STAIR STREETS: East 168 Street, East 169 Street, East 171 Street, Mount Eden Avenue, Bronx
START: 167 Street subway station (B, D trains)
FINISH: 170 Street subway station (4 train)
DISTANCE: 2.7 miles (4.3 kilometers)
Photographs by Michael Cairl
I am finding that a really good stair streets trip combines respectable distance, a lot of stairs, and a lot of hills, preferably far from tourists. Yesterday’s walk, on a very comfortable day, was all of those, mostly territory I had never been to before, with lots of hills and four good stair streets. This was just the latest in what will be many walks in this part of the Bronx, just north of Yankee Stadium, with its many hills and stair streets.
Route of today’s walk, courtesy Google Maps.
The walk started at the 167 Street subway station on the D train. This station was recently renovated, with nice mosaics at platform level of people associated with the neighborhood, and a de-clutteriing of the whole station, but erasure of the old connection to a streetcar stop on 167 Street below the subway station. The station is on the wide boulevard whose full name is Grand Boulevard and Concourse. Nobody calls it that, and nobody calls it Grand Boulevard either. It’s Grand Concourse or, usually, “the Concourse.” For most of its length the Concourse sits atop one of the ridge lines running through the Bronx. Much of it is lined with pre-World War II apartment buildings, including many in the Art Deco style. The New York upper crust didn’t live here or spend time here, but for people whose families had arrived in the United States a generation or two before, moving to the Concourse meant they had arrived, were doing well. In recent decades a lot of ugly storefronts have sprouted up but the grandeur of the buildings is still there.
At the 167 Street subway station: mosaics of drummer and band leader Tito Puente, baseball player Reggie Jackson, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Last image: view east and downhill on East 167 Street from Grand Concourse.
Leaving the 167 Street station, I had to take some care walking down steep East 167 Street. From East 167 Street I turned onto Morris Avenue and then quickly to East 168 Street, walking uphill to the first and longest of today’s stair streets. The East 168 Street stairs were rebuilt by the City in recent years and are in quite good condition with handrails at the right height.
The whole area is very ethnically diverse and is home to many of the City’s essential workers. The COVID-19 pandemic hit this area very hard, so it was refreshing to see a block party in progress on Clay Avenue, at the foot of the East 168 Street stairs.
At the bottom of the 102 steps I turned uphill on Clay Avenue to the next stair street, East 169 Street, descending 75 steps to Webster Avenue. For the first nine steps down there is no handrail on the right, so I held on to the masonry. The stairs are in good condition.
Top row: the East 168 Street steps, looking down and looking up. Bottom row: the East 169 Street steps, looking down and looking up.
The segment of Webster Avenue I walked, at the bottom of the ridge line, has auto-repair shops, bodegas, and other small businesses on the west side, and a large public housing project on the east side. At East 171 Street was another stair street to Clay Avenue, 43 steps up. Clay Avenue borders Claremont Park, one of two large, green, hilly oases in the Central Bronx, the other being Crotona Park not far to the east. The next and last stair street of the day was 74 steps up to East Mount Eden Avenue, at the northeast corner of Claremont Park. Both these stair streets are in good condition.
Left to right: looking up the East 171 Street stairs, looking up the Mount Eden Avenue stairs, looking down the Mount Eden Avenue stairs from near the top.
After a short distance Mount Eden Avenue became Mount Eden Parkway, with wide, lovely landscaped malls in the middle, extending to and past the Grand Concourse. This is a true gem in an unexpected place.
Left to right: Mount Eden Avenue with Claremont Park on the left; Mount Eden Parkway. In the right background is BronxCare (formerly Bronx-Lebanon) Medical Center.
Profile of today’s walk, courtesy Google Maps.
From the parkway I walked south on the Concourse to East 170 Street, then west and downhill to Jerome Avenue, then uphill to the Emergency Snack Bar (I saw this on Google Maps and I found the name irresistible), whose menu looked good but wasn’t set up for indoor dining yet. I’ll go back there. From there it was back downhill and uphill to the subway at Jerome Avenue.
I’ve always liked cycling around the Bronx, and I’m enjoying walking around it for the physical therapy and new perspectives on my city. Just north of this area is the Cross-Bronx Expressway (Interstate 95). The view from the expressway - a misnomer if ever there was one - is depressing. Turn off the highway. See people, many of them first- and second-generation Americans, going about their lives. See some great parks and good architecture. The Bronx never fails to surprise.
Stair count today: 177 down, 117 up, total 294.