Fordham Plaza is part of the Fordham Road Business Improvement District, which extends west to around Jerome Avenue past Grand Concourse and includes much of the "Fordham Center" commercial district. History Previous development In the 1840s, what is now the intersection of Fordham Road and Webster Avenue was a rural junction in the town of West Farms, characterized by farmland and cottages with a few small businesses. At the site of Fordham Plaza at Washington Avenue was the Powell Farm House, the oldest residence in the neighborhood which was built at the turn of the 19th Century as part of the Union Hill Farm. A boarding school was also present on the farm grounds. Originally owned by the Bayard family, it came under the control of Rev. William Powell in 1830. Powell, who started the boarding school, was the founder of the St. Peter's Church, Chapel and Cemetery Complex in then-Westchester County (now Westchester Square, Bronx). At the northwest corner of the Fordham Road-Webster Avenue intersection was Nolan's Hotel, said to have been visited by George Washington, and frequented by local Fordham resident Edgar Allan Poe. Major development in the area began with the opening of St. John's College (now Fordham University) in 1841. Beginning in 1849, after Powell's death, the estate was broken up, with a small triangle of land at Third Avenue, Washington Avenue, and 188th Street going to the city to become the Flood Triangle park. A station on the New York and Harlem Railroad (now the Harlem Line of the Metro-North) at this location was constructed by 1850. In 1899 and 1902 respectively, the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden were opened on the former eastern grounds of St. John's College. The Third Avenue El was extended to a new terminal at Fordham Road (then Pelham Avenue) in 1901, while streetcar service in the area was introduced during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Streetcar lines included the 207th Street Crosstown Line along Fordham Road, the Willis Avenue Line along Third Avenue, and the Webster and White Plains Avenues Line along Webster Avenue. Because of these developments, the area's population exploded, and Fordham Road evolved into a major commercial district by the early 1900s. Creation and early years Plans to create Fordham Plaza as a park or development were proposed around 1911. At the time, much of the property in the area was