The earliest use of the name “Spuyten Duyvil” was in 1653, in a document from Dutch landowner Adriaen van der Donck to the Dutch West India Company. It may be literally translated as “Spouting Devil” or Spuitende Duivel in Dutch; a reference to the strong and wild tidal currents found at that location. It may also be translated as “Spewing Devil” or “Spinning Devil”, or more loosely as “Devil’s Whirlpool” or “Devil’s Spate.” Spui is a Dutch word involving outlets for water. Historian Reginald Pelham Bolton, however, argues that the phrase means “sprouting meadow”, referring to a fresh-water spring. A folk etymology, “to spite the Devil” or “in spite of the devil”, was popularized by a story in Washington Irving’s A Knickerbocker’s History of New York published in 1809. Set in the 17th Century, the story tells of trumpeter Anthony Van Corlaer summoned by Dutch colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant to warn settlers of a British invasion attempt, with Corlaer attempting to swim across the creek in treacherous conditions.
The local Lenape Native Americans referred to the creek by several names. The first was Shorakapok or Shorackhappok, translated as “the sitting down place” or “the place between the ridges”. A second term, spelled various ways including Paparinemo or Papiriniman, was shared with a triangular island formed by the junction of the creek and Tibbetts Brook in today’s Kingsbridge neighborhood. The word has been translated as “place where the stream is shut” or to “parcel out” or “divide”. A third name, Muscoota, was also used.
History
Spuyten Duyvil Creek runs northeast into the Hudson. When the Dutch settlers arrived they found its tidal waters turbulent and difficult to handle. Though its tides raced there was no navigable watercourse joining it with the headwaters of the Harlem River, which flowed in an “S”-shaped course southwest and then north into the East River. Steep cliffs along the Spuyten Duyvil’s mouth at the Hudson prevented any bridge there, but upstream it narrowed into a rocky drainage. Prior to the development of the Bronx, the creek was fed by Tibbetts Brook, which begins in Yonkers, Westchester County and intersected with the creek at modern West 230th Street. The brook currently ends above ground within Van Cortlandt Park, emptying into the Harlem River system at the Wards Island Water Pollution Control Plant via underground sewers.
During the 17th Century, the only mode of transportation across the Harlem River was by ferry from the east end of 125th Street. The ferry was established in 1667 and operated by Johannes Verveelen, a local landowner. Many settlers circumvented the toll for the ferry by crossing the creek from northern Marble Hill to modern Kingsbridge, Bronx, a point where it was feasible to wade or swim through the waters. This area was known as the “wading place”, and had previously been used by Native Americans. In response, Verveelen had the creek fenced off at the wading place, though travelers simply tore the barrier down. In 1669 Verveelen transplanted his ferry to the northern tip of Marble Hill, at today’s Broadway and West 231st Street. In 1693 Frederick Philipse, a Dutch nobleman who had sworn allegiance to the Crown upon the British takeover of Dutch New Netherlands, built the King’s Bridge at Marble Hill near what is now West 230th Street in the Bronx. Originally a merchant in New Amsterdam, Philipse had purchased vast landholdings in what was then Westchester County. Granted the title Lord of Philipse Manor, he established a plantation and provisioning depot for his shipping business upriver on the Hudson in present-day Sleepy Hollow. His toll bridge provided access and opened his land to settlement. Later, it carried the Boston Post Road. In 1758, the Free Bridge was erected by Jacob Dyckman, opening on January 1, 1759. Stagecoach service was later established across the span. The new bridge proceeded to take much of the traffic away from the King’s Bridge. The Free Bridge was destroyed during the American Revolution. Following the war, Philipse Manor was forfeited to the state legislature, after which the King’s Bridge was free.
Harlem River Ship Canal
Over time the channels of the Spuyten Duyvil and Harlem River were joined and widened and additional bridges were constructed, but maritime transit was still difficult and confined to small craft. By 1817, a narrow canal was dug through the south end of Marble Hill at approximately 222nd Street, known as “Boltons’ Canal” or “Dyckman Canal”.
With the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, and the advent of large steamships in the second half of the 19th century, a broad shipping canal was proposed between the Harlem and Hudson Rivers to allow them thru-transit by bypassing the tight turn up and around Marble Hill. The Harlem Canal Company (then stylized as the “Harlaem Canal Company”) was founded in 1826, but did not make any progress towards building a canal. A second company also failed to complete the project. In 1863 the Hudson and Harlem River Canal Company was created, and began the final plans for the canal. The U.S. Congress broke the logjam in 1873 by appropriating money for a survey of the relevant area, following which New York state bought the necessary land and gave it to the federal government. In 1876, the New York State Legislature issued a decree for the construction of the canal. Construction of the Harlem River Ship Canal – officially the United States Ship Canal – finally started in January 1888. The canal would be 400 feet (120 m) in width and have a depth of 15 feet (4.6 m) to 18 feet (5.5 m). It would be cut directly through the rock of Dyckman’s Meadow, making a straight course to the Hudson River. The first section of the canal, the cut at Marble Hill, was completed in 1895 and opened on June 17 of that year. Several festivities including parades were held to commemorate the occasion. At this time, Tibbets Brook was diverted into sewer pipes underneath Broadway, with the old right-of-way becoming Tibbett Avenue.
The effect of channeling through what had been West 222nd and 223rd streets was to physically isolate Marble Hill on the Bronx side of the new strait. In 1914 the original creek bed was filled in with rock from the excavation for the foundation of Grand Central Terminal; and the temporary island, comprising present-day Marble Hill, became physically attached to the Bronx, though it remained politically part of the borough of Manhattan, as it is today.
In 1919, New York State passed a bill in order to straighten the western end of the creek feeding into the Hudson. This channel was excavated from 1937 to 1938. The work severed a 13.5-acre peninsula of land from the Bronx, which had housed the Johnson Iron Works foundry. This land was absorbed into Manhattan’s Inwood Hill Park, home now to its Nature Center.
Today, Spuyten Duyvil Creek, the Harlem River Ship Canal, and the Harlem River form a continuous channel, referred to collectively as the Harlem River. Broadway Bridge, a combination road and rail lift span, continues to link Marble Hill with Manhattan. There is little evidence that the building of the Ship Canal enhanced commerce in the city.
This shot was taken from a northbound Metro-North train. In the foreground Spuyten Duyvil creek and the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge:
A wooden railroad drawbridge across the Spuyten Duyvil was first constructed by the New York & Hudson River Railroad in 1849. The railroad continued southward along the West Side Line to St. John’s Park Terminal in Lower Manhattan and carried both freight and passenger service. The Hudson River Railroad merged with the New York & Harlem Railroad in 1869, creating the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, and most trains started bypassing the bridge, instead going to Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. An iron bridge replaced the wooden span by 1895.
The current steel bridge was designed by Robert Giles and constructed in 1900. The piers rest on pile foundations in the riverbed. The bridge consists of three fixed sections as well as a 290-foot-long (88 m) swing section, which could swivel nearly 65 degrees and leave a 100 feet (30 m) of clearance on each side. The swing span weighed 200 tons and had enough space to fit two tracks.
By 1935, there were 70 trains a day using the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge, but after World War II, usage declined. In 1963, the steam motor that powered the swing span was replaced with an electric motor. The bridge was slightly damaged three years later, when the swing span was struck by a boat, leaving it stuck in the open position for two weeks. Trains stopped running across the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge in 1982 and the following year the bridge was damaged by a vessel and was left unable to close.
The bridge was rehabilitated in the late 1980s. Amtrak’s Empire Service began using the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge on April 7, 1991, following the completion of the Empire Connection. This involved the conversion of the abandoned West Side Line to accommodate passenger service and connect with Pennsylvania Station. Until then, Amtrak trains traveling between New York and Albany had utilized Grand Central Terminal.
In June 2018, Amtrak used the Left Coast Lifter, one of the world’s largest floating cranes to lift the 1.6 million pounds (730,000 kg) of the bridge’s spans and move them to a barge in order to make fixes to electrical and mechanical components necessitated by damage due to Hurricane Sandy and years of malfunctions and corrosion. During the repairs, trains which had originated in Penn Station and used the bridge originated instead from Grand Central Terminal, bypassing the bridge. The trains returned to their regular routing to Penn Station on September 4.
In the background the Hudson River and the Palisades. Just visible to the left on top of the Palisades is St. Michael’s Villa. According to The History of Englewood Cliffs:
In 1886…the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Peace purchased 5 1/2 acres of land to the south of Allison Estate. Here they built a summer retreat for young women, which is presently known as the Villa Lourdes, a home for aged sisters. In 1905, the sisters increased the size of their property to 12 1/2 acres through the purchase of the abandoned Allison Estate. Two years later they constructed the Saint Joseph’s Orphanage and School for Boys at the south end of their land. Although the orphanage burned in 1953, the austere school building, which consists of local Palisades diabase rock, is presently occupied by Saint Peter’s College. In 1938, the Sisters built the Saint Michael’s Novitiate. This large Romanesque Revival edifice, a visual landmark along the Hudson River, was designed by architect Robert Reilly of New York City. Saint Michael’s is characterized by its yellow brick bearing walls, arcaded window bays, and square central tower with an octagonal upper stage that is topped by a red tile polygonal roof. This monumental building is visually prominent from the Palisades Interstate Parkway and it dominates the New Jersey skyline north of the George Washington Bridge as viewed from New York.
Taken with a Sony RX100-M3.