WHEDco history

1995: WHEDco merges with the Athena Project, a women-led community-based childcare microenterprise program near the Morrisania Hospital.

1997: WHEDco completes the renovation of the Morrisania Hospital and opens Urban Horizons –which includes 132 units of affordable housing and provides a host of services to the community– and launches its first after-school program in Urban Horizons.

1998: The Urban Horizons Early Childhood Discovery Center, a Head Start program, opens.

1999: The Rafael Hernandez Dual Language Magnet School (PS/MS 218), co-developed by WHEDco, opens on the site of the Morrisania Hospital, completing the Urban Horizons campus, and WHEDco’s After-School program transitions into the school.

2005: The City awards WHEDco a site in the Crotona Park East neighborhood of the Bronx, the future site of Intervale Green.

2008: The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) awards WHEDco a vacant site in Melrose Commons to develop an affordable housing development and cultural venue, presently known as Bronx Commons and the Bronx Music Hall.

2009: The New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) selects WHEDco to implement the Childcare Improvement Project, thus expanding our Home-Based Childcare services beyond the Bronx and into all five boroughs.

2010: WHEDco convenes a Music Advisory Board composed of Bronx artists, musicians, activists and historians, to guide the plans for the Bronx Music Heritage Center.

2011: WHEDco, in collaboration with MSG’s Garden of Dreams Foundation, opens the Teen Leadership Center, which includes a computer lab, meeting space and a lounge space for the Teen Program.

2012: WHEDco opens the Bronx Music Heritage Center Laboratory, a store-front incubator space in Intervale Green, to host music and arts events.

2013: WHEDco expands its Youth Education and Development services to the Highbridge Green School as part of Mayor de Blasio’s MS ExTRA Initiative.

2015: WHEDco expands the Urban Horizons Student Garden, which serves as an outdoor classroom and facilitates a seed-to-table curriculum for children in our Early Childhood Discovery Center, After-School Program at PS/MS 218, and Summer Arts Day Camp.

2016: WHEDco rebrands Bronx CookSpace, WHEDco’s Commercial Kitchen Incubator.

2017: WHEDco breaks ground on Bronx Commons and the Bronx Music Hall.

In 2020, WHEDco opened our third and most ambitious project yet: Bronx Commons, a mixed-use development that features 305 affordable homes, ground-level retail, recreational space, and the permanent home of the BMHC.