| COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE, MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, HORACE MANN SCHOOL, BARNARD COLLEGE.
This section of the city has been recently described as the Acropolis of America, and extends from Riverside Drive to Morningside Park. These are the grounds of Columbia University.
The college grounds proper extend from One Hundred and Fourteenth Street to One Hundred and Twentieth Street, and from Broadway to Amsterdam Avenue, but the land west of the college Bounds proper, from One Hundred and Sixteenth to One Hundred and Twentieth between Broadway and Claremont Avenue, and the blocks north from One Hundred and Twentieth Street to One Hundred and Twenty-first Street, also the land to the east from One Hundred and Sixteenth to One Hundred and Seventeenth Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Avenue. upon which stand Barnard College, Teachers College, the Horace Mann School and the president's house, art all included in the University buildings.
On the frieze of the library of the university is inscribed the following:
KING'S COLLEGE
FOUNDED IN THE PROVINCE OF' NEW' YORK
BY ROYAL CHARTER
IN THE REIGN OF KING GEORGE II
PERPETUATED AS COLUMBIA COLLEGE
BY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
WHEN THEY BECAME FREE AND INDEPENDENT
MAINTAINED AND CHERISHED
FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE PUBLIC GOOD
AND THE GLORY OF ALMIGHTY GOD
The Broadway subway cars will bring you right to the college entrance from any part of the city in a very short time. The Fifth Avenue motor busses also let you off at Riverside Drive and One Hundred and Sixteenth Street within a short block of the grounds. By this latter route you have the added pleasure of the scenery along the river and the drive, a valued addition to the pleasures of the trip.
Every facility is provided strangers for a walk through the grounds, and many of the buildings are open for inspection by the public. A model of all the university buildings twenty feet by thirty-five, including all those planned as well as erected—a gift of F. Augustus Schernlerhorn, class of '68—is in the basement of Kent Hall, southwest corner One Hundred and Sixteenth Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
At 138th Street extending to 140th Street is the college of the City of New York, with free tuition and 7,000 scholars. It is the largest school under municipal control in the world. The block southeast of the college grounds contains a huge amphitheatre known as the Lewisohn Stadium. Besides sports, this immense en-closure is used for pageants, community singing, etc. It is a most useful structure. Leaving the City College grounds we go north on the surface cars to Fort Washington Park which contained the three forts, Washing-ton, Tyron and George, and formed the Revolutionary defenses of the Battle of Harlem Heights. Many old relics in the way of arms, buttons, cooking utensils are dug up in this neighborhood as the British forces stayed here nearly seven years after the battle. A tablet on the Bennett property at 183rd Street and Washington Avenue, erected by James Gordon Bennett, marks the exact site of Fort Washington. At Broadway and 204th Street is the old Dyckman House dating from 1787 and recently restored. It is considered a typical old Dutch farm house. Continuing to the end of the Subway we alight at the entrance to Van Cortlandt Park, which begins at 242nd Street, just beyond the Harlem River in the Bronx.
There are two points of interest nearby which al-though not in Manhattan, may be included here for the benefit of those who have made the trip with us so far—the University of the City of New York, which is famous for its Hall of Fame, the gift of Helen Gould. Much discussion surrounds the selection of the names chosen for this distinction. A few blocks further, at 194th Street and Kingsbridge Road, is a very interesting old building—the home of Edgar Allan Poe. It is contained in a small section of public land called Poe Park. A short trolley ride on the surface car brings us to it Washington Heights Section. North from Washington's Headquarters, Roger Morris Mansion, 160-161st Street to the site of Fort George. At right facing Harlem River old Speed-way, popular in days of trotting horses. High Bridge across Harlem River and old Croton Reservoir. West or left hand side Fort Washington Park facing Hudson River. Fort Tyron and Fort Washington at north west corner 197th Street.
We are now at the narrowest part of the island—about a mile from East to West.
Go To Next Page
|
