HIKE THE HEIGHTS!

Meet the Parks of Northern Manhattan along the Rock Cliffs of the Giraffe Path

Mile 6
Legend
Giraffe Path
Giraffe Path incomplete
Stairs on the Giraffe Path
Other Trails
Park Entrance

1
Entrance with Stairs
A B C D
Subway Entrances
1 2 3

The Cloisters Restrooms Swimming Pool

Water Fountain Basketball
Barbeque Baseball
A
Playground Tennis

1
ay
w
ad
Bro

“The path
is almost 6 miles

Mile 5
A and connects
6 parks.”
ue
en
Av

Dy
ck
gle

ma
Swindler Cove
Na

n
Str
ee
t

The Cloisters Fort Tryon Park 1

1 190th Street

187th Street
Mile 4
Amsterdam Avenue
Wadsworth Avenue

St Nicholas Avenue

Highbridge Forest
Audubon Avenue
y
Broadwa

Heather Garden
venue

A
1
ton A

181th Street
ashing

“Help us close
the gap in the
For t W

path!”

“Until then,
you can use
this detour.”

Highbridge Water Tower

175th Street
A High Bridge
y
dwa
Broa

170th Street

Highbridge Park
A C
1
Mile 3

165th Street

Morris Jumel Mansion

Highbridge Park
C
Broadway

160th Street

John T. Brush Stairway

1

D B
venue

155th Street
C
olas A

Jackie Robinson Park

St Nich

Jackie Robinson Park

“This pool
is the best
Mile 2

Jackie Robinson Bandshell place in the

summer!”

1 A B D 145th Street

140th Street

Hamilton Grange

1
“This hill is
fabulous for St. Nicholas Park
rolling down in the
grass.”

B C
135th Street 2 3
Amsterdam Avenue
Broadway

130th Street
Mile 1

A B
C D
St.125thNicholas
Street Park
Broadway

Morningside Park 120th Street

Malcolm X Boulevard
Frederick Douglass Boulevard

Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard

Fifth Avenue
Morningside Avenue
Amsterdam Avenue

Morningside Park
1 B C 116th Street 2 3

This map was produced by CLIMB

with the support of desigNYC,
Partnerships for Parks and “Walk north
from Central Park
Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez to explore the
Giraffe Path.”

B C 2 3

St. John the Divine

New York City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez Central Park

 THE CLOISTERS

FORT TRYON PARK

The Cloisters
Situated in Fort Tryon Park, the Cloisters
Museum is a branch of The Metropolitan
Museum of Art. It houses a collection of
nearly 2,000 pieces of internationally renowned

Mile 6
medieval art and architecture as well as a
Froville
sequence of gardens planted according to
Bonnefont-en-Comminges information in medieval treatises and poetry.
France
An immersive experience, the museum itself
was built to incorporate actual elements from
Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert
medieval cloisters in Europe. John D.
Rockefeller, Jr. donated the collection and the
Trie-sur-Baïse
Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa land that is today Fort Tryon Park and its
magnificent Heather Garden. He also bought
and donated 700 acres of the New Jersey
Palisades across the Hudson River specifically
The Cloisters to preserve the spectacular view from the
Cloisters and the park surrounding it.

Inwood Marble

SWINDLER COVE

Swindler Cove
Swindler Cove was once a dump—literally,
with tons of garbage, rusted-out cars, sunken
boats and construction debris deforming it and
the adjacent Sherman Creek shoreline. Billy
Swindler, a city garden advocate, brought it to
the attention of the New York Restoration
Project in 1990. Together with the Parks
Department, they transformed the place and Riley-Levin
named it after Swindler, who died of AIDS in Children's
Center

Mile 5
1997. HARLEM RIVER PARKW
AY
10T
HA
VEN
UE

Today it hosts an outdoor classroom providing PS 5

a wide spectrum of environmental

programming for youth from the
neighborhood, and is an oasis of natural Sherman
Creek
Peter J Sharp
habitat that accommodates a series of ponds, Boathouse Center

saltwater marshes, a Children’s Garden and Animal

boathouse. Estates

HIGHBRIDGE FOREST
The steep slopes of Highbridge Park
prohibited widespread farming or
development, and since much of the land was
never cleared, native plants have survived here
to this day. Other non-native species such as
Manhattan Schist hawthorn, Siberian elm, and Norway maple
were planted as ornamentals in landscaped
areas of the park. As a result, Higbridge Park
is home to an astounding variety of trees,
providing a unique urban forested habitat
for migratory birds.

Plants of Highbridge Forest Some non-native plants are invasive and

threaten the balanced growth of the forest.
Several organizations are actively engaged
Mile 4

with the NYC Department of Parks &

Gum Tree Siberian Elm Sassafras Poison Ivy Sycamore Black Locust
Recreation to remove harmful plants. You can
help restore this habitat by joining them as a
volunteer.
HIGHBRIDGE PARK

New York City’s Drinking Water

HIGH BRIDGE
Catskill/Delaware
A city needs clean water to thrive and the Old Watershed
Croton Aqueduct was once New York
City's major source of drinking water.
Built between 1839 and 1842, it was used
Croto

until 1959. Water travelled along the aqueduct De

la
wa
Highbridge Water Tower
n Aq

re
for 41 miles from the Croton Dam and Aq
uedu

ue
du
reservoir in Westchester County to 42nd Street
ct
ct

Croton
in Manhattan—entirely by gravity and the Watershed
force added by the Highbridge Water Tower.

Designed by John B. Jervis, the engineer of

High Bridge, 1940
the Erie Canal, it was built according to the
same principles as ancient Roman aqueducts.
Today, you can even follow the historic path
of the water along the Old Croton
Aqueduct Trail and over the newly-restored
car-free High Bridge that connects Manhattan New York City
and the Bronx.
High Bridge
Mile 3

THE POLO GROUNDS

John T. Brush Stairway

Coogan’s Bluff, 1908

The Polo Grounds were home to many famous
New York baseball and football teams during the
first half of the 20th century. The stadium was
Willie Mays
NY Giants
originally built for the New York Giants in 1890.

In 1913 the Giants built the John T. Brush

Stairway to connect the top of Coogan’s
Bluff to the Polo Grounds. The staircase was
restored in 2013 with help from Major League
Baseball, the Giants, the Yankees, the Mets and
the Jets—all teams that played at the Polo
JACKIE ROBINSON PARK

Jackie Robinson
Brooklyn Dodgers
Grounds at one time or another. The staircase
allows us to imagine stepping down the steep
Bobby Thomson
NY Giants escarpment to the ticket booth, and feel the
excitement of fans in anticipation of the fierce
competition of the games.
Famous players at the Polo Grounds
Babe Ruth
NY Yankees

HAMILTON GRANGE
Mile 2

Hamilton Grange is a majestic National

Memorial to Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton
was the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury
and thus an important figure in the financial
health of the country. He originally built this Burr-Hamilton Duel, 1804
house in 1802 on a 32-acre estate and named it
"The Grange" after his father's ancestral home in
Scotland.
Hamilton Grange

He lived here only for two years. In 1804 he was

fatally wounded in a pistol duel with his political
rival Aaron Burr. Today, you can visit the Grange
and learn more about its influential owner and
what it was like to live during the time of the
founding of the United States. And check out
his portrait on the 10-dollar bill!

MORNINGSIDE PARK POND

ST. NICHOLAS PARK

In 1968, student and community protesters

halted Columbia University’s construction
of a gymnasium in Morningside Park. The
project was designed with an entrance at the
bottom for the Harlem community to use a
Mallard Duck dedicated facility and a separate entrance at
Student Protest, 1968 the top for Columbia students to use the main
Mile 1

facility. After the project was halted, the

excavated foundation remained a scar in the
ground for 20 years until it was converted into
a naturalistic pond and waterfall in 1990.

Today this “accidental” treasure is a

much-loved habitat for a growing population of
animals: you might see mallard ducks,
Snow-white Egret
snow-white egrets, sparrows, turtles, and
frogs.
Canada Goose

Pet Turtle
MORNINGSIDE PARK

CLIMB
CLIMB (City Life Is Moving Bodies) promotes
physical, social, and civic activity in the com-
munities of northern Manhattan. We encourage you
to use what we call the Giraffe Path—an urban
hiking trail that connects six dramatically
beautiful parks. They are formed of a long steep
cliff carved by glaciers thousands of years ago. Giraffe Path Marker, 2011
Morningside Park Pond

Every year, on the first Saturday in June, we

celebrate the parks with “Hike the Heights.”
This event brings thousands of people—and several
hundred hand-crafted giraffes!—to explore the
riches of these cliffside parks. We created this map
to introduce you to the Giraffe Path, to invite you to
Hike the Heights, and encourage you to explore
northern Manhattan parks on your own. Join us by
becoming an ambassador for urban hiking, and help
close the gap in the path.
www.hiketheheights.org
www.facebook.com/HikeTheHeights