Running Down the Old Croton Aqueduct part VI

Here’s the link to parts IV & V

Yonkers – Amsterdam and 163rd Street, Manhattan
12.25 miles

We had hoped to make it all the way to down to 42nd Street & 5th Avenue where the Old Croton Aqueduct once disgorged itself into the reservoir there, but we ran out of steam.  (And cell phone battery power!)  You’ll note the squiggly bit in the middle, just south of Van Cortlandt Park?  That’s where we got rather lost and probably added a couple of miles to our route.

This part of the Aqueduct, while fairly well-marked in places, is difficult to follow.  Part of this is due to the fact that the Mosholu and the Major Deegan cut across it, but part of it just due to the fact that you’re running through streets and it’s tricky to look at your map.

We started in Yonkers on a clear, windy morning (it happened to be the morning of the Yonkers marathon, too, so people kept cheering us on even though we were way off course!)

Here’s where we ended our last post:

And here’s where we began today:

Yup, it’s the same place!  The few miles are a secluded trail that I definitely would not run alone. It’s well-marked, but . . .

And the trail is littered with trash both big and small . . .

There’s a little bit of running along a road, but you can duck into Tibbetts Brook Park and keep following this lovely, bucolic trail, peopled by runners from Fordham University and Holy Ghost Prep (is that for real?)

When you cross the border from Westchester into New York City, you’ll see a fancy carved stone indicating said border, and the first of several informational signs.

It really is hard to believe that you’re in a city!

There’s another old Weir, unused for decades now (the Old Croton Aqueduct was taken out of service by 1965 when the New Croton Aqueduct was completed.)  But it had a good run, regulating the water going to the city for over a hundred years.

Running through Van Cortlandt Park was lovely, even though we were close enough to the Mosholu to see an accident and traffic jam at one point.  There’s a section of the Aqueduct that you can’t run over, so we kept following the trail south, which just seemed logical, when we really should have taken another route.

(Note to self, next time follow the arrow north to the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail South.)

We parallel the golf course, waving to some intrepid golfers out on a 45* morning, and found ourselves on Van Cortlandt Park South Avenue.  This is where we took a little unscheduled tour of the Kingsbridge area of the Bronx.  We finally found our way to the Jerome Park Reservoir and made it back onto the Aqueduct.  Here are a couple of gatehouses for the reservoir.

And here is another historical marker:

After that, the trail and the Aqueduct stay together, marvelously straight and true through the Bronx.  There’s an interesting bit near Fordham University where the Aqueduct cuts between buildings, and features custom-made manhole covers!

A bit off the Aqueduct, right at the intersection between Kingsbridge Road and Grand Concourse is the site of Edgar Allan Poe’s cottage, where he lived from the 1840s until his death:

Poe’s wife Virginia died in this very cottage in 1847 (but not on this very site, as the cottage was moved to its current location in the early 1900s.)  Supposedly Poe wrote one his last poems, “Annabel Lee” here in in 1849, a poem likely about his wife Virginia.   (Note to self, go back and recite “Annabel Lee” here next time.)  Poe also enjoyed the (newly finished!) Aqueduct, taking long walks along it to clear his mind for writing.

I feel I would be remiss if I did not warn you that the Aqueduct Avenue section is dodgy at best.  I am not easily shocked, but running past a fellow in the midst of shooting up right there in the park was a gritty piece of reality.

Aqueduct Avenue turns into Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and thence into University Avenue.  Following that, running along sidewalks and taking some turns here and there, you’ll make it to the High Bridge, only recently renovated and re-opened to the public.  As the historical marker tells you, built in 1848 it’s the oldest bridge in New York.  You can read more details here on Wikipedia.

I was stoked to make it here, as I’ve wanted to walk over the High Bridge since it re-opened.

There are some interesting historical medallions inset into the bridge, and I used the last of my cell phone battery juice to photograph them:

After crossing the High Bridge, we decided that we’d run enough.  So, we hopped on the subway at Amsterdam and 163rd.  Recently renovated, this is one of the nicest NYC subway stations I’ve ever been in!

Stay tuned for the next and last leg of our Aqueduct journey where we will run from Amsterdam and 163rd down to the New York Public Library on 42nd Street & 5th Avenue.

Here’s the link to part VII, the final leg of our journey.