FOR an unknown reason, New York City has been cagy about assigning a 200th Street. In Inwood, one of the main east-west streets is Dyckman, which runs from the Hudson River to where the Harlem River Drive becomes 10th Avenue. I have perused maps going back to the late 1800s when the street was built, and none of them list Dyckman as 200th Street…except the signage at the Dyckman Street station serving the IND A train. My guess is that this was a convention settled on. by the IND when they wanted to do numbered stations in Manhattan when at all possible, to give riders an idea where they were while riding.
In the Bronx, what would be 200th Street runs through the Bedford Park area and is duly called Bedford Park Boulevard, though I believe I have seen older maps calling it 200th Street, though I’d have to do some. ore research about that.
Queens is more merciful toward 200th Street. It exists in two pieces, one in northern Bayside and the other in Hollis south of 99th Avenue. Through Auburndale, what would be 200th Street is occupied by the multilane Francis Lewis Boulevard.
Brooklyn? Numbering stops at 108, and in Staten Island, numbering gets no higher than 10th Street in New Dorp.
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4/27/22
6 comments
In Manhattan, there are no numbered streets from 194 to 200, inclusive. Because of the hilly terrain in that area, where Washington Heights transitions into Inwood, the streets often follow the land contours and not the normal right angles one would normally find in Manhattan, especially with the east-west numbered streets. Streets in that area all have names, regardless of direction. Dyckman stands in for 200, though not officially.
In The Bronx, the old transit maps show Bedford Park Blvd. station on the old Third Avenue Elevated (razed in 1973) identified only as “200th Street” up until the end, except for, ironically, the 1972 map, published a year before the Third Avenue Elevated was closed. That map called the station “Bedford Park Blvd. – 200th Street”.
The late 40s-early 50s Hagstrom subway maps identified the Bedford Park Blvd. stations on the nearby #4 and D trains with an additional “200” on the map, but I don’t know if the station signs used “200” along with Bedford Park Blvd.
Link to old NYC subway maps from http://www.nycsubway.org:
https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Historical_Maps
Let me be the first one to correct an error in my own post. There is a 196th Street in Upper Manhattan, just east of Fort Tryon Park and Broadway. But that’s it from 193rd to 201st.
The oddity is that the entrance on the west side of Broadway reads simply “Dyckman Street Subway Station.”
Found a few historic tidbits in Wikipedia
Dyckman Street was formerly named Dyckman Street–200th Street despite Manhattan never having a street numbered 200th. The station opened on September 10, 1932, as part of the city-operated Independent Subway System (IND)’s initial segment, the Eighth Avenue Line between Chambers Street and 207th Street.
…there are mosaic name tablets reading “DYCKMAN–200TH ST.” in white sans-serif lettering on a maroon background and black border. Small “200” tile captions in white numbering on a black background run along the walls between the name tablets. Yellow I-beam columns run along both platforms at regular intervals, alternating ones having the standard black station name plate in white lettering, reading “Dyckman Street”. A few column signs still read “200”.
There is 196 street that runs from Broadway to Elwood.
Yes — and same with First St ten miles south of Dykeman: Houston St really should be 1st Street. Now I know there’s a tiny segment of street nearby called 1st St, but Houston really should be 1st St.