So before the ship canal was blasted (where the blue "C" for Columbia is painted on a rock opposite Baker Field) Marble Hill was a virtual island. It was a hill surrounded by the marsh through which the Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Haarlem Creek wound. As the Times today reported the marsh was filled in, connecting Marble Hill physically and culturally to the Bronx when it was severed from the rest of the Borough of Manhattan by the canal dug in 1895.
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| Zoning Map of Manhattan. Marble hill at the top is not an island. It is severed from Manhattan by the ship canal. |
