One doctor at Montefiore Medical Center is aiming to teach fellow health care professionals about the history of the Bronx, all in the hopes of better understanding the communities they serve through walking tours across the South Bronx.

"I realized just walking around and looking at buildings, there’s a lot of history here! Just doing my own personal research and finding the rich history of the people, of the buildings, of the neighborhoods," said Dr. David Herszenson, a family doctor at Montefiore. "At one of my sites, I had practiced there for 10 years without really knowing about what had gone on before I ever set foot in the area." On the tours, he will point out things like the Old Bronx Borough Courthouse at East 161st Street, between 3rd and Brook Avenues or St. David's Episcopal Church on East 160th Street, which was designed in the 1800s by Vertner Woodson Tandy, the first Black architect registered in New York State. He says learning the history of a community makes doctors more equipped to serve them.

“The Bronx has had a lot of ups and a lot of downs, and it helps me understand my patients and where they come from.”Herszenson hopes to see more of these places become official landmarks so that they will be protected from ever being demolished.