Saturday, November 7, 2026, 3:00pm Edgar Allan Poe Cottage 2640 Grand Concourse The Bronx, NY 10458 Join The Bronx County Historical Society/Poe Cottage for an artist talk by Ira Merritt on his book  Ephemeral Light , featuring his original black and white photographs of Van Cortlandt Park, meditating on time, loss, and renewal. Copies of Ira's book will be available for purchase.

Saturday, November 7, 2026 10:00am–12:00pm The tour will begin at: Heinrich Heine Fountain  (in Joyce Kilmer Park, up the stairs on E. 161st Street) $20 for members of BCHS/$25 for non-members Join BCHS and David Herszenson for a tour of the Grand Concourse, The Bronx’s most famous thoroughfare, conceived by Frenchman Louis Risse at the end of the nineteenth century. Risse envisioned the Concourse as a suburban avenue populated with fancy single family homes. By the 1920s and ‘30s, as the population of The Bronx exploded, the Concourse became home to apartment buildings that attracted middle and upper middle class families from Manhattan. The apartment buildings in and around the Southern Concourse were recognized by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission as architecturally significant, declaring the area a historic district in 2011. Wear comfortable shoes and dress for the weather. Tour will take place rain or shine.

Saturday, October 17, 2026 10:00am–12:00pm The tour will begin and end at: Orchard Beach Parking Lot, Bronx, New York, NY $20 for members of BCHS/AIA & $25 for non-members The Bronx Chapter of AIA has organized with The Bronx County Historical Society a walking tour of Orchard Beach, Hunter Island, and the surrounding area of The Bronx. For AIA members, tour counts for 2 CEU credits. The AIA walking tour will explore the promenade of Orchard Beach and discuss its architectural history, as well as situating the “Riviera of The Bronx” in its historical context—that is, the Robert Moses sponsored urban planning of the 20th century and its impact on The Bronx and New York City. The beach was borne out of the WPA and public works associated with the New Deal era of Franklin Roosevelt. The walk will also focus on the development of the Bronx Park system and the City Beautiful movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with a particular emphasis on Pelham Bay Park, at 2,772 acres, the largest park in New York City, of which Orchard Beach is a part. Pelham Bay Park was borne of a particularly propitious moment for the City Beautiful movement. The annexation of the West Bronx to New York City (in 1874) and the East Bronx (in 1895) hastened the urban development of The Bronx as a major mixed-use business/residential urban area, a far cry from its early days as a critical agricultural supplier for New York City. Highlighted will be examples of urban planning and architectural construction that allowed for the creation of green spaces, which began early in The Bronx with the New Parks Act of 1884. As a result, the amount of total parkland in the Bronx is 4,000 acres, the most of any borough of New York City. Part of this included private sector efforts combined with the government of the State and City of New York to orchestrate the creation of Orchard Beach and Hunters Island in Pelham Bay Park in the 20th century. In addition, a system of “greenways” was laid out to connect these parks, including Pelham Parkway, which connected Pelham Bay Park to Bronx Park, so Bronx residents could get to any of the parks with ease. The access to Orchard Beach and Hunter Island is an excellent example of the Pelham Parkway “greenway,” which includes a roadway for buses and cars, horse trails, running path, walkways, bicycle area, and various seating locations and open spaces. The tour will visit the Hunter Island Wildlife Reserve, just adjacent to Orchard Beach. The flora and fauna of the East Bronx will be discussed, as will preservation efforts to maintain the ecology of Pelham Bay Park in a heavily urbanized Bronx. The tour will proceed down the Theodore Kazimiroff Nature Trail and hiking trails and conclude at the Orchard Beach Parking lot where the tour began. Wear comfortable shoes and dress for the weather. Tour will take place rain or shine.

Saturday, October 24, 2026 Exclusive Tours at Poe Cottage:  4:00–6:00pm Doors Open for Night Market at Visitor Center:   5:00pm Program Begins:  6:00pm Poe Park Visitor Center 2640 Grand Concourse The Bronx, NY 10458 Join The Bronx County Historical Society, The Bronx Beer Hall, Nefarious Confections, Militia Vox, and editors and authors of  More Than Love: The Enduring Fascination of Edgar Allan Poe  (2024) for Nevermore Literary Salon & Night Market, a night devoted to all things Poe and the dark romantic and gothic registers more broadly. The evening will begin with exclusive tours of Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, Poe's last permanent residence (1846–1849), where such classic works as "Annabel Lee," "The Bells," "Ulalume," and "Eureka" were written. At 5pm, the doors of the night market at the Poe Park Visitor Center, next door to the Cottage, will open for confections, themed cocktails, and vendors of Poe-related books and merchandise. At 6pm, the program will begin with author readings from  More Than Love  and a special live performance by the legendary Militia Vox.

General admission at the national landmark Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, operated by The Bronx County Historical Society. The Cottage served as the last permanent residence of legendary poet, critic, and pioneer of horror and mystery genres Edgar Allan Poe, 1846–1849. His wife, Virginia, died in the Cottage, and he wrote many of his most famous works here. A general admission ticket gives you the option of a guided tour of the Cottage by one of our museum docents or a self-guided tour. It also gives you access to the permanent and rotating exhibits at the Cottage.

General admission at the national landmark Museum of Bronx History/Valentine-Varian House, operated by The Bronx County Historical Society. Built by enslaved Africans in 1758 and owned by wealthy blacksmith Isaac Valentine, the colonial Georgian vernacular fieldstone Valentine-Varian House offers a tangible cross-slice of New York colonial- and revolutionary-era history. The Valentine-Varian House hosts the Museum of Bronx History, which offers changing exhibits on the rich history and cultre of The Bronx, from earliest human habitation of the area up to the present. A general admission ticket gives you the option of a guided tour of the Museum by one of our museum docents or a self-guided tour. It also gives you access to the permanent and rotating exhibits at the Museum.