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marble hill

Inwood During the Great Depression

Inwood in the Great Depression, NYC

One of the most important if not enduring images of the Great Depression is Dorothea Lange’s haunting portrait of a migrant worker cradling her two young children. Her eyes tell a personal story of quiet desperation, while the photo itself serves as a tragic commentary on a country in the throes of economic devastation so [...]

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Hyatt’s Tavern

Hyatt's Tavern post, Inwood, New York City

Long before the Piper’s Kilt graced Broadway, a small but historic group of taverns hosted a colorful assortment of highwaymen, tramps, soldiers and fishermen working their way up and down the old Post Road. Like its competitor to the south, the Black Horse Tavern, located near the current intersection of Dyckman and Broadway, Hyatt’s Tavern [...]

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Johnson Iron Works

Johnson Ironworks on the Spuyten Duyvil near Inwood, New York

Long before the familiar Henry Hudson Bridge guarded the entrance to the Spuyten Duyvil a giant, belching behemoth of the industrial era dominated the landscape. For Inwood and points immediately north the Johnson Iron Works represented, at its peak, a paycheck for some 1,600 employees and a polluting eyesore for others.

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Late 19th Century Inwood- Part III

William Calver

Much of what we know today about the history and pre-history of  Inwood and Washington Heights is due largely to the turn of the century work of amateur historians, self taught archaeologists and close friends William Calver  and Reginald Bolton. Starting in the 1880′s Bolton and Calver began exploring northern Manhattan with picks and shovels, [...]

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New York Velodrome

Orlando Piani

On 225th Street near the Harlem River, roughly where the Target department store sits today, once stood one of the great Gotham sporting venues of the 1920′s, the New York Velodrome. The date, May 30th, 1922, opening night at the quarter-million-dollar bike track built to hold 16,000 fans. Tonight the crowd has likely exceeded capacity.

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