At Edgecombe Avenue, you are in drop-off territory. At times you can look to the side of the road and get queasy. Down below is a rugged, rock-strewn incline that bristles with shopping carts and overturned cars. Yet what the Hudson River-style artists saw is pretty much the same: a beautifully desolate landscape largely lacking in the presence of man.

Of course, it’s not the same everywhere. From this particular spot among the highland, you can see your near-neighbor, The Bronx (Yankee Stadium is not far away) and patches of Midtown Manhattan. The Morris-Jumel Mansion was built nearby to afford the gentry excellent views of the Harlem River and whatever the Bronx was called in that unimaginably underpopulated era.

A huge aqueduct was built across the Harlem River ten blocks Uptown, South of the “newer” Washington Bridge. Old photographs show a stately, multi-arched structure spanning the water as a Roman aqueduct would. You can’t necessarily tell whose (Ours or theirs?) aqueduct you’re looking at, particularly in Northward-looking views. Manhattan can be seen if you turn around, thus spoiling your antiquarian pleasure (if you want to call it that.)