20 Mile Bronx to Battery Park Hike

Come attend our annual Bronx to Battery Park hike! We've done this hike every year since 2013, except for 2020, which was skipped due to the pandemic.

If you're late, go to the Dyckman (= 200th) St subway and go to the Anne Loftus Playground (it's on the Google Map). There's a restroom there and the group should show up to find you, we'll be leaving that playground at 10:30pm.

The path we will follow is here: http://bluejacket7.com/hiking/20MileBronxBatteryHike.html You might want to bookmark this on your phone in case you get lost. Note that if we encounter unforeseen obstructions we may have to change the path of the hike.

Several times we did this hike the weather forecast wasn't great, and attendance suffered as a result. This time I'll be checking the weather several days in advance, and if there's any question about it I'll postpone the hike by a week, and keep doing that until we're sure that it will be a nice day.

We'll meet on the northeast corner of Broadway and W 231st St, where there's a subway stop on the "1" train, on the sidewalk in front of the Gold Mine Cafe, about 6 streets north of the Harlem River. If you arrive a half hour early, you can have a nice breakfast at the Gold Mine Cafe or at the Dunkin' Donuts on 231st St across Broadway. If you buy something, you can use the restroom at the Gold Mine Cafe. There is no restroom at Dunkin' Donuts.

Where Broadway meets the north shore of the river is technically part of Manhattan, which is why we start one subway stop further north, to be in the Bronx.

At the finish, we'll take a group photo in Battery Park with the Statue of Liberty in the background, then on about 300 more yards to the Staten Island Ferry terminal at the very south tip of Manhattan for another group photo and the end of the hike. Those interested can then go to dinner at a BBQ restaurant in Manhattan 4 short blocks away that has agreed to do separate checks.

Be on time! We have to get moving, we can't wait all day for latecomers.

This hike will only happen if the weather is nice, so expect to sweat a lot , so buy a lot of sports drinks (like Gator-Aide) to replenish your electrolytes.

Be sure to have some breakfast; we won't be having lunch until about 1:00pm. You don't have to pack a lunch, I'll take orders to order pickup at a deli a few minutes ahead of us, then we'll sit down for lunch at Grant's Tomb north of Columbia University and I'll go to the deli and bring back everybody's lunch. Bring cash to pay for your order.

We should be arriving at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal by about 7:00pm, the sun sets at 8:19pm. Some years we've moved much faster than that and got there by about 5:00pm.

After the hike ends, those interested can go to a nearby BBQ restaurant that has agreed to do separate checks for a large group, everybody paying with their own credit cards.

This distance from start to the Staten Island Ferry measured 20.66 miles on the map.

We'll be doing this Saturday instead of Sunday so that people can rest and recuperate on Sunday.

Photo albums from this hike on previous years:

2013 https://tinyurl.com/yd2wkyt2
2014 https://tinyurl.com/y79rqwyt
2015 https://tinyurl.com/ycfmrjgk
2016 https://tinyurl.com/y8we9cox
2017 https://tinyurl.com/y8jo5uol
2018 https://tinyurl.com/yyrvrqj6
2019 https://tinyurl.com/yxcwytch
2021 https://tinyurl.com/yc5mkedr
2022 https://tinyurl.com/2afdfud5
2023 https://tinyurl.com/rrfw335y
We did the hike in 2024 & 2025, but not using Meetup so there were no photo albums those years.

If people get lost, it just isn't practical to go looking for them. Furthermore, I'll have no way of knowing whether someone got lost or just hopped on a subway because they were tired. So it's important that you be able to cope if you do get lost. By coming, all participants agree to the release waiver that basically gives up any right whatsoever to sue, to the fullest extent possible by law. You can read the current draft of this waiver at https://tinyurl.com/AfternoonWaiver