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Completed in 1914, the Grand Concourse was built as the main thoroughfare to the borough's rapidly expanding factories and neighborhoods. Modeled after Paris, France's Champs-Elysées, it extended four and a half miles through the center of the West Bronx from Mott Avenue and 138th Street to Mosholu Parkway near Van Cortlandt Park. The Fordham Road/Grand Concourse intersection quickly became the Bronx's commercial center displaying the latest architectural styles on tree-lined avenues. In 1929, Loews built the $4 million Paradise Theater on the Grand Concourse, just south of Fordham Road. The theater seated 4,000 and had a baroque dˇcor that displayed a dark blue ceiling with small lights to resemble stars and simulated clouds blown across the ceiling by machine. The Paradise Theater was closed in 1994, but re-opened in October 2005 as the Paradise Theater, featuring special concerts and cultural events. Like much of the Bronx, the Grand Concourse experienced decline during the 1970s and 1980s, however, few of the building were razed. For that reason, the concourse is still lined with many of its original Art Deco buildings.
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