By Frank da Cruz - It has been a while since I did this, and you have to be nuts to try it but if you take the Upper Riverside Drive run up the highway to Dyckman Street, where the sidewalk ends, it was possible — if not wise — to run along the highway (or across it to Inwood Hill Park), to the toll booths on the Henry Hudson Bridge. Well, there is a foot path on the bridge but it is closed off. If nobody is looking, you can climb around the fence to get on it. Phew, that bridge is high! Same deal at the other end — climb around the fence (don't look down). If you haven't been arrested yet, you will find yourself in the Bronx. Take the Kapok Street exit to the big intersection with the traffic lights, follow Netherland Avenue a ways, then zigzag north and east until you come to Van Cortlandt Park, where there is a 1600 meter track around the Irish Football field, or you can venture up into the hilly wooded cross-country trails, or also work your way east until you come to Pelham Parkway (sorry, you'll need a map for this), which you can follow to Pelham Bay Park. If you wish, you can continue from there to Orchard Beach (left at the traffic circle) or City Island (straight through the circle), where a giant seaside Nathan's like at Coney Island waits for you down at the end. Have somebody meet you there with some money and a car to drive you home after you stuff yourself with greasy fried seafood. Of course there other ways to cross to the Bronx. If I were to do this again, I'd take the newly constructed pedestrian crossing from the west side of the Highway to Dyckman Street, then enter Inwood Hill Park from there, cross it to Baker Field, and from there to the Broadway bridge. There are also lots of bridges to the Bronx on the east side (Willis Avenue, 138th Street, 145th Street, 155th Street, University Heights, High Bridge, Macombs Dam Bridge, Washington Bridge...) but I haven't tried them yet and I think some of them might be closed. There is also a footbridge to Ward's/Randall's Island; I haven't tried that either. I recently made a trip to Highbridge Park on the Harlem River north of 157th Street and it is definitely runnable, although the northern portion is hilly. A Sierra Club trail map shows the trails. Furthermore, the 2-mile Harlem River Speedway has been reopened after some 80 years of neglect; it runs along the Harlem River from East 163rd Street to Dyckman Street. The Speedway is very nice. You can enter it at the East end of Dyckman Street, where it touches 10th Avenue. The Harlem River Drive and the (very narrow) Harlem river itself, and the Bonx, are on your left as you go south, and Highbridge Park on the right. The flat part goes for about 3000 feet, then there is a hill which is blocked by a barrier, which you can step around. The hill goes to the Washington Bridge at 181st Street, I am not sure what happens after because at that point I went up through the park to Laurel Hill Terrace. From the satellite photo it is not clear if the path continues southward from there, even though the park itself goes all the way to 155th Street. There is also a path on the other side of the highway, along the riverbank. It appears to be accessible from a footbridge on 10th Avenue about 40 meters north of the intersection with Dyckman Street. According to the Manhattan Greenway Map, the Greenway path extends to 155th Street, but it is not clear if this refers to the path on on the park side of the highway, or the river side.

Runners who live in the Columbia University area of Manhattan, New York City (Morningside Heights and West Harlem) are fortunate to have Riverside Park, Central Park, and Morningside Park nearby. The parks and the Hudson riverfront are in better condition now than at any time in the last one hundred years, especially since 2000 with the inauguration of the Greenway. The site Upper Manhattan Running describes some obvious and not-so-obvious runs that start in the Columbia area, but it is also useful for anybody who lives on the west side anywhere between midtown and Washington Heights or Inwood.

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