About The Blue Building....
Outside Our Windows
By Jim Vogt
Parts of two states and two boroughs; five bridges; four bodies of water; three railways and three hospitals; three parks; two colleges; a stadium; an armory; a pair of boathouses; The Empire State Building; The Chrysler Building; The Hall of Fame; a Revolutionary War battleground; and the site of the Indian village where Manhattan may have been purchased: These are what we can see right outside from our windows and from our balconies and patios.
The Lay of the Land
Look west, beyond ;)
and The Hudson River and you see the Palisades in New Jersey, cliffs 500 feet high that line the river for miles. Many believe that these cliffs were formed in the last ice age when glaciers flowed down the Hudson Valley and covered the area. But that’s not right. The Palisades are far more ancient, older even than the dinosaurs.
The Palisades were formed some 250 million years ago by tectonic activity that splintered the giant continent of Pangia into the seven that we have today. It may be hard to imagine, but the Palisades mark a point where North America was connected to Africa. In fact, they are said to mark the birthplace of the Atlantic Ocean.
Now look to the greenery and fields right across the “river”. That large green expanse is comprised of Inwood Hill and Isham Parks. The big hill that you see at the far end of The Henry Hudson Bridge is part of Inwood Park and going back to colonial times was named Cox’s Hill. Beyond it to the south, mostly blocked out of view, is the Inwood Hill for which the larger of the two parks is named.
About half a mile beyond the park to the south, the high ground that you see in the mid-distance is Washington Heights, once called Harlem Heights. It’s there where a small grouping of highrises seem to be climbing the hill. And just to the east of the heights, a bit to the north closer in to us, is Laurel Hill. It’s marked by the clump of trees you can see beyond the project buildings.
Cox’s Hill, Harlem Heights and Laurel Hill are all of special note since they figure in the Revolutionary War battle that forced George Washington and the Continental Army to abandon Manhattan in 1776.
Concluding this basic tour, the high ground that you can see beyond the Broadway Bridge to our east are sections of the Bronx understandably named Kingsbridge Heights and University Heights. They are marked by the large silver Veterans Administration hospital , the cream colored Fordham Hill houses and The Hall of Fame with its verdigris dome.
What’s with All the Water?
You may think that the water right below our windows is The Hudson River or perhaps The Harlem River. But you’d be wrong. The Hudson is out there to the west, just beyond the railroad trestle bridge. And you probably can’t see The Harlem, though it’s to the east, just beyond The Broadway Bridge. What you see right below your windows or off your balcony is actually a canal; The Harlem River Ship Canal.
The canal, about 15’ deep, was dug in order to make Manhattan circumnavigable. Before the canal, The Harlem flowed into the Spuyten Duyvil Creek that in turn meandered north to present day 230th Street before looping back south and emptying into The Hudson. The creek, just barely enough to define Manhattan as an island rather than a peninsula, was too small to allow for ship transit.
The canal was completed in two stages, the first occurring at the end of the 19th century. Originally, it ran from just the other side of the Broadway Bridge to near where the twin Columbia boathouses now stand. There it linked up with the Spuyten Duyvil Creek and The Hudson. Left intact was a peninsula right below where our building now stands. That peninsula was the site of the Johnson foundry.
While Manhattan became circumnavigable with the completion of this first stage, the situation was less than ideal since ships still had go around the peninsula that remained. That was remedied with the second stage that was completed in the mid 1930’s when both foundry and peninsula were removed leaving what you see today.
But whether canal, or creek or river, the water we see from our home is all part of a large estuary, that point where The Atlantic meets and pushes back against The Hudson. This accounts for the tidal action you may have noticed, the mudflats that edge Inwood Hill Park across the way and the area’s popularity with shorebirds of various species.
