page_title: Inwood Hill Park
section_title: Site
hierarchical_section_title: Inwood Hill Park / History / Site
caption_attribution_description: English: A photo of Shorakkopoch Rock in Inwood Hill Park, New York City. Nederlands: Een foto van Shorakkopoch Rock in Inwood Hill Park, New York City.
context_page_description: Inwood Hill Park is a public park in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. On a high schist ridge that rises 200 feet above the Hudson River from Dyckman Street to the northern tip of the island, Inwood Hill Park's densely folded, glacially scoured topography contains the largest remaining old-growth forest on Manhattan Island. Unlike other Manhattan parks, Inwood Hill Park is largely natural and consists of mostly wooded, non-landscaped hills.
context_section_description: Inwood Hill Park has a human history that goes back to the Pre-Columbian era. Through the 17th century, Native Americans known as the Lenape inhabited the area. There is evidence of a main encampment along the eastern edge of the park. The Lenape relied on both the Hudson and Harlem Rivers as sources for food. Artifacts and the remains of old campfires were found in Inwood's rock shelters, suggesting their use for shelter and temporary living quarters. Legend has it that under a tulip tree in the park Peter Minuit, Director General of New Netherland, purchased Manhattan from the a band of Native Americans in 1626 for the Dutch West India Company; the purchase price being a shipment of goods worth 60 guilders. The tree, the largest Liriodendron on the island, survived for centuries until it was felled by a storm in 1933. Until the 1950s the base of the tree under which this transaction allegedly took place was still to be seen, surrounded by a large iron fence, but as it rotted it was finally removed and a boulder (Shorakkopoch Rock) and plaque replaced it.
  Fort Cockhill, one of many forts built in New York by the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, stood slightly north from the center of Inwood Hill Park. A small, five-sided earthen structure equipped with two cannons, it overlooked the mouth of Spuyten Duyvil Creek at its confluence with the Hudson River. At the time, the area was known from Colonial to post–Revolutionary War times as Cox's Hill or Tubby Hook Hill.
  Even though the area which is now Inwood Hill Park was the site of one of the last farms in Manhattan – which lasted to at least c. 1890 – by the 19th century it was largely the location of country retreats for some of the wealthier families of the community and the rest of New York's social elite. One such notable who had a summer estate in Inwood was Isidor Straus, co-owner of the Macy's department store and a passenger on the ill-fated voyage of the RMS Titanic. The Lords of the Lord & Taylor department store chain owned two mansions built within the park; both mansions were destroyed by fire in the latter part of the 19th century. Additionally, an orphanage was located high on a bluff in what is now Inwood Hill Park in the nineteenth century. The site today includes a small paved area and park benches; no trace of the building remains. At least three freshwater springs arise in the park, one of which was used for drinking water by the workers who constructed the Henry Hudson Bridge.
caption: Shorakkopoch Rock
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