A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from October 06, 2004
Fort Apache (41st Police Precinct in the Bronx nickname)
The movie Fort Apache (1948) was a western directed by John Ford and starred John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Shirley Temple. The movie Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981), based on the book Fort Apache (1976) by Tom Walker, was directed by Daniel Petrie and starred Paul Newman, Edward Asner, Ken Wahl, and Danny Aiello.

The New York Police Department's 41st Precinct, at 1086 Simpson Street in the Bronx, was called "Fort Apache" by at least 1969 -- before the book and movie popularized the name -- because of the many violent crimes in the district. In 1993, the 41st Precinct moved out of the "Fort Apache" headquarters to a new building. The precinct had also earned the nickname "Little House on the Prairie" by that time because so many people had fled the once-troubled neighborhood.


NYPD
Precincts | 41st Precinct
Captain Louis M. Deceglie
1035 Longwood Ave., Bronx, NY, 10459-5204
(718) 542-4771
The 41st Precinct encompasses a large industrial and commercial area, located in the southern half of the precinct bounded by the Bruckner Expressway and Edgewater Street. The northern half of the precinct is both commercial and residential. The 41 Precinct also includes North and South Brothers Island located in the East River. There is one main shopping area located on Southern Blvd. from Westchester Avenue to E. 163rd Street.

Wikipedia: Fort Apache, The Bronx
Fort Apache, The Bronx is a 1981 American Neo-noir crime drama film directed by Daniel Petrie and starring Paul Newman, Ken Wahl, Danny Aiello, Edward Asner, Rachel Ticotin, Kathleen Beller, Pam Grier, Clifford David and Miguel Piñero. It was written by Heywood Gould and produced by Martin Richards, Thomas Fiorello, with David Susskind as executive producer.

It was filmed on locations in the Bronx, New York City. Author Tom Walker sued Time-Life Television Films, alleging that the film infringed on his book Fort Apache but lost after a lengthy court battle.

Plot summary
Police officers face many challenges in the decayed South Bronx region of New York City. Among them are NYPD officers Murphy (Newman) and Corelli (Wahl), who work out of the 41st precinct, nicknamed "Fort Apache" because to those who work there, it feels like an army outpost in foreign territory (an allusion to Fort Apache out of the Old West).
(...)
The real "Fort Apache" in the summer of 2007—1086 Simpson Street in the Bronx, formerly the New York Police Department's 41st Precinct Station. 40°49′32.07″N 73°53′33.72″W

25 Sept. 1969, New York (NY) Times, "Addict Control: No Solution in Sight: Police View on Control of Drug Addicts: Many Problems but No Solutions," pg. 50:
A visitor to the Hunts Point section (called Fort Apache by some of the embattled residents) observed at least three instances in which the police did not respond to calls that might have enabled them to catch addict-burglars at work.

18 January 1971, New York (NY) Times, "'Nobody Could Have Stopped It'" by Joseph Lelyveld, pg. 18:
The 41st, rather than the neighboring 43d, would have been the logical, predictable place for the stoppage to begin, for its station on Simpson Street is in the heart of one of the city's most blighted, crime-ridden areas. "Fort Apache," the men call it. Last year, giving their frontier metaphor visual expression, they had blue sweatshirts made up that showed a fort riddled with arrows.

OCLC WorldCat record
Fort Apache
Author: Tom Walker
Publisher: New York : Crowell, ©1976.
Edition/Format: Print book : Biography : English

New York (NY) Times
Pulling Out of Fort Apache, the Bronx; New 41st Precinct Station House Leaves Behind Symbol of Community's Past Troubles
By IAN FISHER
Published: June 23, 1993
(...)
Next month, the once-besieged headquarters, a stocky stone bunker at 1086 Simpson Street, will close as the officers of the 41st move to a gleaming new building off Southern Boulevard. And left behind, many in the community hope, will be a symbol of a South Bronx that barely exists anymore.

The area is still among the poorest in the nation, a place where per-capita income is $5,379 and where drug dealing and prostitution are regular jobs. But it is not the human zoo depicted in the 1981 movie, "Fort Apache, the Bronx." (By the time the film was made, the precinct had actually earned a second nickname, "Little House on the Prairie," because two-thirds of the 93,900 people who lived within its boundaries in 1970 had fled.)

Daily News (New York, NY)
South Bronx celebrates 100 years of former police precinct, known as Fort Apache
BY DENIS SLATTERY
Thursday, June 5, 2014, 8:34 PM
It was known as Fort Apache, but a once-beleaguered Bronx precinct house has risen from its fiery past to celebrate a centennial — and a new era in Bronx history.

The station house at 1086 Simspon St., now surrounded by trees and two-story townhouses, was the scene of a dedication ceremony and a barbecue Thursday that brought current NYPD brass, retired detectives and neighborhood residents together on a block that was once the poster child for urban decay.
(...)
“It was a different time,” Hinrichs said as he looked up at the landmarked building, which now houses the Bronx Detective Bureau. “The place was falling apart, just like the neighborhood.”
Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityGovernment/Law/Military/Religion /Health • Wednesday, October 06, 2004 • Permalink


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