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inwood hill park

“Pop” Seeley: The Old Man of the River

Pop Seeley cabin, Inwood, NYC

Sometime before the turn of the twentieth century, on the northernmost tip of Manhattan, a folksy, business savvy and somewhat mischievous fellow named “Pop” Seeley set up shop in a quaint little cabin in the shade of a mighty tulip tree on the shores of a then meandering and muddy creek called the Spuyten Duyvil. [...]

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Princess Naomi

Thumbnail image for Princess Naomi

Since moving to Inwood  I’d heard stories of an almost mythical figure known only as Princess Naomi, who, in the 1930’s, took up residence near the old tulip tree in Inwood Hill Park. The site of the tree, which was felled by a hurricane in 1938, is now marked by a boulder with a plaque [...]

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Inwood Stay at Home Vacation: Suggestions from 1912

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This holiday season, like many of my Inwood neighbors, I chose to remain home when I would really rather have been sunning myself on just about any faraway sandy beach.  So, instead of climbing the walls, I took several walks in a convenient oasis just several blocks away—Inwood Hill Park. The brisk hikes reminded me [...]

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Inwood Hill Park Concession Stand: A Reader Contribution

Inwood concession stand 1977

Recently, MyInwood.net reader Frank Yannaco wrote in to tell me about the concession stand his family once owned and operated inside the Isham Street entrance to Inwood Hill Park. We soon began a dialogue that included a promise of photos and descriptions of his life in Inwood.  True to his word, Frank soon emailed me [...]

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A Potter’s Lament

Inwood Pottery

“There were other trees, many decrepit. In the middle was a kiln where an Indian princess taught ceramics under dubious auspices. She had a son who didn’t work. Both were on relief, and the relief checks were delivered to the princess at a mailbox fastened to a tree. The hullabaloo about disturbing the princess, the [...]

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Inwood Hill Park: 1948

Inwood Hill Park 1948

Bicyclists and in-line skaters have long been a familiar sight in Inwood Hill Park, but that wasn’t always the case.  Until 1948 bicycles and even roller skates were banned from the park.  The photos below, ripped from  the pages of the New York Post, show the spring day more than sixty years ago when cyclists and [...]

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Inwood Pottery Studio

Inwood Pottery Studio, New York City

Inwood Hill Park has seen its share of activity through the centuries, but little has been written of the pottery studio that spawned generations of world class artists. The Inwood Pottery Studio was founded in 1923 by Harry Voorhees and his wife, Aimee LePrince Voorhees. While Harry was a former railroad and elevator engineer from [...]

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House of Mercy

House of Mercy. Inwood, New York City. 1932

Starting in the late 1800′s various institutions serving alcoholics, drug addicts, tuberculosis patients, petty criminals, runaways and “women of ill repute” lined the ridge in what is now Inwood Hill Park. Of these bleak fortresses  of infirmity, born of era  when inebriates were often treated with hypodermic injections of nitrate of strychnine and married women [...]

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