Weekend, January 1-2, 2022 – It is not too often that street disappears…

By admin

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WEEKEND,  JANUARY 1-2, 2022

THE  561st  EDITION

What Happened to

New York City’s

14th Avenue?

from Ephemeral New York

You know 12th Avenue in Manhattan, the Far West Side avenue that becomes the West Side Highway. And you may have heard of 13th Avenue, a short-lived thoroughfare built on landfill in the 1830s from 11th Street to about 25th Street that had a dreary, creepy vibe—based on photos and newspaper accounts.

But 14th Avenue in Manhattan? I’d never heard of it until I saw the 1860 Johnson’s Map of New York (above). In the uppermost part of Manhattan, at Tubby Hook and the railroad tracks that hug the Hudson River, there’s a small stretch marked “Fourteenth Avenue.”

Even stranger, 13th Avenue makes an appearance as well, running from about 168th Street to Spuyten Duyvil.

The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, the map that laid out Manhattan’s street grid, says nothing about 14th Avenue. The last street on that map is 155th Street, and to the north are scattered place names (like Fort George and Kings Bridge) as well as the names of landowners.

There are a few mentions of 14th Avenue in newspaper archives, specifically when it comes to real estate transactions. In 1875, the New York Times noted that a plot from 214th to 215th Streets along 14th Avenue exchanged hands for $80,000.

Some other 19th century maps mark 14th Avenue, like the one above from 1879.

So why did 14th Avenue (and this slice of 13th Avenue) get de-mapped? Did the city decide it was too small to be an avenue, too insignificant at only 10 or so blocks long? Meanwhile, Tubby Hook is still on the map; even Google notes this spit of land jutting into the Hudson (below).

It likely has to do with Inwood Hill Park. Where 14th Avenue is marked on the 1860 map happens to be where Inwood Hill Park Calisthenics Park is today, right alongside the water. I don’t know when the Calisthenics Park opened, but Inwood Hill itself became an official city park in 1926.

A short avenue had no place inside Inwood Hill Park. As a result, 14th Avenue forever bit the dust.

WEEKEND PHOTO

SEND YOUR ANSWER TO:
ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM
OR JBIRD134@AOL.COM
 

FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

Aerial view of the Bronx Zoo
Laura Hussey and Jay Jacobson got it!

EDITORIAL

It has been a challenging year for the RIHS. We have reached many goals and surpassed some:

The visitor center kiosk was open on 248 days.
We served over 25,000 visitors.
We have had the best December sales ever this month.
Ellen, Barbara, Vicki and Gloria make up a great team in the kiosk.
We thank Pat, our veteran (10 years) bookkeeper who keeps all the finances in order.

We had two series with our NYPL partners on Zoom and we worked to welcome our new branch with Carlos, Danielle and staff.

We did offer some in-person tours of the island including the staff of the Graduate Hotel, & NYU Urban Planning students.

We welcomed and worked with Amanda Matthews and Prometheus Foundry on the dedication and opening reception of The Girl Puzzle
We worked with Andrew at Blackwell House to increase the visitors to the landmark building.

Bobbie Slonevsky edited four great  issues of Blackwell’s Almanac.

Deborah Dorff made sure our issues of FROM THE ALMANAC  were posted on our website. We thank our readers, Stephen Blank and Andy Sparberg for joining us as writers.  There is a special group of readers who daily answer the mystery photo question including Jay Jacobson, Laura Hussey, Alexis Villafane, Aron Eisenpreiss, Nina Lublin,  Ed Litcher, Gloria Herman and many others, too numerous to mention.

We worked with RIOC on obtaining and use of our Public Purpose Funds. We worked with Ben Kallos, our City Council member on discretionary funding for the RIHS and supporting our publications.

We accepted the donation of the plaque from the Welfare Island Storehouse.  We are the guardians of the T. Burns engraved stones from the Southpoint Park shoreline.

Many times your see other publications whose material we feature. Some of these are Daytonian in Manhattan, Untapped NYC, Ephemeral New York, Smithsonian American Art Museum and recently New York Almanack. We thank them for letting us share these wonderful features.

We thank the support of our vendors and suppliers.  We place small orders and still get wonderful service and great products. We thank
Maple Landmark whose bridge models are in the windows at our medical office.

We miss the in-person meetings, the parties, the seminars, traveling to other historical sited and events.  

We will sit at the window watching the ferries go by, the trees turn in Queensbridge Park and the growing skyline Queens.

Have a safe  and healthy new year.

Judith Berdy

p.s. Please feel free to join the RIHS or make a donation at RIHS.US

FROM A READER

Hi Judy–
Thx for the homage to Wayne Thiebaud. 

I had no idea he was 101! 

I’ve loved his beautiful straight-forward painting since my days in art school.
His love of thick paint, composition & vibrant color outlines were always inspiring to me.
I’ll have to thumb through my coffee table book of Mr Thiebaud this week…..;^)
Many thanks & Happy New Year–
Thom Heyer

SOURCES

Ephemeral New York

[Third image: NYPL; fourth image: Google Maps]

Funding Provided by:
Roosevelt Island Corporation Public Purpose Funds
Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD
Text by Judith Berdy

Edited by Deborah Dorff
ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C)
 PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS

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