SUBWAY AT START: 167 Street (4)
SUBWAY AT FINISH: 175 Street (A, fully accessible)
Distance: 2.5 miles (4 kilometers)
After I tackled the West 215 Street stairs, a friend suggested the “Joker Stairs.” “Joker” is a movie from 2019 in which the title character does a dance on a steep stair street. So I found it - it’s part of West 167 Street in the Bronx, not far from Yankee Stadium. Today I went there and made it all the way up, 132 steps in 11 flights of 12 steps each. It felt exhilarating to make it to the top and feel not at all winded; my physical therapy definitely helps (thanks, Dave).
Next up: either a pair of stair streets near the St. George Ferry Terminal on Staten Island, or a pair in Washington Heights (upper Manhattan).
The High Bridge is not far from the top of the Joker Stairs and goes from the West Bronx neighborhood of High Bridge to Washington Heights in upper Manhattan. It opened in 1848 to carry the Croton Aqueduct, which dammed the Croton River in upper Westchester County and provided New York City with its first reliable supply of clean drinking water, after one cholera outbreak too many. For more information on the history of the High Bridge and the Old Croton Aqueduct, visit https://www.nycgovparks.org/park-features/highbridge-park/high-bridge-history and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croton_Aqueduct. After being closed for many years, the promenade on top of the High Bridge was exquisitely rebuilt and reopened in 2015.
I walked across the bridge, taking in the view on a picture-postcard day, then continued through Highbridge Park in Manhattan to West 167 Street, and went from there along busy Broadway, passing Cuban and Dominican restaurants, ending at West 177 Street and Fort Washington Avenue.
Photographs in this post by Michael Cairl.
The full route. Map courtesy Google Maps.
Total vertical on the walk, courtesy Google Maps.
Near the starting point, at Jerome Avenue and Shakespeare Avenue. This is a busy commercial area in a diverse neighborhood that is part of the poorest Congressional district in the United States.
At the bottom of the Joker Stairs, on Shakespeare Avenue.
Looking down (eastward) from 60 steps up.
Obligatory selfie, 60 steps up.
View from the top (Anderson Avenue), 132 steps up.
And the obligatory selfie from the top.
Marker at the Bronx end of the High Bridge.
On the High Bridge, looking toward Manhattan.
Mid-19th century view of the High Bridge. Five arch spans in the river were replaced by a single steel arch in the 1920s as an aid to navigation. Illustration courtesy of Paul Berk and BikesnobNYC.
Looking from the High Bridge toward Manhattan in the far distance. Those slender towers along “Billionaires Row” are nothing so much as raised middle fingers to the city.
That’s a woman swimming solo in the Harlem River below the High Bridge.
The path through Highbridge Park in Manhattan. That micaceous rock on the right is an upthrust of the Earth’s crust. One of the many places where I have to slap myself and think “THIS is in New York City!”