Andrew Freedman attended as a young boy a public school in lower Manhattan and later the City College of New York. He started his working life in a local dry goods store and sharpened his instinct for money and business. Freedman is mainly remembered today as one of the owners of New York’s baseball team, The Giants, a National League whose principal owner he became in 1895. However, many chronicles of the time state that Freedman had a difficult temper and that baseball was merely a diversion to him. His greater interests lay in weighty business and political affairs, especially real estate ventures that brought him wealth and success. Some of the New Yorkers may associate Freedman’s name with the first subway line of the city. In fact, Andrew Freedman was a very influential person and a key player in the construction of New York’s subways network. Later, he closely monitored most of the construction work of IRT, becoming one of the directors of the companies involved in building the line. 

Gifted with intelligence and inspiration, Freedman worked his way to success, gaining considerable wealth from his business. Towards the end of his life, Freedman conceived a plan for a charitable mansion that will incorporate most of his fortune. A home devoted to the cultured, refined people that due to objective reasons lost their means to live according to their education and past lifestyle. The Andrew Freedman Home soon became an original idea to accommodate for free the old and poor “(...)without regard to race or religious creed(...)” at the highest standards. Freedman left behind a cultural legacy, an impressive edifice that stands today in the heart of the Bronx community.

The will of Andrew Freedman stated that the bulk of his estate was to be used for the Home. The responsible to carry out this task was Friedman’s business partner and executor Samuel Untermyer. Untermyer was a notorious lawyer of his time and got close to Freedman through the political circles of Tammany Hall. He became the first president of the Home’s Board of Trustees and together with the directors established the admission requirements. The Board was assembled by Vice-presidents dr. Bernard Sachs and Daniel B. Freedman, treasurer Henry D. Campbell and secretary Harry Hoffman. In 1916 the Trustees achieved an Act in the Laws of New York that incorporated the Andrew Freedman Home, allowing them to make land purchases. In 1917 a large property situated in the Bronx was purchased by the Andrew Freedman Home. The block was bounded by the Grand Concourse, Walton Avenue, East 166th Street and McClellan. Due to the outbreak of the First World War, the construction of the Home was delayed and only started in the second decade of the 20th century. 

The finance committee headed by Alvin Untermyer surveyed all the necessary finances required for the project. The funds swelled by the Andrew Freedman Home indeed to make a profit. For example, from the Bronx property, the Trustees have sold a rear parcel and the obtained profit was used in the construction and the maintenance of the Home. Many other saving strategies were implemented during the Great War that added to the existing funds. The plans for the future building were that the Home will be perceived “as beautiful an ornament to the city as was the design of the testator in planning the benefaction.” 

Many say that the Home resembled a fine European hotel and not an institution for eldery people. In fact, Freedman wished to provide all the comfort a wealthy person was used to in his youth and live accordingly in his twilight years. The residents, “cultured and refined”, walk over marble floors, sit on brocaded couches and admire the park by sliding away heavy draperies. The spaces are divided into two categories, private and public spaces. 

On the ground floor there was the dining room with large windows and Chinese red chairs, library with tall bookshelves, lounge with periodical-room, game room, billiard room, all spacious and well furnished with imported Belgian handmade furniture. On the mustard-yellow  walls there are photographs of Freedman and framed letters from August Belmont, Freedman’s associate in the I.R.T. business. The rooms have high ceilings and carpets deep. The interior decorations were made by L. Alavoine & Company in grand style including old bronzes on the tables. Upstairs were the bedrooms, 62 double rooms, with private bath, and 38 singles rooms with shared baths. These were decorated with walnut stands, bedside lamps and other personal belongings that the residents were allowed to use in their private spaces. 

Officially, the Home served its original function until 1983, but in reality at the beginning of the ‘80s much of the space was closed. The high costs of maintaining the facility conditioned the Trustees to close the Home for good. The last residents of the Home moved out in the summer of 1983 and the building was put up for sale. The Mid-Bronx Senior Citizens Council is the most important social services officer in the Bronx. With an impressive sum of $1.6 M, the Council purchased the building from the Andrew Freedman Trust and reopened the Home for the elderly or poor, regardless of their past. 

The Mix-Bronx Senior Citizens Council is a private non-for-profit organization that provides financial support to housing projects in the Bronx community. Even if purchased and managed by a different board of directors, the Council’s executive director at the time of purchase declared that the team will “continue to serve as a symbol of human dignity” and provide all the necessary support to residents that will come from many more social classes. As the costs of using such an imposing building made impossibile to use the entire space, the first and second floors were mainly used in the interest of the Bronx community as day care center, community programs and events space. The elegant rooms of the Home opened its doors, once again, to accommodate the elderly and to secure the legacy of Andrew Freedman. 

The Freedman mansion became a generous host of some of the most active artists on contemporary art, transforming the grandiose spaces of the building into spaces for sweeping painting, colleges or sound experiments. The AFH shifted from a luxurious private home of the beginning of the 20th century to a cultural centre in 2012 for the Bronx community. 

This year the Home received an important $1.7M grant to restore the historic mansion and ‘revitalize’ the Bronx neighborhood, while the directors are looking to secure more funding. This grant will help to bring infrastructure improvements that will allow the Council to open the remaining closed and uninhabitable space. More than 16.000 people visit the mansion each year and are astonished by the idea of creating an institutional home for the once rich people. The grant is to be invested in renovating the deteriorated space, the metal fence, the garden, rehabilitation of the grand ballroom, new lighting, transforming old bedrooms, thus returning this space to the people, as the director, W. Puryear said.