Map of yesterday’s walk, courtesy Google Maps.
WHERE: West 155 Street, West 157 Street, West 160 Street, West 158 Street, West 151 Street
SUBWAY AT START: 155 Street - 8 Avenue (B, D)
SUBWAY AT FINISH: 157 Street (1)
DISTANCE: 2.6 miles (4.2 kilometers)
Photographs and video by Keith Williams except where noted.
Profile of yesterday’s walk, courtesy Google Maps.
On a picture-perfect early Spring day I tackled a clutch of stair streets in upper Manhattan, accompanied by my good friend Keith. This walk combined stair streets and steep regular streets, the only level walk of any appreciable length being for seven blocks along the Hudson River.
We started out by taking the D train to 155 Street - 8 Avenue station, which when it opened in 1933 served the Polo Grounds, a baseball and football stadium about which I wrote in my post on this page entitled “Hamilton Heights, Sugar Hill, Polo Grounds.” Now it serves the Polo Grounds Houses, a public housing project built on the site of the old stadium.
The first stairs were on West 155 Street, 108 steps up in 3 flights of 36 steps each, going up to the 155 Street Viaduct that links West 155 Street and the Macombs Dam Bridge over the Harlem River.
Clockwise from upper left: entrance to 155 Street - 8 Avenue station, built that large to accommodate crowds going to and from the Polo Grounds (photo by Michael Cairl); sign in front of the Polo Grounds Towers in Giants’ black and orange; the 155 Street viaduct; the West 155 Street stairs with me climbing them.
From the top of the 155 Street stairs we walked west to Edgecombe Avenue and then north to West 157 Street and the Bushman Steps (30 steps up), also described in my post on this page entitled “Hamilton Heights, Sugar Hill, Polo Grounds.” From there we walked west on West 157 Street to Broadway.
Clockwise from top left: old house backing onto Edgecombe Avenue, certainly predating all around it (note the leaded glass in the upper story); the Bushman Steps at West 157 Street; 502 West 157 Street, built in 1922 as Congregation Ahavath Israel; apartment building on West 157 Street - note the wrought iron work, the bay windows, and the peek to the house on West 156 Street (photograph Michael Cairl).
We crossed Broadway to Edward Morgan Place and then to the upper level of a spur of Riverside Drive, and then to the stair street (46 steps down) at West 160 Street. Then we doubled back on the lower level of Riverside Drive to West 158 Street and then down the steep street (the hardest part of the whole trip) and 51 steps to the Hudson River greenway.
Clockwise from top left: old city bus used as part of Taizo Cafe on Edward Morgan Place; two views of me at the West 160 Street steps; nice wrought iron work at an apartment house entrance on the Riverside Drive spur; Western sapsucker image (one of many we saw on this walk) on West 158 Street; out-of-character house at West 158 Street and Riverside Drive spur; West 158 Street stairs down to Riverside Park. Below: video showing bike ramp from West 158 Street.
We then walked south along the Hudson River to a new bike and pedestrian overpass at West 151 Street, the start of a three-stage ascent to the upper level of Riverside Drive. The second stage was the most challenging; there was no handrail on the side where I needed it, so I held on to the masonry as I walked up. The first stage was 39 steps, the second 51 steps, the third (between levels of Riverside Drive) was 7 shallow steps.
Clockwise from top left: the George Washington Bridge from the riverfront at around West 157 Street; cyclists on the greenway; friend Keith and me on the greenway.
Clockwise from top left: stairs to the West 151 Street bridge; two views of the West 151 Street bridge; challenging stairs to the main road of Riverside Drtve.
In recent years access to the Hudson River greenway has been much improved, with the ramps and stairs at West 158 and West 151 Streets.
From the end of the West 151 Street stairs we walked up a not-too-steep West 151 Street to Broadway and then north. The profile at the beginning of this post is a bit misleading as it suggests Broadway is flat. It isn’t; it was uphill to West 153 Street, downhill past Trinity Church Cemetery and Audubon Terrace to West 157 Street, uphill to lunch at Fort Washington Avenue (West 159 Street), then downhill back to the subway at West 157 Street.
Trinity Church Cemetery, straddling Broadway between Amsterdam Avenue and Riverside Drive, is part of Trinity Church (Episcopal) in lower Manhattan. Trinity received a land grant from Queen Anne of Great Britain in 1705 and while its land holdings are much reduced they are still significant. Audubon Terrace is a small neo-classical campus on Broadway between West 155 and West 156 Streets, dating from 1907. Its main occupant, the Museum of the American Indian - Heye Foundation, was just too far off the beaten path to attract large numbers of visitors even though the subway is only one block away. The Smithsonian Institution acquired the museum and moved the collection to the old U.S. Custom House at Bowling Green in lower Manhattan. Most of the other occupants relocated and the campus is now occupied by Boricua College but the Hispanic Society of America is still there. More information can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audubon_Terrace
Clockwise from top left: historic plaque at West 153 Street and Broadway noting the spot being on George Washington’s last line of defense before abandoning New York to the British in September 1776; view of Audubon Terrace; plaque showing the original occupants of Audubon Terrace; 1911 view of Broadway looking north to West 157 Street - a lot of the buildings are still there, probably born of the building boom following the opening of the subway there in late 1904 (photo courtesy urbanarchive.org from the New York Transit Museum).
Steps climbed today: 235 up, 97 down, total 332. A splendid trip with a lot of stairs, and hills that are more challenging than stairs.