Riverdale, The Bronx
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Riverdale (population 46,013) is a well-to-do residential neighborhood in the northwest Bronx in New York City. It is bordered on the west by the Hudson River, on the north by Yonkers, New York, and on the east by a large hill separating Riverdale from the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx. Wave Hill, a combination garden and outdoor art gallery, is in Riverdale. Two weekly newspapers, the Riverdale Press and the Riverdale Review, focus on news of interest to residents of the neighborhood. Fieldston, an even more upscale neighborhood, lies entirely within Riverdale's borders. Southern Riverdale is also known as Spuyten Duyvil, which was once considered a separate neighborhood in its own right, and has its own train station. Van Cortlandt Park touches the neigborhood.
Riverdale contains three private schools (Horace Mann, Riverdale Country, and Fieldston), the public John F. Kennedy High School in nearby Marble Hill, and two private universities (Manhattan College and the College of Mount Saint Vincent). The public elementary schools are P.S. 24 and P.S. 81. Many Riverdale residents also attend Bronx Science. Riverdale is home to the Salanter Yeshiva, a Jewish seminary near the Riverdale train station.
The 1 and 9 subway lines and the Hudson line of the Metro North commuter railroad run through the neighborhood. Commuting time from the Spuyten Duyvil station to Grand Central Station in Midtown Manhattan is around 25 minutes. Manhattan can also be easily reached by the Express Bus service. By car, Riverdale is commonly reached via the Henry Hudson Parkway which bisects much of the neighborhood. This major thoroughfare connects it to Manhattan over the Henry Hudson Bridge to the south.
Many residents of Riverdale are reluctant to be associated with the Bronx, and use "Riverdale, New York" as an address. The U.S. postal service, though it once did not consider this to be an acceptable city name and hence letters addressed as such were often returned to the sender, now has no problem sending letters to Riverdale residents. Riverdale's zip codes are 10463 and 10471; while 10471 is entirely in Riverdale, 10463 largely covers the less prestigious neighborhoods of Kingsbridge and Marble Hill, leading many to mistakenly call those areas "Riverdale."
Riverdale is home to large Irish-American and Jewish communities.