DOWN INTO THE VALLEY, UP INTO THE HEIGHTS

This is the fourth and final installation in my series on Broadway. I left off three weeks ago at the northern end of Columbia University’s campus, where Broadway dips sharply downhill. As I mentioned in my second segment, Manhattan was once a rich ecosystem featuring a diverse topography. The irregularities in the land in southern Manhattan were flattened out. However, the city had to be built around the great hills and valleys of the landmass’s northern reaches.

Broadway’s most noticeable infrastructural adaptation to northern Manhattan’s topography is the subway system. After the train leaves the 116th Street station at Columbia, the tracks go steeply downhill but then pop out above ground. The reason for this is Manhattan Valley. By 125th Street, an immense steel arch bridge holds the subway line more than 50 feet above the road. By 137th Street, the next stop, the train is again underground.

Upon emerging from the 137th Street station, one finds that the grid was not that strictly adhered to. An old diagonal named for Alexander Hamilton, whose house still stands at its terminus, leads uphill from Broadway and forms a large triangular plaza. Downtown, this would have long been coveted real-estate, but as of 1906, it was still vacant land. That year, the Board of Aldermen (predecessor of the City Council) acquired the property and transformed it into a park honoring Sir Moses Haim Montefiore (1784-1885), a distinguished nineteenth century Jewish philanthropist.

The Commissioner’s plan only constructed a grid up to 155^th Street, and so the last 65 blocks of Manhattan contain a larger number of irregularities. Much of those oddly figured streets survive from the City’s earliest history. At 159th Street, Fort Washington Avenue springs out of Broadway. Historically, this street made its way up to the fort that once stood at the top of the hill now occupied by Bennet Park. At 267 feet above sea level, this is the highest point in Manhattan, a key strategic position during the American Revolution and, since 1929, an ideal spot for a park.

At 166th street there lies a triangular park named for John Purroy Mitchel (1879-1918). The youngest mayor in the history of New York City, he joined in the fight during World War I and died in service to his county. In addition to the importance of its namesake, the triangle itself, like so many others that I have featured in this series, represents an import juncture of history and geography. It is a this point that the present day line of Broadway follows along the path of the historic Post Road. South of 110th Street, Post Road was obliterated by the grid, but at the northern end of Central Park it emerges again as St. Nicholas Avenue. The street’s trajectory is taken over by Broadway at Mitchel Square, and from there it winds its way up to the northernmost tip of Manhattan.

By about 194^th street, Broadway brushes along Fort Tryon Park, which is home to the Cloisters. In contrast to Bennet, this park’s name does nothing to hide the hill’s former military function. Moreover, unlike so many vestiges of the colonial era that received new names after the Revolution, Sir William Tryon (1729–1788) was the last governor of colonial New York and served as a Major General for the British Army against the Patriots. No matter what name it’s given, that large hill that once served as a military lookout now supports a medieval monastery/museum, and also forces Broadway to take one more turn on its way to the Bronx.

On 204^th Street, one finds the 220-year-old Dyckman Farmhouse, by 212th, one can see a bit of Inwood Hill Park, and shortly thereafter, the bridge to the Bronx. Like they say, you can cross that bridge when you get to it, but considering everything Broadway has to offer, from the Battery to 220th street, you may never want to.

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

"Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title."

Virginia Woolf
(1882-1941)

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