Map of today’s walk, courtesy Google Maps.
STAIR STREETS: Hall of Fame Terrace and West 231 Street (Kingsbridge), Bronx
START: 207 Street subway station (1 train)
FINISH: 231 Street subway station (1 train, fully accessible)
DISTANCE: 3.0 miles (4.8 kilometers)
Photographs by Michael Cairl.
An adventure far from the tourist zone of this city is easy to do and most rewarding. This walk had a lot to recommend it: good uphill and downhill, places of interest that require some effort to get to, and other sorts of urban surprises, all on a nice day.
Profile of today’s walk, courtest Google Maps.
The walk started at the elevated 207 Street subway station in upper Manhattan, a short distance from the University Heights Bridge crossing the Harlem River into the Bronx. This bridge, one of the “Tinkertoy bridges” found mostly crossing the Harlem River, was completely rebuilt from 1989-1992, staying close to the original design. The four pedestrian shelters from the original (1895) bridge were kept.
Crossing the bridge and the Major Deegan Expressway (Interstate 87), I turned onto Cedar Avenue which, after an initial uphill, turned level, leafy, and surprisingly quiet considering its proximity to a major highway, From there I turned onto the first of today’s stair streets, Hall of Fame Terrace. This has a lower group of 56 steps, then the entrance to a footpath, then an upper group of 64 steps. The handrail was on the wrong side for me but there was a masonry wall all the way up that I could hold on to.
At the top of the Hall of Fame Terrace stairs is the campus of Bronx Community College, which until 1973 was the uptown campus of New York University. On the campus is the Hall of Fame for Great Americans (1901), a semicircular colonnade around the college library designed by Stanford White, containing bronze portrait busts of notable Americans. I had never been to the Hall of Fame and was disappointed that it is “temporarily closed.,” even though I have a dim view of halls of fame in general. The Hall of Fame made its way onto American coinage: the Booker T. Washington commemorative half dollar produced from 1946 until 1951. More information on the Hall of Fame for Great Americans may be found at http://www.bcc.cuny.edu/about-bcc/history-architecture/hall-of-fame/
Left to right: original iron work at this station dating from 1906; 1890s pedestrian shelters on the University Heights Bridge.
Clockwise from left: the Hall of Fame Terrace stairs from the bottom (Cedar Avenue); the stairs from midway up the lower range of stairs; dirt path turning off the stairs; looking up the upper range of stairs.
Crossing University Avenue, I ventured onto the Aqueduct Walk, a ribbon park extending from south of here, near University Avenue and Burnside Avenue, north to Kingsbridge Road. This sits atop a section of the Old Croton Aqueduct. which I’ve discussed briefly in a previous post about the High Bridge. It is a well shaded, lovely walk through a largely immigrant neighborhood, that I biked along a few times in the 1990s and ventured briefly on in 2017 during a walk with my friend Keith.
Captain Roscoe Brown, Ph.D. Plaza, Aqueduct Walk at West 181 Street.
Three views along the Aqueduct Walk.
A cathedral for the common people: exterior and interior of St. Nicholas of Tolentine Roman Catholic Church, just off the Aqueduct Walk at West Fordham Road and University Avenue; the massive Kingsbridge Armory (5 acres/2 hectares), just off the Aqueduct Walk at West Kingsbridge Road.
The Aqueduct Walk ends at West Kingsbridge Road, I continued north along Reservoir Avenue to Washington’s Walk, a short footpath across from the Jerome Park Reservoir, to the site of Old Fort Four, one of the Continental Army’s defenses as it retreated north to present-day Westchester County in November 1776. (The Bronx was part of Westchester County at that time and only became a separate county in 1914). From there I descended the West 231 Street stairs (70 steps) for the second time; see my November 2020 post “The Kingsbridge Trio + 3.” From the bottom of the stairs I made a careful descent of steep Albany Crescent, had lunch at the Dale Diner on West 231 Street, and took the subway home.
Steps without handrails at the north end of Washington’s Walk; placard describing Old Fort Four; selfie taken from Washington’s Walk.
Stair count: 120 up, 90 down (70 on West 231 Street plus 20 on Washington’s Walk), total 210. The stair count was good, the hills were a challenge, and the Aqueduct Walk was a treat.