WHERE: Ward’s Island and Randall’s Island in the East River
START: 96 Street subway station (Q train), fully accessible
FINISH: Brook Avenue subway station (6 train)
DISTANCE: 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers)
Photographs by Michael Cairl except as noted. Map courtesy footpathmap.com
Route of this walk, reading from left to right.
The impetus for this walk was the walk I did two weeks ago, part of which was on the northern part of Randall’s Island. Randall’s Island, Sunken Meadow Island, and Ward’s Island, once separated, were joined together by landfill after World War II, and the combined island is often referred to as Randall’s Island.
The creation of the parks on Ward’s Island and Randall’s Island can be credited to New York’s master builder, Robert Moses, together with Randall’s Island becoming the hub of the Triborough Bridge system. Moses’ mixed legacy is surely evident here: a robust highway network, a fine system of parks, and minimal public transportation (just the M35 bus from Manhattan).
The walk started at the subway station at 96 Street and 2 Avenue, just a short walk from the the promenade on the FDR Drive. The walk from East 96 Street to East 103 Street, where I ascended the ramp to the Ward’s Island Pedestrian Bridge, offered a beautiful view and one surprise: the Vito Marcantonio Peace Garden on the opposite side of the FDR Drive, part of Public School/Middle School 50. According to the United Federation of Teachers website, “the school’s peace garden, which consists of a dual-level atrium, with soil beds on the lower level and a hydroponic garden on the upper level. An outdoor, street-level garden near the elementary-grade classrooms has been a source of pride.” Vito Marcantonio (1902 - 1954) was an Italian-American lawyer and politician, manager of Fiorello La Guardia’s mayoral campaigns, and member of the U. S. House of Representatives. Marcantonio's district was centered in his native East Harlem, New York City, which had many residents and immigrants of Italian and Puerto Rican origin. Fluent in Spanish as well as Italian, he was considered an ally of the Puerto Rican and Italian-American communities, and an advocate for the rights of the workers, immigrants, and the poor. In addition to defending the Puerto Rican and Italian communities and common workers, Marcantonio was a strong advocate of Harlem's African-American communities and fought vehemently for black civil rights decades before the civil rights movement of the 1950s – 1960s.
P.S./M.S. 50, with the Vito Marcantonio Peace Garden.
View from the promenade near East 96 Street: left to right, the Ward’s Island Pedestrian Bridge, Ward’s Island, Hell Gate Bridge, the Queens span of the Robert F. Kennedy (Triborough) Bridge.
At East 103 Street there is a ramp up to the pedestrian bridge from Manhattan to Ward’s Island. Designed by the great Swiss-American bridge engineer Othmar Ammann (1879 - 1965), this bridge opened in 1951. In the New York area alone Ammann also designed the George Washington Bridge, Bayonne Bridge, Triborough Bridge, and Throgs Neck Bridge. This is a vertical lift bridge but the center lift span opens only rarely. On this beautiful Spring day the bridge was busy with walkers, runners, and cyclists going to or from Ward’s Island. The slopes on the ramp and the bridge are steeper than those allowed by the Americans with Disabilities Act and they are not really for people in wheelchairs, but there are handrails the whole way.
Ward’s Island Pedestrian Bridge, looking toward Ward’s Island.
The island has an excellent system of pedestrian and bicycle paths. My friend Ryan and I walked up the west side of Ward’s Island, past the Manhattan Psychiatric Center (behind a high fence) and toward the Little Hell Gate Salt Marsh. Manhattan Psychiatric Center is operated by the New York State Department of Mental Health. This colossal structure, which opened in 1954, continued the New York tradition of putting jails, hospitals for psychiatric patients, and hospitals for people with chronic and long-term illnesses on islands, whether natural (Rikers Island, Roosevelt Island, North Brother Island) or man-made (Hoffman and Swinburne Islands off Staten Island), or elsewhere far from the city.
Manhattan Psychiatric Center. Photo courtesy Creative Commons.
Footpath, west side of Ward’s Island.
Interpretive sign at the Little Hell Gate Salt Marsh.
Little Hell Gate was the body of water separating Ward’s Island from Randall’s Island. Most of it was filled in during the 1960s; the remnant is part of the salt marsh. The branch of the East River separating Randall’s Island from Queens is called Hell Gate, the name coming from the treacherous navigation of this body of water, with its rocks and dangerous currents. Little Hell Gate used to be crossed by a three-span arch bridge with a two-lane roadway, just east of the Triborough Bridge viaduct, that was also designed by Othmar Ammann and opened in 1936. The Little Hell Gate Bridge remained in place for many years after that portion of Little Hell Gate had been filled in and I biked on it before it was demolished around 1990. No trace of it remains.
Little Hell Gate Bridge. The Hell Gate Bridge, used by passenger and freight trains, is behind it. Photograph courtesy Library of Congress.
Crossing Little Hell Gate on a low arch bridge, we entered Randall’s Island and walked east and north past Icahn Stadium to the Randall’s Island Connector. Icahn Stadium was built on the site of Downing Stadium, previously called Triborough Stadium and Randall’s Island Stadium before that, which was demolished in 2002. Both stadiums have hosted interscholastic games, Olympic trials, concerts, and, in the 1930s, professional football. Downing Stadium was built together with the Triborough Bridge and Little Hell Gate Bridge. The light towers at the stadium used to be at Ebbets Field, the home stadium of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1913 until 1957.
Icahn Stadium. Photograph by Jim Henderson.
The Randall’s Island Connector is an excellent pedestrian and bicycle path that runs underneath the Hell Gate Bridge, across a low arch bridge spanning the Bronx Kill, to East 132 Street in the Bronx. Unlike the Bronx leg of the Triborough Bridge, it requires no climbing. At the Bronx end of the Connector the scene is mostly industrial, but we were surprised by a block of East 133 Street with some trees and some row houses. People live there. We continued to lunch in the neighborhood at the fine Milk Burger at Bruckner Boulevard and St. Ann’s Avenue.
Some years ago some real estate hucksters wanted to re-brand this area the Piano District. In the late 19th Century a number of piano manufacturers set up here to cater to middle class households that wanted pianos. The piano manufacturers are all gone but some of the buildings remain. The whole idea was tone-deaf, ignoring the people who live in this area. This idea died a quick and deserved death.
Randall’s Island Connector.
East 133 Street between Willow Avenue and Cypress Avenue, looking east.
This was a partially accessible walk; the ramps to the Ward’s Island Bridge and the bridge itself are steep, and the Brook Avenue subway station is not accessible, but otherwise the walk is accessible. At the end of the walk there was the option to take the Bx33 bus on East 138 Street to the fully accessible 135 Street subway station (2 and 3 trains).
Randall’s Island and Ward’s Island are excellent for walking, biking, sports, and picnicking. Motor vehicles are mostly out of sight and out of the way. Walking along the Ward’s Island path, I had the feeling of being out of the city, in the city.