Marble Hill, Manhattan

Marble Hill is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Although once part of Manhattan Island, a large modern shipping canal was dug to its south over a small earlier canal in the late 19th century. The neighborhood was then connected by land reclamation to the mainland in the early 20th century. The Bronx surrounds the neighborhood to the west, north, and east, while the Harlem River is its southern border.

The area of Marble Hill became a Dutch colonial settlement in 1646. It served as a crossing point to the mainland when the colonial British had the King's Bridge constructed in 1693 to span the Spuyten Duyvil Creek. It gained its current name in 1891 from the Tuckahoe marble deposits discovered underneath the neighborhood.

The boundaries of the neighborhood are approximately between Terrace View Avenue and Johnson Avenue to the west, between 228th Street and 230th Street to the north, and cutting through the Marble Hill Houses and River Plaza Shopping Center to the east. It is connected to the rest of Manhattan by the Broadway Bridge.

Marble Hill was once the northernmost tip of the island of Manhattan, before it became an island in 1817, when two small streams were dug up to form a narrow canal, later expanded into the Harlem River Ship Canal. Marble Hill remained an island until it was physically connected to the Bronx in 1913. Because of this change in topography, Marble Hill is often associated with the Bronx and is part of Bronx Community District 8. The Spuyten Duyvil Creek flowed around the neighborhood to the north, separating Marble Hill from the Bronx, and by extension, the North American mainland. Marble Hill became an island in 1817, when two small streams were dug up to form a narrow canal. The waterway ran from the Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the Harlem River.

The mill canal was expanded in 1895 to become the Harlem River Ship Canal. The new channel, constructed at the direction of the federal government, was wide and at least deep at its completion. Marble Hill remained an island until it was physically connected to the Bronx in 1913, when the old northern bend of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek was filled in. In 1669 Verveelen transplanted his ferry to the northern tip of Marble Hill, at today's Broadway and West 231st Street.

Bridges

Two bridges connected Marble Hill with the mainland: the King's Bridge and the Dyckman Free Bridge. A prominent trader in New Amsterdam, Philipse had purchased vast landholdings in what was then Westchester County during the 1670s and 1680s. Its purpose was to serve the farmers who refused to pay the toll. The Dyckmans used the proceeds to finance a new operation on the west side of Broadway and 226th Street that was to be managed by Benjamin Palmer, who owned property on City Island.

American Revolution

thumb|St Stephen's United Methodist Church

When hostilities broke out at the start of the American Revolution, the Continental Army constructed a fort on Marble Hill as part of a series of forts to defend the area. By November 1776, the fort had been taken over by Hessian forces and renamed Fort Prince Charles in honor of Charles, Duke of Brunswick, brother-in-law to George III. Despite contrary beliefs, the King's Bridge and the Dyckman Free Bridge served as escape routes for the retreating American forces after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776. The latter of these bridges was destroyed during the war. Their home was on the south side of the community and included a marble mill.

The name of Marble Hill was conceived when Darius C. Crosby came up with the name in 1891 from the deposits of dolomite marble underlying it, a relatively soft rock that crops out in Inwood and Marble Hill, known as Inwood marble. The marble was quarried for the federal buildings in lower Manhattan when New York was the capital of the United States in the 1780s.

Saint Stephen's United Methodist Church, a community fixture since its 1898 construction, is located at 228th Street and Marble Hill Avenue. The church building was restored in the 1950s, and again in 2010. One of its corners, the one closest to the intersection, has a tall bell tower. There are circular stained glass windows facing both streets. Inside is an Akron Plan-inspired setup with balconies and an auditorium that is laid out like an amphitheater.

Separation from Manhattan Island

thumb|Marble Hill (highlighted in pink) in an 1896 map

Marble Hill once unmistakably belonged to Manhattan, forming the island's northernmost tip. The canal was to be in width and had a depth of to . It would be cut directly through the rock of Dyckman's Meadow, making a straight course to the Hudson River. This rendered Marble Hill an island bounded by the canal to the south and the original course of the Harlem River to the north. The Greater New York Charter of 1897 designated Marble Hill as part of the Borough of Manhattan.

thumb|1908 map of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek separating Marble Hill from the Bronx mainland

Marble Hill remained an island for years until it was physically connected to the Bronx in 1913, when the old Spuyten Duyvil Creek was filled in with rocks that were removed to build Grand Central Terminal in central Manhattan. Both the King's and Dyckman Free Bridges were covered over with landfill.

Character

Housing

Six-story apartment houses were constructed in the 20th century, and in the early 1950s urban renewal came to the area. A complex was built bounded by Broadway, Exterior Street and 225th Street and was called the Marble Hill Houses. This property was acquired by New York City on August 26, 1948. The houses were completed in 1952. Despite the name, only seven of the 11 towers are actually in Marble Hill; the other four are in Kingsbridge.

Street naming

Many of the neighborhood's streets were named for Dutch settlers to Marble Hill. For instance, Teunissen Place, a dead-end alley off Terrace View Avenue to the neighborhood's west, is named after Tobias Teunissen, a wool washer from Leyden, Holland, who came to the area in 1636. Teunissen was killed in an Indian raid in 1655, and his wife and child were held hostage until they were ransomed by the Dutch authorities.

Adrian Avenue is named after Adriaen van der Donck, an early lawyer in New Amsterdam. With permission, he bought a strip of land from local Native American tribes in 1646. This land stretched from Spuyten Duyvil to present-day Yonkers along the Hudson coastline. The street's name is misspelled.

Shopping mall

thumb|The skyline of [[Manhattan seen from River Plaza]]

River Plaza, a shopping mall located on 40 West 225th Street between Broadway and Exterior Street and overlooking the Harlem River, opened in August 2004. It is the commercial center for Marble Hill. It cost $90 million and has a floor area of . The mall, which has an open-air format in which the passageways between stores are outdoors, has a 640-space parking lot on the roof. In 2002, before construction, developers purchased adjacent land from six owners, with the largest building on these lots being a deteriorating, -floor, warehouse owned by NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital. Since the building could not be renovated cheaply enough, it was demolished. The mall was built on a foundation of soft soil and a shallow water table, so builders had to place 1,500 concrete-capped steel piles into the soil. The finished building was designed to retain views of landmarks like the George Washington Bridge and the Empire State Building.

Demographics

For census purposes, the New York City government classifies Marble Hill as part of a larger neighborhood tabulation area encompassing Inwood and Marble Hill. Based on data from the 2010 United States census, the population of Inwood and Marble Hill was 46,746, a change of -2,341 (-5%) from the 49,087 counted in 2000. Covering an area of , the neighborhood had a population density of . The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 15.1% (7,060) White, 9.1% (4,239) African American, 0.1% (64) Native American, 1.9% (884) Asian, 0% (5) Pacific Islander, 0.4% (179) from other races, and 1% (458) from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 72.4% (33,857) of the population.

The racial composition of Marble Hill and Inwood changed moderately from 2000 to 2010, with the most significant changes being the Black population's decrease by 13% (661) and the Hispanic / Latino population's decrease by 5% (1,880). Meanwhile, the White population grew by 5% (335) and remained a minority, as with the Asian population which grew by 11% (86); the small population of all other races decreased by 24% (221).

The entirety of Bronx Community District 8, which comprises Marble Hill as well as Kingsbridge, Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil, Fieldston, and Van Cortlandt Village, had 102,927 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 80.9 years. This is about the slightly lower than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most inhabitants are children and middle-aged adults: 28% are between the ages of 25–44, while 25% are between 45 and 64, and 20% are between 0–17. The proportion of college-aged and elderly residents was lower, at 9% and 18% respectively. The 50th Precinct has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 69.9% between 1990 and 2022. The precinct reported three murders, 22 rapes, 185 robberies, 213 felony assaults, 126 burglaries, 695 grand larcenies, and 288 grand larcenies auto in 2022.

, Bronx Community District 8 has a non-fatal assault hospitalization rate of 40 per 100,000 people, compared to the Bronx's rate of 113 per 100,000 and the citywide rate of 59 per 100,000. Its incarceration rate is 225 per 100,000 people, compared to the Bronx's rate of 670 per 100,000 and the citywide rate of 425 per 100,000.

In 2019, the highest concentration of felony assaults in Marble Hill was on Broadway between 225th Street and 228th Street, where there were 13 felony assaults. The highest concentration of robberies was nearby, at the intersection of Broadway and 225th Street, where there were 8 robberies.

Fire safety

Engine Co. 81 and Ladder Co. 46 of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY), at 3025 Bailey Avenue, is the primary or "first due" fire station for Marble Hill.

The Marble Hill Hose Company was organized in 1895 because, at the time, there was no fire station in the neighborhood. FDNY horses were unable to climb the neighborhood's steep hills, so the FDNY loaned the company a hose cart; a fire engine was not required because the water pressure in the hydrants were sufficient to propel a stream of water. It was the only independent fire company in Manhattan after the FDNY became a paid fire department in 1865. The Marble Hill Hose Company remained in service for ten years.

Education

Schools

thumb|[[John F. Kennedy High School (New York City)|John F. Kennedy High School in Marble Hill]]

John F. Kennedy High School was built in the former riverbed on the western side of Marble Hill, and was opened in September 1972. Beginning in fall 2002, smaller high schools were established within the campus. Due to poor academic performance in the 2000s, as well as a series of violent crimes at the school (including the murder of a student), the New York City Department of Education made a decision in fall 2010 to close the school, phasing out one grade per year until 2014. It closed down in 2014, and six smaller, specialty high schools now occupy its campus: four public, two charter. Four of these schools were founded in 2002, while the other two were established in 2011 after the decision was made to close John F. Kennedy High School. The nearest public elementary school is PS 7 Milton Fein School in Kingsbridge, serving grades K–5.

Nearby private schools include Horace Mann School, Riverdale Country School, and Ethical Culture Fieldston School. The nearest parochial school is now Good Shepherd, in Inwood. The parochial school formerly serving the neighborhood, St. John's, in Kingsbridge was closed in 2020. The Marble Hill Nursery School, in the Marble Hill Houses, is privately operated with some funding with the city.

Transportation

thumb|right|300px|[[Marble Hill–225th Street (IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line)|Marble Hill–225th Street subway station]]

In 1905–1906, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad built the Marble Hill station as a replacement for the former Kingsbridge Station used by an affiliate known as the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad. The station was relocated from the east side of Broadway to the west side in the late-1970s and is now served by the Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line, which provides commuter railroad service to Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan, locations in the Bronx, and points north. The station is at the bottom of a substantial cliff.

The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) extended their Broadway–Seventh Avenue line, now part of the New York City Subway, from 145th Street to 242nd Street in 1906. As part of the construction, the IRT built a station at 225th Street.

The main street through Marble Hill is Broadway, part of U.S. Route 9.

Politics

The United States Census Bureau defines Marble Hill as Census Tract 309 of New York County. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 8,463 on a land area of . Because Marble Hill is legally part of Manhattan, residents who serve on jury duty go to the courthouses at Foley Square in lower Manhattan.

Political representation

Politically, Marble Hill is in New York's 13th congressional district. It is in the New York State Senate's 31st district, the New York State Assembly's 72nd district, and the New York City Council's 10th district. Bronx Community Board 8 is the local community board for Marble Hill. Since then, more lighthearted "annexations" have occurred.

Residents of the neighborhood wished to remain residents of Manhattan, and petitions and signatures were gathered to be sent to Governor Herbert H. Lehman to ensure that Marble Hill remain part of Manhattan. and the matter was definitively settled later that year when the New York Legislature overwhelmingly passed legislation declaring the neighborhood part of both New York County and the Borough of Manhattan and made this clarification retroactive to 1938, as reflected on the official maps of the city.

The confusion has been so great that when New York City Councilman Guillermo Linares was elected as Marble Hill's representative in 1991, he originally thought the neighborhood was part of the Bronx. The "104" prefix is used for Bronx localities, while "100" through "102" are reserved for Manhattan addresses

In 1984, area code 718 was created out of area code 212 for the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island; the Bronx and Marble Hill were added to the 718 area code in 1992. Marble Hill residents unsuccessfully fought to retain the 212 area code, which was considered more prestigious than the 718 area code.

Notable people

Notable current and former residents of Marble Hill include:

Ted Corbitt (1919–2007), pioneering long-distance runner
Guillermo Linares (born 1951), politician who represented the 72nd Assembly District in the New York State Assembly
Justin Pierce (1975–2000), actor and skateboarder