Jerome. He built the Jerome Park Racetrack, where the first Belmont Stakes was held, on his estate. West of the station in the village area, the Fordham Hotel and Taverine would provide basic needs for visitors for the college and the racetrack. After 1900 For the most part, Old Fordham Village remained rural until about 1900, when New York City began to expand. Early mass transit to the suburbs changed the area of what is Fordham today. Old Fordham Village and the surrounding area would become part of the borough of the Bronx within New York City. Many of the remaining farms and estates were sold to developers who built houses and sizable apartment buildings. The formerly quiet little village became a major business and transportation hub. In this area of Fordham, Boston Post Road was renamed Fordham Road and became part of U.S. Route 1 in 1926. The rebuilding of the railroad right of way at Fordham, and most of Webster Avenue, eliminated The Mill Brook and water pond, but the side streets of Old Fordham Village remain active. Fordham was a predominantly middle class White (of Irish and Jewish origins) neighborhood, from the 1920s through the late 1970s, when many families moved to the suburbs or the Los Angeles area, or retired to Florida. Belmont was formerly a portion of Fordham and South Fordham. On January 9, 2022, a high-rise fire tore through an apartment building in Fordham. At least 19 people were killed, including nine children, and at least 60 other people were injured, including 32 with life-threatening injuries. It was the third-deadliest residential fire in the U.S. since 1978. Demographics Fordham has a population of around 43,394 people. Its first growth was in the 1920s, when middle-class and working-class families from Manhattan flocked into the area, attracted by the then-modern housing and convenient subway access by Concourse, Jerome Avenue, and Third/Webster Avenues lines to business districts in Manhattan where they could work and shop. It is now predominantly Latin American and African American. There is a significant historic Italian and Albanian population as well. Fordham is divided into two sections: Community District 5 south of Fordham Road, comprising Fordham South, and Community District 7 north of Fordham Road, comprising Fordham North. Most inhabitants of Community District 5 are youth and middle-aged adults: 28% are between the ages of between 0–17, 29% between 25–44, and 23% between