Spuyten Duyvil Creek    

There has been much speculation concerning the origin of the name “Spuyten Duyvil.” Dutch in origin, Spuyten Duyvil can be translated in two ways, depending on the pronunciation. One translation is “Devil’s whirlpool,” and indeed, sections of the creek were sometimes turbulent during high tide. The second interpretation is “to spite the Devil.” This translation was popularized by Washington Irving’s story in which a Dutch trumpeter vowed to swim across the turbulent creek during the British attack on New Amsterdam “en spijt den Duyvil (in spite of the Devil).”

Running from the Hudson River to the Harlem River, the Spuyten Duyvil Creek marks the northernmost tip of Manhattan Island. The creek’s significance is revealed through local Native American legends, an era of Dutch settlement, and laborious years of altering its natural course for commercial purposes. Eventually renamed the Harlem River Ship Canal (also the U.S. Ship Canal), this tidal strait has splendid views, and a variety of wildlife that still thrives despite years of human-induced change.

Lenape Indians inhabited the area for thousands of years. A Lenape settlement once stood on the Bronx side of the creek, in the area above where Columbia’s huge letter C can be seen today. Columbia University rowers painted the letter C for themselves and for their school’s teams, which play at Baker Field/Wien Stadium across the creek. The Lenape Indians called the banks of the Spuyten Duyvil Shorakapok, which has commonly been translated as “the sitting down place” or “the place between the ridges.” With an abundance of oysters, fish, waterfowl, and a diversity of other creatures, this region was an ideal hunting and fishing ground for the Lenape. Additionally, they relied on the innumerable freshwater springs that meandered throughout the vast wetlands.

Written accounts of the creek first appear in the year 1609, when Henry Hudson and his crew may have briefly anchored their ship, Half Moon, in the Spuyten Duyvil. During the colonial period, many Dutch farmers and merchants found it convenient to cross the Spuyten Duyvil rather than pay for ferry service across the Harlem River at 125th Street. In 1669, to prevent people from crossing for free, Johannes Verveelen moved his ferry to where West 231st Street and Broadway now intersect. In 1673, Frederick Philipse replaced the ferry with a toll bridge known as the King’s Bridge. Reacting to both the fee and the occasional inconvenience of using this bridge, a Dutch landowner named Jacob Dyckman raised funds to construct the Free Bridge in 1758, which was later destroyed by the Continental Army while fleeing the British during the Revolutionary War.

The present course of the Harlem River Ship Canal differs greatly from the Spuyten Duyvil Henry Hudson once visited. To make it more navigable, the Army Corps of Engineers began to modify both the creek and its adjacent land in the latter part of the 19th century. In 1876, the New York State Legislature decreed the construction of the Harlem River Shipping Canal. When completed in 1895, the canal severed Marble Hill from Manhattan, creating an island with Spuyten Duyvil Creek as its northern perimeter. The new channel effectively shortened the water route between the Hudson River and Long Island Sound by 14 miles. Soon after the canal’s completion, builders filled Spuyten Duyvil Creek, thereby connecting the island to mainland Bronx. Since the turn of the century, Marble Hill residents have successfully petitioned to remain within the governance of Manhattan; interestingly, for years telephone directories listed residents in both Manhattan and the Bronx.

Today, the Broadway Bridge, the Henry Hudson Memorial Bridge (opened on December 12, 1936, as part of Robert Moses’ controversial “West Side Improvement” project), and railroad swing bridge, used by Amtrak passenger trains, still span the waterway.

(Reproduction of a Parks Department historical sign. Reprinted with permission of the City of New York/Parks & Recreation.)

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Readers’ Comments

I am looking for information about a place my grandmother lived in your area between 1901 and 1918. It was said that two sisters built separate mansions in the area now known as Inwood Hill Park and the area around the Spuyten Duyvil tollbooth on the Henry Hudson parkway. Apparently these mansions were converted into a hospital in the early 1900’s. My grandmothers Uncle was the administrator for this hospital and he and the family lived in a spacious carriage house on the property. My grandmother had stories about ice skating on a frozen Hudson river and over to Spuyten Duyvil while she lived there. It must have been a very different place back then. I understand the buildings were razed in the 30’s though I can’t be sure. I’m trying to find out where these buildings/hospital were and what they were called. Also I’m trying to locate them for genealogical research of census records. Can anyone help???Pictures for the family history book would be nice too! Thank you for any assistance you can offer. Please reply by email as I porbaby won’t find your site again though it is quite nice. (Posted by Lee Keil on October 30, 2003 11:13 PM.)

Don - I received this from Kathy Falato - all you ever wanted to know about Spuyten Duyvil. XOXO (Posted by Don on May 3, 2004 09:53 AM.)

I’m looking for the history of the Johnson Iron Foundry. Somewhere between 1800 and after 1860. Homes were built for the Johnson’s and Cox’s who were business partners of the Iron Works, along Palisade Ave. in Spuyten Duyvil, NY. Can anyone tell me about these people and the Iron Works? Thanks, Freda (Posted by Freda P. Summar on October 13, 2004 07:49 PM.)

I once heard a story involving Spuyten Duyvil and Arlo Guthrie… but that’s all I can remember of the story. Any ideas out there about this? (Posted by EJB on November 18, 2004 03:25 PM.)

I am a Sp.Ed teacher and my students are doing an Environmental project on the Sherman Creek wetlands.We would like to know the history behind the name Sherman Creek.We also hope to help preserve this as one of the last pieces of wetlands left in Manhattan. (Posted by Mr Obed fulcar on December 10, 2004 05:59 PM.)

Everyone talks about how Marble Hill remains politically part of Manhattan, although physically part of the Bronx, with the descriptions implying that the boundary line remains completely unchanged since the days before the Harlem River Ship Canal. But, in fact, it doesn’t. In addition to causing part of what was Manhattan Island (i.e. Marble Hill) to become attached to the Bronx, there is also a piece of what was the Bronx (or the North Side, or Annexed District, or whatever the term was) that became attached to Manhattan Island, and is now a part of Inwood Hill Park. See the old map here; the piece of land immediately north of the word “Ship” in “Ship Canal” is now attached on the east to Manhattan, and the canal (Harlem River) has been re-routed to a more direct east-west course than the map shows. Yet this piece of land, which was once on the north side of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, is now part of Manhattan politically, as well as physically. When and why was this done? The result is that all land that either once was OR is now on the south side of the water boundary is politically Manhattan, which hardly seems fair. (Posted by Dan Schwartz on December 18, 2004 04:28 PM.)

Oral family history states that my great-grandfather swam across Spuyten Duyvil Creek when a young man…an impressive enough feat to be reported in newspaper. As a time frame, he was born in 1850’s. Where can I begin to search for information? (Posted by Barbara on January 26, 2005 03:02 PM.)

I lived in inwood during the 1980s. My friends and I used to fish in the creek by the tressle, and it was a great place to catch striped bass and, unfortunately, many eels. There was a large striper we called flanagan, and he was a large and elusive fish indeed. Who knows, maybe he or his descendants still run there during striper season. (Posted by gregory salgado on February 5, 2005 03:41 AM.)

My fathers parents lived in Spuyten Duyvil in the early 1900’S. It was the area between Johnson Ave and the rail road yard. They called it “SPIKE”. In the late 1940s I could look over the wall on Johnson Ave and see what was left of this area, and the railroad yard. I believe now there are many apartment houses where the railroad yard was. My grandparents later moved “up the hill” in the’30s to a brick house, I believe it is 3006 Johnson Ave and still standing. (Posted by mike kovacs on February 27, 2005 01:00 PM.)

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