Between the colonial settlements of Westchester and Eastchester, at the mouth of the Hutchinson River and the head of Eastchester Bay, this flat and marshy section was devoted to farming in the nineteenth century. Later plans for an airfield and a brief life as an amusement park were succeeded by the building of Co-op City (1968-70), one of the country's largest commercial housing developments. Home to 60,000 people, many of them former residents of the western Bronx, Co-op City has its own stores, theatres, schools, and fire house. Alongside the 35 apartment towers rise eight multilevel garages: Co-op City was made possible by new highway construction (Long Island bridges, and the Bruckner and Cross-Bronx Expressways, for example) just as earlier Bronx neighborhoods had been the result of subway building.


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