The Harlem River Ship Canal is a channel connecting the Hudson River and Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the Harlem River in New York City, separating the neighborhood of Marble Hill from the island of Manhattan. Marble Hill, part of the borough of Manhattan, was cut off from the island by the construction of the ship canal and is now located on the mainland after the previous course of the river was filled in.
The Harlem River Ship Canal was cut through upper Manhattan to allow larger ships to navigate. It was completed in 1895. To allow passage through the remainder of the river, the existing fixed bridges were replaced by drawbridges.
Spuyten Duyvil Creek originally flowed north of Manhattan's Marble Hill, and the completion of the canal to the south turned Marble Hill into an island, until 1914, when the original creekbed was filled in and Marble Hill became physically attached to the Bronx.
Today Spuyten Duyvil Creek, the Harlem River Ship Canal, and the Harlem River form a continuous channel. The Ship Canal is crossed by the Broadway Bridge, a vertical lift bridge carrying vehicular and pedestrian traffic on one level, and the subway on the upper level.
Famous quotes containing the words harlem, river, ship and/or canal:
“It doesn’t do good to open doors for someone who doesn’t have the price to get in. If he has the price, he may not need the laws. There is no law saying the Negro has to live in Harlem or Watts.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“There are knives that glitter like altars
In a dark church
Where they bring the cripple and the imbecile
To be healed.
There’s a woden block where bones are broken,
Scraped clean—a river dried to its bed”
—Charles Simic (b. 1938)
“the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)