Henry Hudson Bridge in background.
WHERE: Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan, the Henry Hudson Bridge, and the Spuyten Duyvil and Kingsbridge neighborhoods of the Bronx.
START: Dyckman Street subway station (1 train, partially accessible)
FINISH: 238 Street subway station (1 train)
DISTANCE: 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers)
Photographs by Michael Cairl and Keith Williams. Video and voice-over by Keith Williams. Maps courtesy Google Maps.
Route of this walk, reading from bottom to top.
Profile of this walk, reading from left to right.
The Henry Hudson Bridge is a high arch span over the Harlem River, just east of where it meets the Hudson River. There’s a walkway on the west side of the lower level of the bridge, accessible by local streets on the Bronx side and by a steep path through Inwood Hill Park on the Manhattan side. I hadn’t walked across the bridge in more than 25 years and wanted to do so again, in part to prove I could climb that slope on the Manhattan side (highlighted in red on the accompanying map).
On this low-humidity day I was joined by my friend Keith and his friend Cat. We set out from the Dyckman Street station of the 1 train. This station, dating from 1906, emerges from the deepest tunnel in the subway system. There is an elevator to the downtown platform; an elevator to the uptown platform is under construction. Dyckman Street is a busy commercial thoroughfare in a crazy-quilt multi-ethnic neighborhood; we walked northwest toward the Hudson River and Inwood Hill Park. There we walked along the river toward the footbridge over Amtrak’s Empire Line and the path to the Henry Hudson Bridge, enjoying a refreshing breeze along the river.
View of the Hudson River and the New Jersey Palisades from the Inwood Hill Park trail.
Footbridge over the Amtrak line, 46 steps up.
The footpath to the bridge continues from the east end of the footbridge over the Amtrak line. This is the route Amtrak uses for trains between New York and Albany, part of one of the most scenic train rides in America, along the Hudson River. The footbridge has 46 steps and is in good condition. At the east end of the footbridge we were greeted by a gentleman, older than I, who said he had recently walked from Kappock Street, near the Bronx end of the bridge, to Houston Street in Manhattan, about 13 miles (21 kilometers). Outstanding!
The footpath to the bridge is in very good condition and is well-shaded but it is steep. Steep hills are more difficult for me than stairs. I walked with care and was glad I had company for this part of the walk in particular. I was confident I could make it all the way to the bridge footpath and I did, feeling a nice sense of accomplishment at the top.
In the words of Yogi Berra, when you see a fork in the road, take it. The path to the right leads to the bridge; the path to the left leads under the bridge and to the east side of Inwood Hill Park.
The summit! The south end of the Henry Hudson Bridge.
View from the Henry Hudson Bridge of Amtrak’s Spuyten Duyvil drawbridge, the Hudson River, and the New Jersey Palisades. Compare with the previous image taken from river level. At mid-span the lower level of the bridge is 135 feet above mean high water.
The bridge footpath ends with 8 steps down to the frontage (service) road of the Henry Hudson Parkway. From there we went to nearby Henry Hudson Park, the centerpiece of which is a classical column that is a memorial to the navigator Henry Hudson. From urban archive.org:
During the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909 (commemorating the 300th anniversary of Hudson's arrival and the centennial of Fulton's steamboat) a plan was developed to honor Hudson with a memorial. Land was donated, funds were amassed, architects Babb, Cook and Welch designed a 100-foot-high Doric column, and sculptor Karl Bitter began to model his statue of Hudson. The column was erected in 1912 but the project stalled in 1915 with low funds and the death of Bitter.
In 1935, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses revived the monument plans as part of his Henry Hudson Bridge and Park project. Karl H. Gruppe, one of Bitter's students, created the statue which was finally placed on top of the 25-year-old column and dedicated in January of 1938.
History has been rightly unkind to Robert Moses (1889 - 1981), New York’s “master builder,” but we all walk this earth leaving a mixed legacy. This was one of his good works.
Yours Truly approaching the West 232 Street stairs.
The rest of the walk took us along some semi-suburban blocks leading to the West 232 Street stairs (60 steps down) and the Manhattan College stairs (120 steps down), both described in my post “Over Hill and through More of Riverdale” on “The Stair Streets of New York City” page, punctuated by lunch at an Irish establishment called An Beal Bocht (Irish for The Poor Mouth), from the novel of the same name by by Irish author Flann O’Brien. From the cafe’s website: “Set in a remote region in Ireland, the fictional memoir discusses life, language, and abject poverty in Ireland. It is considered one of the greatest Irish-Language novels of the 20th Century,”
This was an outstanding walk on a fine day. The climb up to the Henry Hudson Bridge was a physical and mental challenge and I’m glad to have done it. Having good company made it better. I’ll be back to Inwood Hill Park and the bridge soon.
Inside An Beal Bocht Cafe.
Here’s a video of me descending the Manhattan College stairs:
STAIR COUNT: 46 up, 188 down, total 234 (not counting subway stations).
ONWARD!