A Bronx State of Mind AROUND the turn of the last century, Morris Park in the East Bronx was a pretty lively place to be. From 1889 to 1904, the neighborhood was home to the 300-plus-acre Morris Park Racecourse, home for a few thrilling years to both the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. Women in flowing gowns and men in derbies or boaters arrived by horse and buggy or via the New Haven Railroad, which built a special spur to the neighborhood. In subsequent years, the track was used for auto racing and what was touted as the first public air show. The thoroughbreds, fast cars and flying daredevils are just a memory, thanks to a fire that in 1910 destroyed virtually all traces of the racecourse. But to Tom Vasti, a retired police officer who has lived in Morris Park nearly his entire life, the past is present daily, and in all its glory. Mr. Vasti's grandparents were Italian immigrants, "part of the generation that believed the streets were paved with gold," he said. His parents were married in 1949, and Tom, their only child, was born the following year. In 1956 Mr. Vasti's father, a letter carrier, paid $15,500 for a two-story red brick house on Hone Avenue, one of many Morris Park streets named after long-forgotten New York mayors. A cedar tree stood in the pocket-size front garden, and in the back were a sugar maple and a wild black cherry tree, at the time just a stick in the ground. Mr. Vasti, who is 62, remembers the June day the family moved in. A snapshot taken not long afterward shows a dark-haired 7-year-old wearing long pants and a suit jacket miles too big for him. Although the child is smiling for the camera, the day of the move was not a happy one. "The house was so cold and dark, so drafty," Mr. Vasti said. The radiators banged so much, it sounded like a bar fight in a Western. I was so terrified, I said to my father, "I want to go home." He said to me, "You are home." " Seven years later, on Tom's first day of high school, his mother died of a stomach ulcer. My father wondered, should we move, and if so where should we go? Mr. Vasti said. He finally decided just to carry on here. But it was difficult. Mr. Vasti, who spent 16 years as a member of the uniformed security detail at Gracie Mansion, still lives here, along with his wife, Rosemarie, a hospital schoolteacher, and their older daughter, Maria. Their younger child, Diana, lives nearby, and Mr. Vasti often baby-sits for his 2-year-old granddaughter. Michaela. A crib in the corner of the Vasti living room awaits her visits. In many respects, the house has changed little over the years, and some pieces of furniture have long pedigrees. The couple bought the brass-handled pine dresser when they were married 38 years ago. The vanity was a gift from Mrs. Vasti's mother. The relative newcomers among the furnishings speak to the couple's varied interests. Mrs. Vasti's collection of 50 teapots, embellished with grapes, pumpkins and other decorative motifs, sits on ledges her husband built in the kitchen. Mr. Vasti is a big "Gunsmoke" fan, and he has turned a corner of the living room into a little shrine to James Arness, complete with photographs of the actor and a diminutive copy of a Frederic Remington bronze horse. A 34-volume set of the 1993 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, bound in navy and red leather and embossed with gold lettering, greets visitors at the top of the stairs. "I'd rather use that than go online," said Mr. Vasti, whose affection for his home turf is matched only by his taste for historical research. In the basement are typed copies of every one of 250 letters written to his father from an uncle between 1940 and 1945, when his father was in the Army. But most of all, the house is a testament to Mr. Vasti's passion for Bronx history. He has an almost complete set of Bronx Zoo guidebooks, starting with 1899, courtesy of eBay, where he finds many of his treasures. He has a collection of old Bronx telephone books, including a reverse directory from 1932. A blue-and-white afghan depicting a dozen local institutions is draped over the living room sofa. What he describes as his "humble postcard collection," containing more than 1,000 items, is heavy with Bronx imagery. "Sometimes my wife threatens a big Dumpster," Mr. Vasti said. He is especially fascinated by the early days of his own streets. Though he takes pains to credit Bill Twomey, president of the East Bronx History Forum, for much of his knowledge, Mr. Vasti is clearly an apt student. As vice president of the Forum, Mr. Vasti is an infectious tour guide to this part of the city, and documents showing what the area looked like a century ago are among his most treasured possessions. The living room is dominated by a 1903 wide-angle photograph of the racetrack's grandstand and clubhouse, populated by fashionably dressed New Yorkers and electric cars jostling horse-drawn wagons. The image is computer-generated; Mr. Vasti would give anything to have the negative. Near the stairs, against crimson wallpaper flecked with gold fleurs-de-lis, hangs an original 1872 map showing the East Bronx neighborhoods of Unionport, Westchester and Schuylerville. Mr. Vasti bought the map at Argosy Book Store, his favorite source of old maps and prints. "One day I went in and asked them what they had on the Bronx," he said, "and when they showed me, I cleaned them out." Above the map is a pastel image of the racetrack property, dated May 31, 1913, and showing the lots to be sold for development. Mr. Vasti calls the work his pride and joy, and has drawn a tiny arrow pointing to the approximate location of his house. With minimal urging, he will happily escort a visitor around local streets, perhaps wearing his Morris Park baseball cap, and eagerly point out long-gone institutions. It's clear that beyond the trim houses with enclosed porches and vinyl siding, he sees a world that existed decades earlier. "Here's where the German beer garden was, and the Nash Rambler dealership," he said. Here's where the Laconia Hotel stood - well, hotel was just a fancy name for brothel. And here's where the Woodmansten Inn was, where Mayor Jimmy Walker was the night he learned that Arnold Rothstein had been shot. As an amateur historian, Mr. Vasti knows better than most that the death of Rothstein, the celebrated mobster, would lead inexorably to Walker's downfall. For a moment he looked pensive. "For Walker," he said sadly, "that was really the beginning of the end." E-mail: habitats@nytimes.com