#8: Marble Hill

New York City, it goes without saying, is one of America's most interesting cities.  But this is even more true from a geographical standpoint, given that the city is composed of five boroughs - and five distinct counties - located on four different primary landforms (not including the many smaller islands that belong to one borough or another).  These are, of course, Manhattan Island, Staten Island, Long Island (home to both Brooklyn and Queens), and the New York mainland, home of the Bronx.

But there is a bit of Manhattan that does not conform to the commonly understood border distinctions.

Marble Hill neighborhood on Google Maps (click to enlarge).

Just north of the Harlem River, across from Manhattan Island, is the neighborhood of Marble Hill.  On a map, it appears simply to be part of the Bronx - but it isn't.  It's part of Manhattan.  Why is a neighborhood that's not on Manhattan Island part of Manhattan?  The answer is simple yet strange: it used to be.

The Harlem River is not, strictly speaking, a river, but a strait that separates Manhattan Island from the mainland.  It connects the Hudson River with the East River (itself not really a river) by way of Spuyten Duyvil Creek.  The problem that arose in the 1800s was that Spuyten Duyvil Creek was not terribly conducive to large maritime traffic, forcing ships to go all the way around Manhattan Island if they wanted to reach the East River.

The solution to this was the Harlem River Ship Canal, a straight, deep channel dug out to connect the Harlem and Hudson Rivers in a way that bypassed the original course of Spuyten Duyvil Creek.  Spuyten Duyvil Creek's course ran along the northern border of the Marble Hill neighborhood, then the northernmost point of Manhattan Island.  Once the canal had been dug (it was finished in 1895), Marble Hill was turned into an island.

1895 map showing the plan for the canal.  The island to the north of the canal is Marble Hill.  Source: http://myinwood.net/the-harlem-ship-canal/

In 1914, the original course of Spuyten Duyvil Creek was filled in.  Marble Hill thus became an island no longer; now it was physically attached to the Bronx.  That borough has attempted to lay claim to the neighborhood on at least one occasion - on March 11, 1939, Bronx borough president James Lyons made a pitch to the residents to join the Bronx, but was booed into submission.  Marble Hill gets its city services via the Bronx, presumably for the sake of convenience, and its zip code aligns more closely with those of the Bronx than with those of Manhattan proper.  But legally the neighborhood still belongs to Manhattan, and its residents are happy to keep it that way.  In fact, in 1984 the state legislature formally declared Marble Hill to be part of Manhattan.

Marble Hill today possesses both a stop on the 1 train (225th Street) and a Metro-North stop (Marble Hill) on the Hudson line that help keep it directly connected to Manhattan.  But it remains another one of those curious outposts whose residents value civic pride over geographical convenience.

Marble Hill.  Picture from the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Hill,_Manhattan).

Sources:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/marble-hill-caught-boroughs-article-1.1781901
http://myinwood.net/the-harlem-ship-canal/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/nyregion/attached-to-the-bronx-but-legally-in-manhattan.html?_r=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spuyten_Duyvil_Creek
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_River_Ship_Canal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Hill,_Manhattan