Inwood Park Walk (pt. 2) & the Columbia “C” Explained

Here’s the rest of Monday’s walk through Inwood Park, Manhattan’s last vestige of primeval forest.  Not a lot of history discussed in this post, just pictures.

A quick recap…this is the side of the park I entered through (on the west side of the Amtrak rails, and the West Side Highway)…  
In the summers lots of soccer, little league, and barbeques.  The Manhattan side tower of the George Washington Bridge in the distance….

To get into the main park, the pedestrian bridge takes you over the Amtrak rails….

Then this tunnel takes you under the southbound Henry Hudson Parkway (past The Tuft’s of Flowers mosaic from the last post)….

A little farther along up a hill, there’s another tunnel that takes you under the northbound Henry Hudson Parkway, and you come out here…. See the cars? They’re doing about 75 mph.  The lamp posts are from the 1930s, installed during WPA (New Deal) projects…

A repeat picture from the last post, just because it’s so Planet of the Apes-like to see lamp posts like this…can you see both of them?

Most of the paths are narrower than this, and not as well defined.  I went the other way, and climbed more hill…

From the hilltop, this is the clearest view you can get of the Cloister tower…

And after a short walk farther along the hilltop, this…

There are no really old trees surrounding this overlook, it must have once provided an unobstructed view. By the trampled leaves, it looks like people still find it though.

It seems they expected quite a number of people back then…Look to the far left, I thought that was another entrance to the overlook.
 
  …

…obviously windstorm damage…

If you’ve spent any time in a car in the metropolitan area, the radio always reported traffic conditions “under the apartments.”  Those are them… 
…and a less obstructed view of the Cloister tower…

Leaving the overlook and continuing down the other side, just a few feet away…this really is Manhattan….

And then a real mystery….
 
And this….

Continuing over the crest…

…and along the path…

The clearest view I could get looking east from this altitude…. The Broadway Bridge leading to Riverdale (the Bronx) is the bluish metal structure to the left of the tree.  The Tracey Towers, the tallest buildings in the Bronx (I think still), are the twin buildings in the distance.  The white dome through the thicket are tennis courts across the Harlem River in Riverdale.

And one lone jogger passed by….

And the Columbia “C” from high above.  Painted by Columbia students in the 50s. Today I learned why it’s there!

But that’s in a bit.  First there’s this…I have no idea. 


Assuming they were never moved, what could this have been a foundation for?  On a less cold day I will go back and do some forensics. That’s a serious foundation slab…if you know, please speak up…..

I took the steep way down…some of these are looking back on my descent…
 


The path must have once been more manageable, since it leads to these most accommodating stone steps…


At the bottom is this monument…It announces this spot as where Peter Minuit “bought” Mannahatta for sharp edged metal tools (and of course, some beads). There’s another monument at the Battery commemorating the same thing.  It very well might have happened in both places, since he dealt with the wrong people the first time. 

The tulip tree is pretty incredible, 1658-1938.  The Wall Street wall was 4 years old when the tulip tree sprouted.  That’s how old my father was when it died.

From the bottom, looking along the last segment of the Harlem River where it meets the Hudson just beyond the Henry Hudson Expressway.

Panning to the right a bit, a lagoon. Those are seagulls, and they’re walking…


Farther to the right, this is mud under a sheen of water…ecosystems don’t get much richer than this…Manhattan’s last salt water marsh.

This how 21st century urbanites enjoy the park…they stay mostly down below…

…and have this view, looking across a lagoon at fjords from Manhattan.  That’s the Spuyten Duyvil train station across the way under the Henry Hudson Bridge.

Just another minute’s walk farther along is Columbia’s Wien stadium.  I thought this was the closest I would be able to get…. (The Broadway Bridge is in the back.)

But the gate was open…(see blog title)

It’s important to pay respect…mutton chops, gilded age…the first wooden stadium and this monument were both erected in 1928…read the bottom: “‘C’ Club”….

From the uppermost seats in Wien Stadium. Now you know why the “C” is where it is….

Five hundred feet later I’m back in the city…The Broadway Bridge, the downtown 1 train passing, buses and cars at all the wrong angles (this is why it’s so easy to skate in the Manhattan, vehicles don’t move.) 

But if I’m going to leave you with that image, I might as well show you a few miles away, a few hours later….

Inwood Park & Robert Frost

The Tuft of Flowers, by Robert Frost, came to life today at the start of a 90 minute walk on a desolate cold day through Inwood Park.  I’ll take you just that far, we’ll save the rest for another day…

Looking south to the George Washington Bridge, near the Dyckman Street entrance and the lower level of the park…

My walk already started out special.  I passed this, what appears to be a devotion, along the banks of the Hudson. 
Not so unusual, actually.  Inwood is a special community.

I’ve posted this view before, but not from this perspective, at sea level, the fjords (palisades) across the Hudson.

Looking north towards the Tappan Zee, up the Hudson…

Just a little bit further to the right of the above image, a bridge for Amtrak and the entrance of the short Harlem River…


Here’s the bridge that takes you over RR tracks, deeper into the park. This is the first time I crossed the bridge because I’d always been on skates before...
 

I didn’t wait here more than a minute…

when a train came by…

Inwood Park is the closest you get to an expanse of “woods” in Manhattan,  and considering what most perceptions are of Manhattan, it’s pretty incredible…
 
As soon as you cross the tracks, “street” lamps from a by-gone age mark the path…

Can you see both lamp posts in the woods?

I will leave off with this.  The tunnel ahead leads the traveler under the southbound Henry Hudson Parkway.  This is where I encountered something that I realized, later when I looked closely at the pictures, was Robert Frost’s The Tuft of Flowers.  I mean that explicitly; considering the country:city thing, this is not even a metaphor, but exactly and really what Robert Frost experienced that caused him to express the beautiful sentiment in that wonderful poem (which is included at the end).  Follow closely…
Here is the tunnel as you approach…
 
Notice the tunnel has been painted midway up, first a peach color, and another coat of white paint came later…

The view through the tunnel…

But down to the left upon entering the tunnel, in the dirt, started by someone, at some time, a mosaic of flowers.



The flower mosaic was installed between the two coats of paint. Look how the painter who came later was careful to avoid getting paint on it…

It’s literally this poem. Two workers met without meeting.  The latter appreciated what the former had done, and in so doing, came to see the world a bit differently… 

A Tuft of Flowers, by Robert Frost

I went to turn the grass once after one

Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen

Before I came to view the leveled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;

I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,

And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

`As all must be,' I said within my heart,

`Whether they work together or apart.'

But as I said it, swift there passed me by

On noiseless wing a 'wildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night

Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,

As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,

And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,

And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look

At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared

Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name,

Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,

By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.

But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,

Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,

And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;

So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,

And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech

With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

`Men work together,' I told him from the heart,

`Whether they work together or apart.'