Page 5 - Lloyd Ultan Flipbook

orn and raised within walking distance of Yankee Stadium, Professor Lloyd Ultan has been dubbed an “institution” by the New York Times for his work as a local historian. An author, educator, Bronx history
expert, and occasional tour guide, Professor Ultan’s career began more than 50 years ago when he was attending Hunter College’s Bronx campus (today known as Lehman College). The more he learned about world history and events during his undergraduate and graduate years, the more obvious it became that he knew very little about his own hometown. He subsequently discovered the Bronx County Historical Society and became a regular at its lectures. “I realized the history of the Bronx was the history of the nation in microcosm,” he recalls.
By the time he graduated with his MA in American History from Columbia University, Professor Ultan knew he would devote his career to teaching and preserving the history of the Bronx borough of New York. In 1964, he joined the faculty at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where he continues to teach today. He has also taught at his old alma maters, Lehman College and Hunter College. In 1996, Prof. Ultan was appointed to be the Bronx Historian by former borough president Fernando Ferrer. Prof. Ultan is the 4th person to occupy this position, which is pro bono.
In addition to his teaching, Prof. Ultan is the author of ten books on Bronx history, including The Beautiful Bronx (1920-1950), The Bronx in the Innocent Years: 1890-1925, and The Northern Borough: A History of the Bronx. A chance meeting on a bus in 2008 with Shelley Olson, a fan of his works, lead to a collaboration which produced The Bronx: The Ultimate Guide to New York City’s Beautiful
Borough.
Olson suggested the project because she had moved to the Bronx from Manhattan and could not find a good guidebook. She had loved reading Ultan’s history books on the area, however, and thought he was the perfect person to create the kind of thorough guidebook she felt people coming to the area needed. Ultan agreed, seeing the guidebook as a chance to showcase the “real Bronx” to people who might only remember it the way it was commonly shown in films—as a crime-ravaged urban ghetto. In the 90s, he once had to refuse a request made by a group of British tourists to be shown the devastated areas of the Bronx, because they just didn’t exist anymore. The guidebook has been hugely successful, with international orders coming in from places as far o as Australia, Korea, India, South Africa, and Sweden.
Not satisfied with simply teaching classes and publishing a guidebook, Prof. Ultan also took it upon himself to propose the idea for “Bronx Week”, which is now an annual celebration of the borough and everything it has to o er. During this event, Prof. Ultan himself gives tours to visitors. Fionnuala Douglas, a tour guide with Big Bus New York, calls it “Adventures With Lloyd”, describing the experience “like having the curator of the Bronx walk me through his exhibit”.
As a professional, Prof. Ultan maintains a liations with organizations such as the American Association of University Professors, the New York Historical Society, the American Historical Association, Sigma Lambda, Alpha Chi Alpha, and Phi Alpha Theta. For his work, he has been recognized with such honors as the 45-Year Award from Fairleigh Dickinson University (2009), the New York City Book Award for Borough History (from New York City Library), and was named the New York City Centennial Historian (1999).
Whether the Bronx becomes a major New York tourist destination is uncertain. One visitor from Ohio who took a tour with Ultan sees it as becoming more of a niche market. Another tourist from Yonkers disagrees, claiming that she’s returned for Bronx Week for 4 consecutive years because of the professor’s tours, and plans to buy his updated tour book. She praises him for having produced a guide that is so thorough, that someone could take themselves on a tour of the borough. What is certain though, is that for as long as he’s able, Prof. Ultan will be there, extolling the praises of his beloved home.