of the respective service roads. This configuration with three roadways (two service roads and one main road) continues north until Mosholu Parkway, where the Grand Concourse ends. At Fordham Road, the main road passes underneath in a grade-separated junction, while the service roads intersect with Fordham Road. Between approximately 161st and 204th Streets, the New York City Subway's IND Concourse Line () runs under the Grand Concourse. The IRT Jerome Avenue Line () also runs underneath the boulevard for a short section south of 149th Street, and the 149th Street–Grand Concourse station complex () serves the boulevard. The Bx1 local bus and the BxM4 express bus run the entire length of the Grand Concourse, while the Bx2 local bus runs on the Concourse north of 149th Street. History Construction Risse first conceived of the road in 1890, as a means of connecting the borough of Manhattan to the northern Bronx. Construction began on the Grand Concourse in 1894 and it was opened to traffic in November 1909. Built during the height of the City Beautiful movement, it was modeled on the Champs-Élysées in Paris but is considerably larger, stretching four miles (6 km) in length, measuring across, and separated into three roadways by tree-lined dividers, so some minor streets did not cross the Concourse. The cost of the project was $14 million (worth $ today). The Grand Concourse originally stretched from Bronx Borough Hall at 161st Street north to Van Cortlandt Park. It was expanded southward to 138th Street in 1927 after Mott Avenue was widened to accommodate the boulevard. Evidence of the Grand Concourse extension's old name is present at the 149th Street–Grand Concourse station, where there are signs reading "Mott Avenue". Development The Interborough Rapid Transit Company's Jerome Avenue Line opened a few blocks west of the Grand Concourse in 1917, initiating a housing boom amongst upwardly mobile, predominantly Jewish and Italian, families who were fleeing the crowded tenements of Manhattan. In 1923, Yankee Stadium opened near the Grand Concourse at 161st Street, down the hill from the Concourse Plaza Hotel. South of Fordham Road, the palatial Loew's Paradise theater, one of the Loew's Wonder Theatres and at one time the largest movie theater in New York City, was constructed in 1929. Development of the Concourse was further encouraged by the opening of the Independent Subway System's Concourse Line in 1933. By the mid-1930s, almost three hundred apartment