welcoming, tolerant melting pot of nationalities from far off Asia to the Caribbean islands, with houses of worship for all.

“It’s home to the wealthy and working class, a place for seniors to come together, a place to raise a family….Old-timers exchange stories at the barbershop. Politicians meet at the diner. High school kids hang out at the pizza place. The garden club talks about roses. The Scouts plan camping trips. Little leaguers swing for the fences, and veterans remember. The Norman Rockwell image is balanced by an urban reality that adds challenges, but also brings the resources of a great city to the doorstep of this small town.”

What strikes many new residents, who may have grown up in The Bronx, Queens or Brooklyn of an earlier age, is how much of a throwback Riverdale is to the classic New York City neighborhoods of revered memory. Here are the traditional shopping streets with a profusion of small shops, restaurants and boutiques with merchants you know by name -- streets like Johnson Ave., Knoll’s Crescent and Riverdale Ave. and, farther down “the hill,” along 231st St. and Broadway, many more shops and restaurants, including expansive, up-to-the-minute supermarkets, and one shopping center, with a promise of more to come.

You can get the same mouth-watering kosher deli your parents and grandparents once enjoyed along the Grand Concourse or Ocean Parkway. You can step into Irish pubs and figuratively go back in time 50 or even 100 years. But you can also get your double-shot latte at Starbucks. Riverdale is a blend of old and new, modern and traditional. And it has parks, green spaces and open skies at every turn. It is a wonderful place to live. The Whitehall is right in the middle of everything. And midtown Manhattan is just minutes away!​nt.

Henry Hudson statue dominates Henry Hudson Park in South Riverdale.

Memorial Bell Tower at 239th St. and Henry Hudson Parkway is one of Riverdale’s best-known landmarks.

Mansion at famed Wave Hill nature preserve now houses administrative offices and restaurants. It was once home to Mark Twain at the turn of the 20th Century, and later to Metropolitan Opera conductor Arturo Toscanini.

Gardens at Wave Hill overlook the Hudson River and feature colorful blooms all year ‘round.

Main entrance to Manhattan College on Manhattan College Parkway. The LaSallian tradition school was founded in 1853.

Shopping most convenient to The Whitehall is but a short walk across Henry Hudson Parkway to Johnson Ave. and 235th St. A wide variety of restaurants, food stores and supermarkets, beauty salons and barber shops, bakeries, drug stores, cleaners, banks and stationery stores, provide the flavor of an old-fashioned bustling New York neighborhood.

Lined with luxury apartment buildings as well as single family homes and estates, Henry Hudson Parkway bisects Riverdale and forms a natural East-West dividing line. View is looking North at 235th St.