Hike #1480; Fleetwood to Kensico

 

Hike #1480; 4/24/22 Fleetwood to Kensico with Jennifer Berndt, Jenny Tull, Serious Sean Dougherty, Professor John DiFiore, Diane Reider, Justin Gurbisz, Gregory Andres, David Adams and Anne ?

This next one would be the next in our Bronx River Greenway mini series. In a way, this hike finished the series, but there was quite a bit more to do on the river itself. This would just finish off the length of the trail that follows along the river through.

I’d really loved the last couple of times we were along the Bronx River, so I knew this one would be really great as well.

For this one, we would use the Harlem Valley line for transportation to get back from wherever we ended up. There was a far location I planned to get to, and if we could, we would just keep paralleling the tracks based on the amount of time we had. It was a good thing I planned it this way, because there was so much more and we never got around to it.

 

The meeting point was the Fleetwood Station, where we’d passed by on the last hike. We had finished that one at the next town up, Bronxville, but I found out about another greenway that I wanted to include, so we started slightly further south.

 The original Fleetwood Station was built in 1924 by the New York Central Railroad. It became part of Penn Central after the 1968 merger with Pennsylvania Railroad, then MTA in 1983. 

Over top of it was a handsome concrete bridge. Justin climbed up onto the superstructure while we waited for others to show up. 

Diane was running a bit late, and she doesn’t have a cell phone, but I knew if she was signed up that she would probably be around. It was kind of tough to get down to the parking area because the signage was a bit weird.

When we were all together, we started off. MacQuesten Parkway went under the Cross County Parkway, so we did that and then turned right, up into an apartment or condo area. We tried to remain close to the parkway to the right, but we came upon fences while heading up hill. We did get to see an interesting area of steps and such, it just didn’t take us through and none of us were in the mood to be climbing fences so early.

I also tried to do this as another bath robe themed hike, but hardly anyone came out in such attire this time. It used to be a lot more fun when people all got on board with it, but it didn’t really work this time. So a few of us just spent the day walking around looking like hobos.

We ended up getting through the north side of the condo areas and then started following Birch Street to the east for a bit, which was alright. We turned right on Fulton, and then left on Harding Parkway, followed by a left into the land of the Pennington School, which had a park section attached and some walkways through it. This got us across that property and out to Devonia Avenue. My goal here was to get to the greenway along the Laurel Brook known as Hunt Woods Park.

Ahead, there was no trail into the greenway, but we went left on Central Parkway and soon reached where the trail cut in to Hunt Woods Park.

This greenway was reportedly set aside for the original Cross County Expressway, but then was never used.

There were actually two trails near the start of the greenway, one on either side of the Laurel Brook. We switched between the two, to whichever looked more scenic or less muddy at the time.
Someone had put a lot of good effort into this park, because there were puncheons over wet areas and splendid little foot bridges.
We shifted to the right side of the brook, which looked to be the more rugged one, and skirted a chain link fence along private property. I got the feeling that maybe this side was not the official trail, but it was well worn from regular use.

There were pretty yellow blooms along the water, and a giant fallen Red Oak as we made our way from north to west on the weaving creek.

When we reached Gramatan Ave, there was a ramped access path up next to a stone arch bridge to the road. On the other side, another little ramp took us back down to the brook to continue.
We continued past some nice big trees out to Scout Field the way we had done on the previous hike.
On that one, we turned from following Gramatan onto the greenway.

At the Scout Field, we continued straight out past the fields to the intersection with the Bronx River pathway, paved at this point again.

When everyone had caught up, we turned right and followed it the same way we had the previous time. Some of us went to the left over a little rock hop bridge crossing and along the river more closely. The foot path comes right back to the main trail at the double stone arch bridge over Bronx River carrying Midland Avenue.
Conflicting history has it the bridge was built in 1924 or 26, but earlier photos are dated 1917.

After Midland Ave underpass, the trail paralleled a road called Midland Gardens, and then turned to pas beneath the 1865 stone double culvert carrying the Harlem Valley Metro North line, former New York Central, in Bronxville. Another span for a third track was added in 2001.

Just as we were reaching this bridge, a commuter train was going over top of it.

The trail continued and emerged on Parkway Road. It ended abruptly here, so we had to do a bit of a road walk to the right to get to the next section.
I had finished my first beer by this point, and we passed by what I call “recycling bin fences”. Those plastic or composite fences made to look sort of like old wooden ones we see along properties often have caps on the top of them that are intended to be glued shut, but are often not. I like to take my beer bottles and place them inside these, like a sort of time capsule. At some point, maybe thirty or so years down the road, when the fence is replaced, they’ll find these oddball bottles preserved inside and realize that someone had been drinking in front of their house.

I pulled one of these along this stretch of road, and I’m pretty sure that a couple of people saw me do it. I wanted to hurry on to the next section, but was still thoroughly amused that I was seen, just because they’d tell someone that a guy in a bath robe dropped a beer bottle in the fence.

At the next intersection, we turned left on Paxton Avenue to DeWitt Avenue, then descended somewhat onto a grassy flood plain of the Bronx River. The Sprain Brook joined the river just across from us in this pleasant little section.

We continued along to a little outcrop, which I crossed, just before an on ramp to the Bronx River Parkway. We crossed that, and paved trail started up again on the other side. We followed that to the Palmer Avenue Bridge, which was another handsome stone arch like so many others that were built over the river in the 1920s.

We went directly across Palmer Avenue and continued on the right side of the river, while there were trails on both sides. We headed north past some impressive huge trees to Pondfield Road and County Bridge, another pretty stone one.
Here, we had to turn left across the road, and then to the right to continue on the greenway on the other side of the river.
To the right, there was a parking area that was sat atop the old stone foundation of a mill.

This was known as Swain’s Mill, and I was able to find a 1925 survey photo of what it looked like.

The mill was built about 1830, and the area was known as Underhill Crossing. The mill originally utilized a beaver dam in the earliest days to provide water.

James Prescott Swain purchased the mill in 1844 and opened a water powered stone factory where he produced screws and axles. Another axle factory was built on the opposite side, and other industries also cropped up.

The last of the industries in this area was the Kraft Leather Tannery, which burned down in 1922.
Today, the site is home to the River House private apartments. Some arches and windows of the old industry were amazingly still visible below the parking area along the river.

 

The narrowness of the river through this section, through the natural rocky cleft, was quite amazing. It was no wonder the beavers chose just above it for their dam, and that early settlers chose to use the same spot, because of the obvious opportunity for water power.

Just ahead was the dam, and the foot bridge to the right across the top of it was missing, presumably from a flood or something. We had to remain on the left side, parallel with the Bronxville Duck Pond as it is known now.

There were some nice cherry blossoms and great views of the pond in the section ahead. We then crossed over the river when it became narrow again, on a bridge that is known locally as the First Kiss Bridge. The lake opened up just below this point, and the Tuckahoe Road bridge was just above it. That was yet another handsome stone arch built around the same time as the others, in 1925.

We continued directly across on the other side, and there were more options as to where we could have gone with this hike. I intended this one more to be a “through” thing, rather than cover everything, and there are many different variations of this, just like the previous one I’d done.

We headed over to Elm Street, and there was supposed to be a trail that continued from there. It was shown more like a foot path on google maps, and so we just walked along an on ramp to and then up onto a grassy slope as I recall. It was just mowed land, not a formal trail for a bit, which was fine, and we continued over the Parkway Viaduct. We soon reached another section of paved trail and continued along and across Scarsdale Road. This took us on the slope above the Bronx River Parkway, then we weaved back to the south along a pond in Crestwood Park and crossed Read Ave.
In this section was an old wooden cabin building, which had something to do with scouts as I understand.

We descended and crossed another foot bridge over the Bronx River just below the dam in Crestwood Park. There was a really cool Sycamore tree here that was growing right over top of a pipe flowing into the river.
We turned left, and continued to follow along the edge of the Crestwood Park pond heading north once again.
The trail weaved away from the river and split in two, and in this case we took the one more to the right, which led to the Crestwood Station on Metro North. This  station originally opened up in 1901 under the New York Central.
The reason we went to this location was to have a lunch stop, because there were several choices right over the tracks, and there was a good foot bridge over at the station site.

We selected I believe Rio Bravo’s Tacos and Tequilas, because everyone always seems to be ready for good Mexican food. We crossed the tracks on the bridge, and it was right across in a strip mall.

We had a splendid, delicious lunch, and while there, Sean brought out his offering for new drinks of the day. This time, he had visited Jersey Cyclone Brewing and brought one called Flood, and one called Barrel Aged Flood, which was outstanding.

He had brought along some Jersey Cyclone once before, to a night hike down outside of Princeton, and it was absolutely outstanding, so that was a great taste there.

Once we were done, we headed back over the pedestrian bridge at Crestwood Station, and then got back on the trail to the right.
We skirted some sort of maintenance yard or something at first, but then were right back along the river, sandwiched between it and the Harlem Valley Line tracks.

The next crossing we reached was Leewood Drive. To the right, I was rather shocked to see what might be an original 1840s stone culvert still carrying the road beneath the railroad tracks. 

It is kind of a main road, so it blows my mind that it was never replaced, but it does serve as a traffic calming device, despite the fact that most government transportation agencies refuse to acknowledge the fact that impediments are traffic calming devices.

We continued north from here along another very pleasant section of the river, and soon crossed over it on a prefabricated foot bridge. I think there used to be an older one at this site originally.

We continued north on the west side of the river, sandwiched between it and Bronx River Parkway. Ahead a little bit on that, and then passed old comfort stations, on either side of the highway. These were more popular way back, and most parkway highways once had them.
Bronx River Parkway is very interesting having been sort of the boiler plate for many highways to follow.

Bronx River Parkway was the first limited access highway to begin construction, in 1907, and the second to open after Long Island Motor Parkway.

Bronx River Parkway was also the first highway to utilize a median strip to delineate opposing lanes. It was also the first one where intersecting streets crossed over bridges.
Some modernization occurred in the 1950s.
The road currently stretches just over 19 miles from Story Avenue in the Bronx to Kensico Circle in Westchester County, with Bronx River Greenway trail parallel most of the way.

We continued a little further north again, and then once again crossed the Bronx River on a foot bridge. This site definitely had abutments in place for the predecessor foot bridge. We continued north here sandwiched again between the river and the railroad tracks. Someone planted weird fake flowers along the river in this stretch.

Another very pretty section was just ahead. The river weaved to the left and passed beneath the parkway, and the trail had to go right and over a small tributary. We turned left and went under the parkway on Strathmore Road, and then turned right to follow the river to the north. After a little while, we crossed under the parkway again on a path along the river, which was pretty cool.

 

Serious Sean found a bicycle that was left by some kid and decided to ride it while playing his guitar through this next bit! This always just adds to the fun, because we already had bath robes on, he was playing an electric guitar with a mini amp, and now he was riding a little pink bike!

We pushed on to the north a bit, and we crossed over a couple of pedestrian bridges in this section that must have been what the more authentic ones looked like. They had stone footings and sort of wooden tops like an Adirondack bench, probably locally found.

After these couple of crossings, we were back alongside the Bronx River Parkway again, and soon approached closed spandrel Renaissance Revival Popham Ave bridges over Bronx River and Bronx River Parkway in Scarsdale, built in 1924. The trail turned to the right and passed beneath alongside the river arch. Beyond, the hand rails along the path were the rustic wood similar to the previous bridges. This section was right along the parkway, tightly jammed between it and the river, but it was quite impressive.

Just ahead, we came to a foot bridge known as the Waterfall Bridge, which crossed over the river just before an attractive dam in three spans, with two queen post trusses made in the similar rustic fashion as the previous ones. The dam had an attractive arc to it, and we continued to the left, north along the river’s east side.

Pretty soon, we passed beneath the behemoth footings of the modern Bronx River Parkway bridge; stone faced columns that dwarfed all previous bridges on the road.

We were sandwiched between the railroad tracks and the river again for a bit, and then turned hard to the right to pass beneath an old through truss bridge on the railroad.

We descended on the trail to a little dam on what Google maps calls the Hartsdale Duck Pond, but it was historically known as Greenacres Lake, and had an overshot water wheel. The site probably had some historic significance prior to it becoming a park. I turned to the left over a foot bridge to the west side of the pond, because the east side looked like it became a road. Some of the group ended up following that east side and ended up on the road anyway. 

We had another really pleasant section of walking along the river ahead. We passed beneath the Bronx River Parkway yet again, and a little ways after that turned left and passed beneath the Metro North Harlem Valley line again, where it crossed the river on a deck plate girder bridge. Immediately on the other side, we crossed the Bronx River again on a metal bridge with a shape that looked like it was made to emulate some of the queen post truss structures we had seen earlier.

We turned right, and after a little bit further we passed beneath the Bronx River Parkway again, this time in an attractive modern arch bridge known as the Woodlands Viaduct. Justin climbed up into the upper arches and sat in the top level.

We continued along the river, sandwiched between it and the parkway yet again, continued north, crossed the river on a bridge known as the Muskrat Bridge, and then headed north along the river, and through a bridge underpass beside the river heading north into the town of White Plains.

I had never been to White Plains before, and there seems to be a memory of Sean playing “Love Grows Where my Rosemary Goes”, at some point there. I didn’t put any of it together, but I figured he must have just started on it because we were in White Plains, and the lead singer of Edison Lighthouse, who performed the aforementioned song, was also the lead singer of “My Baby Loves Lovin” by White Plains. In fact, Burrows is a five time one hit wonder all with different bands. Aside from these two, he also had “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” with Brotherhood of Man, “Gimme Dat Ding” by the Pipkins, and “Beach Baby” by The First Class.

 We continued north and under Main Street in White Plains by way of the 1920s stone arch there, carrying both the trail and the river. We then continued beneath Tarrytown Road under a more modern beam bridge.

There was a trail intersection and access to Bronx Street beyond, and signs for the Dog Den, a hot dog place that is located at the old White Plains Station, so we decided to have a side trip for hot dogs. For whatever reason, I couldn’t resist the thought of one.

We sat at the place, which was pretty nice, had some hot dogs, and we sampled the regular Flood drink that Sean had also bought in addition to the barrel aged. Still quite good.

From here, we headed back to the trail northbound again. There were two close routes, and one of them closer to the water. The bridge had been washed out on the closer route; the queen post truss structure was stranded behind a couple of trees to the left of the bridge footings. A single branch stick was across the missing span, which was in no way necessary to cross. I went down and up the bridge site, but Sean opted to try to climb across on the branch, complete with electric guitar and bath robe. It was hilarious.

The trail ahead stayed a little further away from the river, and then came out along a very large parking lot. We were so beyond silly at this point, that Sean decided to climb to the top of a lift that was parked with the bucket in the up position. There was no one around, so he then decided to pee off of the top of it! We were doing so much laughing and carrying on by this point, everything was pretty funny.

The trail took us back into woods north of here and beside the river, and then up to Route 287 bridge. When we got under the 287 bridge, I decided to walk in the river a bit, but Sean decided to take the full plunge in his bath robe and all! 

But the problem was, in doing this, he got his phone completely soaked and dropped it in the river. He realized it was missing, so I went back in to look for it with him, and we found it! Amazingly, it still seemed to be good even after this!

I seem to recall the trail taking a different route than that shown on Google maps to the north. We crossed over the river again, but when the maps said the trail went straight across the tracks, we were able to go to the left. We climbed a bit over a slope and crossed a long foot bridge over the river yet again, then descended a bit down to Fisher Lane. We then went by another pond, and continued north in a wider grassy swath on the trail.

We crossed Parkway Homes Road, and Virginia Road, and continued in the swath between the parkway and the river again, crossed the river, and then reached yet another Bronx River Parkway bridge, this one a 1925 stone structure with high peaked ornamental edges that made it really stand out. 

The trail came up onto the bridge and used to cross the railroad tracks, then continued over Washington Ave. The trail skirted the highway for a bit more through Clove Road Park, and then turned to the left to pass beneath the highway one more time by way of one of those old 1920s stone arches, this time along Broadway.

We headed through and reached the Kensico Dam Plaza, with a great view ahead of the dam.

 The original reservoir here was created in 1885. The current masonry dam was created in 1915. The original village of Kensico with a population of about 200 was destroyed and residents relocated when it was created, and as I understand, the railroad had to be relocated to the west of it.

The reservoir takes on water from the Catskill Aqueduct.
I had wanted to explore on and around the dam while we were there, but the amount of time we already took and miles we’d done, it was better to continue on and finish the hike by heading to the Valhalla Station nearby on the Harlem Valley Line.

We turned left and walked the frontage road into the town of Valhalla parallel with the Taconic Parkway from here, and soon reached the turn off to the station.

The station here was built in 1890 by the New York Central Railroad.
The original 1846 New York and Harlem Railroad passed-through where present-day Kensico Reservoir is. It had to be rerouted to this location, renamed for the Norse land of the Gods inspired by operas of Richard Wagner. The original nearby station stop was called Davis Brook, then renamed Kensico.
The old station building now serves as a restaurant, but we didn’t have time to stop there. We didn’t want to have to wait an hour for the next train. The Harlem Valley line has more station stops than any other MTA managed line, so it would take a while.

 I’m not sure where the original line used to go before the reservoir, and I can’t find anything showing it through that area. The earliest atlas maps I could find were 1870s and don’t seem to show the difference much.

We eventually boarded the train and were soon on our way to the south, back to Fleetwood Station. There was one switch of trains we would have to do in order to pull this off, and I think it was back at Hartsdale or something. I figured it wasn’t going to take long, but some of the group misinterpreted that it was going to be a long wait and got off to use the restroom and get more food. The rest of us stayed on the platform and managed to get the next train quickly. We then had to go back and pick up the others. I think Sean fell asleep at the one station and John went back and picked him up.

 It was really such a fun day, and the greenway was fantastic. I do hope to return to it, and do both of the other two substantial hikes we did again, in a different way, and we’ll continue on other properties to the north exploring more of the upper Bronx River.