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There are no more Horn & Hardarts in NYC, but remnants of them still exist!
This headline sounds implausible, but it’s true. The neighborhood of Marble Hill, just across the Broadway Bridge, used to be part of Manhattan. However, when the Army Corps of Engineers saw that it would be faster for ships to round the island if they did not have to go around this outcropping, they decided to simply slice it off.
The newly severed landmass became an island bordered by the Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the north and the Harlem River Ship Canal to the south. Later, in 1913, when the old Spuyten Duyvil Creek was filled in, the land was geographically joined to the landmass that is the Bronx.
In practice, this leads to some funny jurisdictional snags. The neighborhood is still technically part of the borough of Manhattan, but it has a Bronx zip code and area code. And, as pointed out by Fran Leadon, the author of the book Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles, the northernmost building in Manhattan is actually number 5249 Broadway, a C-Town supermarket in Marble Hill.
Leadon writes, “It is the unremarkable flipside to No. 1 Broadway, the Washington Building that Cyrus W. Field built in 1882 in place of the old Archibald Kennedy mansion where George Washington himself had reconnoitered with the generals in 1776. Poet Sandburg once wrote that Broadway ends in the sea, but that’s only true if you are heading south; if you go north, Broadway ends in a checkout line.”
5249 Broadway is located at 228th Street and Broadway, and indeed, except for this little-known claim to fame, there is almost nothing to say about it. It sits just below a hill of winding streets that was once the site of Fort Prince Charles. One street is named after the Van Corlears, one of the early families that settled in Dutch New Amsterdam.
Two blocks away, at 230th Street, was the former Kings Bridge Redoubt, which would have originally been right on Spuyten Duyvil Creek. If there were any remains of that fort today, it would be landlocked. A plaque marks its location. Broadway continues way past this point and ends as a service road just before the Canadian border.
Throughout the 20th-century, various attempts were made by local politicians and residents to decide the jurisdiction of Marble Hill once and for all. The final word came in a 1984 court ruling, though it wasn't exactly decisive. Justice Peter J. McQuillan declared in a 36-page opinion that Marble Hill is part of the Borough of Manhattan, but is in Bronx County (not New York County).
This still leaves a jumble of jurisdiction for the neighborhood. It appears as part of Manhattan on maps and is represented by Assembly District 72 along with other parts of Upper Manhattan, but is also part of Bronx Community District 8 and served by Bronx fire, police, and sanitation.
Marble Hill residents, what borough do you identify with?
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Next, check out 10 Places in NYC for a Small-Town Feel, including Marble Hill.
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