WHERE: Manhattanville, Grant’s Tomb, Columbia University
START: 125 Street subway station (A, B, C, D trains; fully accessible)
FINISH: Cathedral Parkway - 110 Street subway station (1 train)
DISTANCE: 2.2 miles (3.5 kilometers)
Photographs by Michael Cairl.
Route of this walk, reading from right to left. Map courtesy footpathapp.com.
This last Saturday of Summer 2022 was perfect for this walk: pleasantly warm and not humid. The first part of this walk was a return to the Manhattanville neighborhood in the valley between Morningside Heights to the south and West Harlem to the north. I described walking through Manhattanville in the post entitled “Four Stair Streets and a Tunnel Street (Manhattan)” on “The Stair Streets of New York City” page. Although this first part of the walk was a return visit, there were still some things at and around St. Mary’s Church of Manhattanville, on West 126 Street.
A bit of old Europe in the facade of a building across the street from St. Mary’s Church.
Profile of the climb up to Grant’s Tomb, courtesy Google Maps.
From there my friend Matt Summers and I walked for a block on Old Broadway them west on West 125 Street, past the impressive steel arch span, called the Manhattan Valley Viaduct, carrying the subway (1 train) over the street here, to Riverside Drive. From here we climbed the steep hill up to the General Grant National Memorial, which everybody calls Grant’s Tomb.
From the National Park Service page about the General Grant National Memorial:
Approximately 90,000 people from around the world donated over $600,000 towards the construction of Grant's Tomb. This was the largest public fundraising effort ever at that time. Designed by architect John Duncan, the granite and marble structure was completed in 1897 and remains the largest mausoleum in North America. Over one million people attended the parade and dedication ceremony of Grant's Tomb on April 27, 1897.”
Grant’s Tomb fronts on a large, tree-shaded forecourt and is a commanding presence on Riverside Drive and from the Hudson River Greenway and Henry Hudson Parkway. Above the entrance is the "epitaph “Let Us Have Peace.” No bombast about Grant’s military campaigns, just Let Us Have Peace.
The mausoleum interior had not yet opened for the day when we got there, so we could not see the sarcophagi of Ulysses S. Grant and his wife, Julia Dent Grant.
For more information about Grant’s Tomb go to https://www.nps.gov/gegr/index.htm.
Across Riverside Drive from Grant’s Tomb is International House, which provides housing for postgraduate students from around the world who attend Columbia and other universities. Read about it at https://www.ihouse-nyc.org/. Directly south of “I-House” is a pleasant park, then The Riverside Church. Riverside was conceived, and the construction paid for, by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Rockefeller was a Baptist but Riverside has always been non-denominational. From the church’s website, https://www.trcnyc.org/:
The Riverside Church is situated at one of the highest points of New York City, overlooking the Hudson River and 122nd Street, covering two city blocks. Construction began in 1927 with the first service held on October 5, 1930. The Nave seats nearly 2,000 worshipers. The 20-floor tower, rising to a height of 392 feet, is the tallest church in the U.S. and the second tallest in the Western Hemisphere. It contains offices, meeting rooms, and the 74-bell Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon. The carillon’s 20-ton bourdon bell is one of the largest tuned bells in the world. The smallest bell in our carillon weighs 10 pounds.
Inside the Nave worship sanctuary, the strivings and aspirations of humanity shine through exquisitely detailed carvings, engravings, stained glass, and other iconography, a tribute to the artists, craftsmen, and architects and their dedication to the glory of God. The Labyrinth on the floor of the chancel has been adapted from the maze at Chartres, one of the few such medieval designs in existence.
The pulpit has welcomed speakers from far and near: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached his famous anti-Vietnam War sermon, “Beyond Vietnam,” from this pulpit. Nelson Mandela addressed the nation during an interfaith celebration welcoming him to America. Marian Wright-Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund spoke about the need to provide quality healthcare to all children; and the well-known Dr. Tony Campolo delivered a sermon concerning affluence in America.
Across West 120 Street from The Riverside Church is The Interchurch Center, a bland building that opened in 1960 and houses offices of many church-related organizations. Across Claremont Avenue from The Riverside Church is the neo-Gothic Union Theological Seminary, and across West 120 Street from it is Barnard College. Both institutions are independent of, but affiliated with, Columbia University, as is Teachers College, across Broadway from Union.
From West 120 Street, just east of Broadway, we climbed a stairway up to the main campus of Columbia University, then approximately diagonally to the gate at West 116 Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
Map of the Columbia campus and environs, from the Columbia University website.
Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King’s College and its first home was on Chambers Street in lower Manhattan. Columbia is one of nine colonial-era colleges, the others being Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, Yale, Rutgers, Princeton, Penn, and William and Mary. After the Revolution King’s College became Columbia College, and in the 1850s moved to Madison Avenue between East 49 and East 50 Streets. In the 1890s Columbia was reorganized as Columbia University and moved uptown to the site of the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum, which is where the main (Morningside) campus is today. One of the asylum buildings remains and it is in use today as Buell Hall. The master plan for the campus, by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White, was never fully realized but a number of the buildings they designed remain, especially the campus’ focal point, Low Memorial Library. I’ll do a separate page about the Columbia campus at some point and won’t dwell here on individual buildings except one, the magnificent St. Paul’s Chapel (1904). This is used for campus religious services and I have been to one wedding there. The photographs below speak for themselves.
From the University’s website:
St. Paul’s Chapel, designed by I. N. Phelps Stokes, is a 2020 winner of the prestigious Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award from New York Landmarks Conservancy. Awarded annually, the Lucy G. Moses Preservation Awards are the Conservancy’s highest honors for excellence in preservation and pay homage to the architects, building owners, and architectural manufacturers whose outstanding work in preservation protects the city’s unique architectural heritage.
As one of the first buildings to be landmarked in New York, St. Paul’s Chapel is cherished for its rich history and welcoming milieu. The nondenominational chapel hosts approximately 600 religious services every year beneath its 91-foot-tall tiled vault and 16 stained glass windows.
On the remainder of the walk we passed by the Columbia Law School, a former gate house for the Old Croton Aqueduct at West 113 Street and Amsterdam Avenue, and the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. There will be more walks in, and more posts about, this area.