 In 1912, the city municipal engineers released plans to construct a plaza between Third and Park Avenues south of Fordham Road.This would involve removing the wooden bridge at Fordham Road across the railroad tracks, and covering the then-open-cut railroad tracks between Fordham Road and Welch Street (East 189th Street) to create the plaza.In September 1916, the Francis Rogers & Sons Department Store purchased the block on Fordham Road and Webster Avenue, then occupied by twenty two-story stores and office buildings, to build what would become 400 East Fordham Road.