The idea was to begin a self-guided tour of the New York City park system--all of it, if I could manage it. I made my start in the Bronx, probably because of the borough's association with planned park development. The borough's abundant parklands (3,495 acres, all told, according to the Parks Department) were acquired long before serious development began following the five-borough consolidation of 1898, which produced the city we know today.
I began at Crotona Park in the southeast Bronx (174th and Southern Boulevard; the #2 stops right across the street). Crotona was a must-to-avoid in the 1970s because of its proximity to the neighborhood depicted in the movie, "Fort Apache, the Bronx." Today, it's a very different place, at least in terms of its former bad reputation. It's clean and pleasant, with evidence of many recent upgrades and improvements, natural and man-made. The landscape is open and rolling, there are a number of recreational areas, even a lake.
But Crotona Park is relatively small. In every direction, some closer, some farther away, there was a wall of unforgiving brick apartment houses staring back at me through the trees. No mystery, no intrigue, nothing to explore. It was fine if you lived in the neighborhood and wanted a pretty place to relax for a few hours. But it was not a destination; at least, not to me.
CLIMBING THE CLIFF
So I headed west, knowing I'd hit the Grand Concourse––and more subway lines––eventually. But first I hit Webster Avenue, a flat, wide, tired and treeless commercial street over which loomed a giant rock formation topped by the backs of some modest late-19th-century frame rowhouses.
To continue west to the Concourse, I would have to find a way over or around this steep cliff. Several blocks down Webster, I found a granite stairway––common in the very hilly West Bronx––to Clay Avenue, the street "above" Webster. It was long and relatively steep, but I climbed it at a steady pace and didn't get winded at all.
Because my wife and I had lived nearby for about a year in the late 60s, it seemed to me there was a park, Claremont Park, that probably wasn't very far away. And it wasn't--a bit north, a bit west. Claremont turned out to be pretty much as I remembered it--old stone walls, big overarching trees, rolling, hillier than Crotona, well tended and pretty. But again, no cigar. I wanted something that would make my heart go thumpa-thumpa.
ACROSS THE MIGHTY HARLEM
And then it came to me, with a slight shiver: High Bridge Park, on the west shore of the Harlem River in Washington Heights. A long swath of steep cliffs overlooking the river valley. Just beginning to revive after decades of shocking neglect, thanks largely to a local "Friends of" group.
Without major infusions of capital, however, this gem of a park cut into a hillside, with grand granite staircases and magnificent if wildly out of control vegetation, will continue to be too daunting for all but the most adventurous of walkers. And because it's been shunned by much of the community (which includes Yeshiva University) for decades, parts of High Bridge Park have become a home to the homeless. You can't always see them, but you can see their effects scattered everywhere.
I first explored the cliff walks of Highbridge Park after 9/11, when I was walking around neighborhoods I barely knew in Upper Manhattan, Queens and northern Brooklyn--I think, to reassure myself that the city was still there. I've come back a few times since--once with a group, once with my wife, once with a friend from out of town, and once alone. Nothing has ever happened. So, with some misgivings, I decided to go.
BENEATH THE STONE ARCHES
I headed west through the Puerto Rican/Dominican streets of the west Bronx to the Harlem River and the Washington (not the George) Bridge, which connects the Bronx and Manhattan at 181st Street, at more or less the midpoint of High Bridge Park. As all bridges should, the Washington was built with pedestrian walkways north and south. It even has little platforms on which to sit and look out at the river (less romantic than they sound, covered in graffiti).
When I reached the Manhattan/Washington Heights side, I didn't use the main entrance to the park, which leads down to an area where homeless people are encamped. If I'd gone that way, I'd have had to pass under the Washington Bridge's enormous granite arches in order to go north. That passage can be thrilling, but part of the thrill, I think, is the outsize quality of the experience, tinged with a bit of risk or danger. In a group, it's bearable; alone, I decided, it's not. So I entered the park farther north, descending a ruined but magnificent double staircase that empties onto a north-south path cut into the cliff about half way up from the valley floor. This change of entry-points made me less apprehensive, but only a little.
My goal was to go north to Dyckman Street, then west to Fort Tryon Park. The path in front of me was nothing more than a long meandering slab cut into a cliff, with huge trees, boulders and grasses above and below. It was utterly desolate and I found myself loping rather than walking, teeth clenched, hands made into fists, occasionally turning to see who was lurking (no one was lurking) nearby.
THUMPA-THUMPA
I could hear, though not see, the cars speeding by on the Harlem River Drive below. I knew they certainly could not have heard, much less responded to, my calls for help. How could I have undertaken something so stupid, so risky--simply because the more placid Crotona and Claremont parks hadn't registered even a blip on the excitement scale? And yet, there it was, the pounding in my chest, thumpa-thumpa, just as I'd hoped.
All the same, the path seemed endless. Again and again, it would appear to be winding down, inching toward the bottom of the hill; then it would rise again. Who or what lay in wait around the next turn, I tried not to think about. Finally, I could see the rooftop of a nature center I'd visited once before. And sure enough, the path seemed to be leading unwaveringly down.
By the time I reached Fort Tryon Park, going west again on Dyckman, it was 4 p.m. The light was changing. No time, really, to continue. And besides, the subway stairs, right at the entrance to the park, beckoned. But I've decided to return, in search of more thrills, to Fort Tryon (and to the bigger Pelham Bay and Van Cortlandt parks of the Bronx) very soon. Like, maybe tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
