Inwood Hill Park is a public park in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. On a high schist ridge that rises above the Hudson River from Dyckman Street to the northern tip of the island, Inwood Hill Park's densely folded, glacially scoured topography contains the largest remaining old-growth forest on the island of Manhattan. The area is also known as the Shorakapkok Preserve, shorakapkok meaning 'the sitting place' in the Munsee language used by the Wecquaesgeek tribe who inhabited the area for nearly 700 years. – by the 19th century, it was largely the location of country retreats for some of the wealthier families of the community and the rest of New York's social elite. One such notable who had a summer estate in Inwood was Isidor Straus, co-owner of the Macy's department store and a passenger on the ill-fated voyage of the Titanic. The Lords of the Lord & Taylor department store chain owned two mansions built within the park; both mansions were destroyed by fire in the latter part of the 19th century. Additionally, an orphanage was located high on a bluff in what is now Inwood Hill Park in the nineteenth century. The site today includes a small paved area and park benches; no trace of the building remains. At least three freshwater springs arise in the park, one of which was used for drinking water by the workers who constructed the Henry Hudson Bridge. Some land in the north was formerly known as Cold Spring.

Historically, the area now encompassed by Inwood Hill Park has been largely unaffected by development.

Use as park

thumb|262x262px|Park map, circa 1955, Bromley

Andrew Haswell Green, an early commissioner of the Department of Parks and Recreation, first suggested that a park be created in Inwood in 1895 for the newly formed department. Between 1915 and the early 1940s, it purchased parcels of land that make up the park as it is today.

The park was officially opened on May 8, 1926. Squatters who lived in the abandoned estates around the perimeter of the park were removed in the 1930s by Robert Moses and the Works Project Administration (WPA). Moses built the West Side Highway, which cuts directly through the park, and cut many of the historic tulip trees which dated back to the Revolutionary War.

On September 15, 1995, the Inwood Hill Nature Center was dedicated and opened to the public. It is located near the park entrance on 218th Street and Indian Road, and is on a peninsula that was formerly connected to the Bronx mainland before the digging of the Harlem River Ship Canal. The center has been designated as an interactive exhibit with ongoing monitoring of the natural area. It is also the focal point to watch the eagles that have been placed in the park to be freed when they are able to adjust to the environment. The center was damaged by Superstorm Sandy's floodwaters in 2012, and was only partially reopened twelve years later, in 2024.

Next to the Nature Center is Muscota Marsh, one of the few remaining saltwater marshes in Manhattan.

Great Tulip Tree and Shorakapok Rock

thumb|267px|right|Tulip tree under which legend says that Native Americans sold Manhattan to Peter Minuit in 1626

The park's Shorakapok Preserve was formerly the site of a "Great Tulip Tree", a Liriodendron tulipifera considered the largest tree on Manhattan, as well as one of the oldest, and was championed and restored by Parks Commissioner Charles B. Stover. As part of care for the tree, a plaque was put up connecting it to Hudson's voyages, a few years after the Hudson–Fulton Celebration, commemorating the 300th anniversary of Hudson's work and the 100th anniversary of Fulton's. The original plaque also connected the tree to Native American archaeological finds nearby, speculating that some of the Native Americans at Shorakapok could have interacted with Hudson. Hudson actually engaged in a battle from his ship with Native Americans at nearby Nipinichsen, just north of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, on October 2, 1609. The tree survived for centuries until it was felled by a storm in 1933.

thumb|267px|Shorakkopoch Rock

Until the 1950s the stump was still to be seen, surrounded by a large iron fence, but as it rotted it was finally removed and a boulder and plaque replaced it. Peter Minuit Post 1247 of the American Legion placed the boulder and the plaque in 1954, commemorating the 300th anniversary of New Amsterdam gaining municipal rights a year earlier. The plaque labels the boulder "Shorakkopoch" (a more recent Parks Department sign nearby calls it "Shorakapok Rock"), and claims that "according to legend" this is where Minuit negotiated the purchase of Manhattan Island from Native Americans. The account does not appear in any historical records, and some historians place any such meeting location in Lower Manhattan. The association of a "treaty tree" in different locations with land acquisition has been noted as a common myth that promotes a narrative of peaceful colonial settlement.

Geography

thumb|right|The largest [[Giant's kettle|glacial pothole in New York City is located in Inwood Hill Park.]]

The park covers . The Henry Hudson Parkway and Amtrak's Empire Connection railroad line run through it, and at its northern end the Henry Hudson Bridge and the rail-only Spuyten Duyvil Bridge link Manhattan to the Bronx.

The park's western boundary is the Hudson River, and the southern boundary is Dyckman Street. From Dyckman to 204th Street the eastern boundary is Payson Avenue, from 204th to 214th Street it is Seaman Avenue, and from 215th Street to the park's end at 218th Street the eastern boundary is Indian Road. Bolton Road, which was the main drive to the Bolton estate, is now the primary pedestrian pathway within the park; its entrance marked by a sign located on Payson Avenue. The foundry held out until 1923 when it vacated the premises. These plans were finalized in 1935, and the channel was excavated from 1937 to 1938, turning the creek into the Harlem River Ship Canal. The work severed the Johnson foundry's peninsula of land from the Bronx, which was then absorbed into Inwood Hill Park; the former peninsula now contains the park's Nature Center.

Inwood Hill Park is geologically diverse, with marble, schist, and limestone all prevalent in the area. The park is next to the seismologically active Dyckman Street Fault which runs parallel along the southern border of the park. As recently as 1989, activity of this fault caused a magnitude 2 earthquake.

Fauna and flora

One of the earliest known records of the flora of Inwood was recorded by W. W. Denslow, then a resident of Inwood, around 1863.

The forest of Inwood Hill Park is within a region once designated as an oak-chestnut forest. Due to the demise of the American chestnut due to chestnut blight, the forest composition has altered drastically since 1917 and is now oak-hickory dominated.

The woods support a wide variety of birds, including common species such as blue jays and cardinals, as well as wild turkeys. Birds of prey that breed in the park include red-tailed hawks and owls. A five-year project that began in summer 2002 attempted to reintroduce the bald eagle to Manhattan using hacking boxes in the park and eaglets brought in from the Midwest. In the first summer, three of the four introduced eaglets fledged successfully; three or four fledged each year of the program. The nesting structure was removed in 2009.

The park has both native and invasive plant species. While the presence of plant life is obvious, the fauna may not be as revealing.

Native and non-native species

Native species from nurseries were added to the park to provide greater vegetation, such as Abies balsamea, Acer rubrum, A. saccharum, Aesculus, and Betula lenta. Non-native species were also introduced to the park, affecting the native species. Some of the non-native species present were Rubus phoenicolasius (once rare and now the most prevalent Rubus species in the park), paper mulberry (L) Vent., Morus alba L, and Paulownia tomentosa (Thund.) Steudel. In the 1930s, a total of 83 species were found, of which 32 were non-native species. The park highlights specific activities that contribute to the park usage such as the hiking trail and the Hudson River Bike Trail.

The lack of green space in the eastern part of Inwood and the Bronx nearby creates an enormous demand for picnicking with barbecues and table/chair setups, activity that is either illegal or tightly controlled in most other city parks; however, Inwood Hill Park has managed this by permitting such setups on the manicured, maintained peninsula portion of the park.

New York Road Runners hosts a weekly 2.75-mile Open Run.

Economic impact

<!-- Deleted image removed: thumb|March 2022 report published by the Trust for Public Land, The development and evolution of Inwood Hill Park's [[Floral morphology|flora and fauna are intrinsically linked to the financial stability of New York City City and its residents. Fiscal investments of the state have a significant impact on the health and species diversity of flora and fauna in New York city parks. During the New York fiscal crisis in 1975, the New York state government decided it would be prudent to cut funding for the maintenance of New York parks and redistribute the money to other areas of public and private services. Consequently, many public workers in New York City parks were laid off. The Protected Native Plants Program was created in 1989 to provide regulatory protection for native New York state plants and was subsequently updated in 2012 in accordance with new data provided by the New York Natural Heritage Program.

In contrast to more visited parks such as Central Park, which receive a substantial amount of funding from donations from the surrounding community, a majority of Inwood Hill Park's funding is provided by a combination of grants and property taxes, common methods of funding parks in low-income areas. Partnerships for Parks, a nonprofit organization, has partnered with the city of New York to maintain and manage parks and promote their use.

The Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act passed as a ballot initiative in the November 2022 New York state general election. As part of this approved initiative, New York plans to set aside $4.2 billion in order to enhance, allocate and redevelop the natural landscape and environment of the state. Of these funds, $650 million will be allocated to parks, open spaces, and agricultural lands. This will involve the purchase of land for conservation, restoration/beautification of parks, and the expansion of the proportion of state-owned land. It is expected that the Bond Act will result in the creation of approximately 84,000 jobs.

References

Notes

Bibliography

  • NYC Parks: Inwood Hill Park