The Grand Concourse and the surrounding urban fabric was built at the height of the “City Beautiful” movement, that borrowed from European Beaux Arts and neoclassical trends. It sought to create moral and civic virtue in urban settings through monumental architecture and urban design.

The Concourse is a major thoroughfare in the Bronx, inspired by the Champs-Élysées, the monumental street like those of Haussman in Paris. The construction of the Grand Concourse was part of the city planning tradition of great streets as a means of redefining neighborhoods.

The construction of the four mile long Concourse was a means of connecting the borough to Manhattan and imagined as “the Park Avenue of middle-class Bronx residents,” and spurred a proliferation of development along it encouraged by the opening of various subway lines in the early 1900s.

STUDIO V dramatically renovated the lobby on the ground level of the 1954 building, both updating and introducing contemporary designs that reflects the specific character of Grand Concourse. The new lobby features a clean design, highlighting three custom made art pieces in wood depicting maps of the Grand Concourse neighborhood.