Route of today’s walk. Map courtesy Google Maps.
WHERE: West 187 Street, Pinehurst Avenue, West 186 Street (Village Lane), Upper Manhattan
SUBWAY AT START: 190 Street (A)
SUBWAY AT FINISH: Dyckman Street (1, accessible southbound)
DISTANCE: 2.7 miles (4.3 kilometers)
Photographs by Michael Cairl
The farther north in Manhattan one goes, the hillier it gets. Harlem Heights, walks in which I described in two previous posts, and Washington Heights are the highest points. On this cloudless day I walked three stair streets in Washington Heights and made my way very carefully downhill through Fort Tryon Park.
Profile of today’s walk, courtesy Google Maps.
Washington Heights gets its name from it being the Continental Army’s last stand against the British before fleeing north to Westchester County in November 1776. New York would remain under British control for the rest of the Revolutionary War.
I started at the 190 Street subway station. This has two exits: through a tunnel to Bennett Avenue, and by long elevators to Fort Washington Avenue. I exited onto Bennett Avenue, then walked uphill to West 187 Street and Overlook Terrace for the first of the day’s stair streets. This block of West 187 Street up to Fort Washington Avenue has 130 steps.
Left to right: lower entrance to 190 Street subway station on Bennett Avenue, carved out of the rock; view up the West 187 Street steps from Overlook Terrace; view down the West 187 Street steps from Fort Washington Avenue.
This neighborhood’s short commercial spine is West 187 Street between Fort Washington Avenue and Cabrini Boulevard. The pre-World War II apartment buildings that abound in this area used to be home to many Jews who fled Hitler’s Germany, including such notables as Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Henry Kissinger. As late as the early 2000s I could hear elderly people on these streets speaking to one another in German.
I walked south past James Gordon Bennett Park, the highest elevation in Manhattan and the site of Fort Washington in 1776, to busy West 181 Street, then west one block to the next stair street, Pinehurst Avenue, 49 steps up.
Clockwise from upper left: Art Deco entrance to 181 Street subway station; plaque at James Gordon Bennett Park describing Fort Washington; West 181 Street looking toward the George Washington Bridge; looking down the Pinehurst Avenue steps.
I then walked north on Pinehurst Avenue to the third stair street, near West 186 Street. There is a sign at the top of the stairs, “Village Lane.” There are 20 steps down to Cabrini Boulevard. I walked north on Cabrini Boulevard (despite the grand name, it is a narrow, one-way street) past the Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, to Margaret Corbin Circle and the entrance to Fort Tryon Park. Mother Cabrini, as she was known, was the first U.S. citizen to be canonized by the Roman Catholic church. She died in Chicago in 1917 and was re-interred in the Cabrini Shrine in 1933.
Left to right: bottom of the West 186 Street steps; the rear of the Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini; Margaret Corbin Circle with the building housing the upper entrance to the 190 Street subway station.
Fort Tryon Park is a gem. Just inside the entrance at Margaret Corbin Circle is a beautiful formal garden; to the north is the Linden Terrace, one of my favorite places in the city; to the north of that is The Cloisters, home of much of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s medieval art collection. The park has many steep, winding trails. Going downhill from the Linden Terrace to Broadway was much more challenging than any of the stair streets, as the paths were often steep and I had to walk with great care. This portion of the walk was a descent of 213 feet in one-half mile. But I made it to lunch at the Tryon Public House and then a walk along busy Dyckman Street to the subway.
Clockwise from top left: two views of the formal gardens; two views of the Linden Terrace; view from the Linden Terrace to the Hudson River and the Palisades; rock outcrop along a park path; obligatory selfie from my happy place on the Linden Terrace; historical plaque about Fort Tryon Park.
Who exactly was Margaret Corbin? She was one of the defenders of Fort Washington. A fine story about this early American hero may be found at http://www.revolutionarywarjournal.com/margaret-corbin-two-years-before-molly-pitcher-captain-molly-was-the-first-woman-to-take-a-soldiers-part-in-the-war-for-liberty/. After the British captured Fort Washington they renamed it Fort Tryon, after the last British civilian governor of the Province of New York.
The stair climbs were a good workout and the challenging walk downhill required my undivided attention, except to stop so as not to get in the way of two bird-watchers. The Linden Terrace has long been a favorite place of mine for taking in the sweeping views. Even on a hot day the deep shade from the linden trees and the breeze off the Hudson River make it a comfortable place. This was an afternoon well spent on a picture-perfect day.
Stair count: 179 up, 20 down, total 199 steps (excluding about 50 steps in Fort Tryon Park),