Hidden Gem in the Bronx: Country Club

     Country Club is mixed-income, mostly upper middle class to affluent residential neighborhood located in the East Bronx in New York City; it shares the 10465 ZIP code with Throggs Neck. Country Club is east of Pelham Bay; and it contains a large Italian-American population. The neighborhood’s boundaries are Middletown Road and Watt Avenue to the north, Eastchester Bay to the east, Layton Avenue to the south, and New England Thruway to the west. This area is policed by the 45th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Pelham Bay Park (including Orchard Beach), the largest public park in New York City, is located just north of Country Club, which itself is approximately two miles from City Island in Eastchester Bay.

     On Eastchester Bay opposite City Island, the neighborhood is rare within the city limits for its waterfront properties with private deep-water docks, beaches and nearby beach clubs that hum with life year-round. By night, the lights of the Throgs Neck Bridge twinkle in the distance like so many diamonds. Waterfront properties like those along Country Club Road are the jewels in the crown in Country Club, whose overall cozy atmosphere is created by a whimsical mix of housing styles, from wooden saltboxes to brick or fieldstone colonials and Tudors to 50’s-era Capes and ranches.

     Away from the water, most plots are small, usually 100 feet deep but sometimes only 30 feet wide. Adding to its charm, not every block has sidewalks and lawns along the tree-lined streets roll softly down to property lines defined by neat rows of Belgian blocks. Garages abound and on-street parking is plentiful. There is no commercial area in Country Club, a feature that adds to the welcome quiet of the neighborhood.

     A number of family-owned Italian specialty stores and delicatessens like the popular Lizzie’s Supermarket on Layton Avenue are sprinkled throughout the neighborhood, but for large chain supermarkets residents must make the 15-minute drive to the Bay Plaza shopping center or go farther afield to Westchester. Good restaurants, especially Italian ones, abound. For seafood lovers, City Island is just a few minutes away by car or boat, which can tie up at restaurant docks. The Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden are about three miles away, and lovers of the great outdoors can drive five minutes to nearby Pelham Bay Park, which at 2,764 acres is three times the size of Central Park. It offers tennis, horseback riding, the historic Bartow-Pell Mansion and Museum and the Thomas Pell Wildlife Sanctuary as well as nine miles of shoreline, including Orchard Beach.