Route of this walk, courtesy Google Maps.
WHERE: The neighborhoods mentioned, the John T. Brush Stairway, and the Bushman Steps
SUBWAY AT START: 125 Street (A, B, C, D; fully accessible)
SUBWAY AT FINISH: 157 Street (1)
DISTANCE: 2.7 miles (4.3 kilometers)
Photographs by Michael Cairl and Paddy Mullen except where noted.
Yesterday was November-crisp, perfect for this walk in hilly Harlem Heights. Starting at Harlem’s commercial spine, 125 Street, my friend Paddy and I made our way up steep St. Nicholas Terrace on the west side of St. Nicholas Park through the campus of City College of New York, long known as “the poor man’s Harvard.” The buildings in the campus quad, dating from before World War I, were built of Manhattan schist, rarely used for building but excavated from this upthrust of the Earth’s crust to construct the subway that opened on Broadway from 1904 -1906, and trimmed with terra cotta. Just down the hill on West 141 Street is Alexander Hamilton’s house, The Grange, now maintained by the National Park Service.
Clockwise from left: Shepard Hall at City College; the main gate to City College at Convent Avenue and West 140 Street; City College’s engineering school, named for alumnus and Intel founder Andy Grove (1936 - 2016); The Grange, viewed from St. Nicholas Terrace.
Convent Avenue Baptist Church
We walked over to busy Broadway for lunch, then back along West 145 Street to Convent Avenue and the landmark Convent Avenue Baptist Church. This is the southern end of Sugar Hill, an area of handsome row houses and apartment buildings, that between the 1920s and 1950s hosted African-Americans who had achieved great fame, such as Duke Ellington, Roy Wilkins, W.E.B. DuBois, and Thurgood Marshall.
Walking past West 155 Street and downhill on the Harlem River Driveway, we passed the site of the Polo Grounds en route to our first stair street of the day. From 1890 until 1957 baseball’s New York Giants played at the Polo Grounds, as did the New York Mets in 1962 and 1963. The bathtub-shaped stadium was oddly proportioned for baseball and was better suited for football. Football’s New York Giants played there until 1955 before moving across the Harlem River to Yankee Stadium, and the New York Titans (later renamed the Jets) played there from 1960 until 1963. The final incarnation of the stadium, opened in 1912 and expanded in 1923, was demolished in 1964 and replaced by public housing, the Polo Grounds Houses. To the south of the stadium was the 155 Street Viaduct leading to the Macomb’s Dam Bridge. North of the stadium was the largest storage yard of the Manhattan Elevated Railway. Directly to the west, behind home plate, is a steep hill called Coogan’s Bluff, the northern end of Sugar Hill.
After the Giants’ owner John T. Brush died in 1912, the team had constructed a stairway in his honor leading down from Edgecombe Avenue to the Speedway (now the Harlem River Driveway) and the entrance to the Polo Grounds. In recent years the deteriorating stairway was renovated by the city, aided by a $50,000 donation from the San Francisco Giants. This stairway has 96 steps.
Clockwise from left: aerial view of the Polo Grounds, 1936, with John T. Brush Stairway circled, courtesy New York Daily News; view of the Polo Grounds from the Harlem River Driveway, 1950s, courtesy Wikipedia; the stairway; stairway landing showing the commemoration to John T. Brush.
Bushman Steps.
From the top of the stairs on Edgecombe Avenue, walk a block south to West 157 Street and the Bushman Steps, completing direct access from the heights to the Polo Grounds. There are 30 steps here. Apparently the provenance of the steps’ name is unknown: from the city’s Parks Website, “Readers … who have any information on Bushman's identity should contact the Parks Library at (212) 360-8240.” From the top of the steps we continued to the end of the walk at West 157 Street and Broadway.
Total vertical on this walk, courtesy Google Maps.
Between all the hill climbing and stair climbing this was a good, invigorating workout, and my weaker left leg felt pleasantly stiff at the end of the walk. Total steps climbed: 126. This is a great part of the city for a good walk, with excellent views and a lot of overlapping history. I recommend this walk for anyone.