In 1899, Jesse Lynch Williams of Scribner’s Magazine wrote of High Bridge: “There is a different feeling in the air up along this best-known end of the city’s water-front…This is the tired city’s playground.”

What can we learn about the social, cultural, and economic life of New York City by looking at a popular destination and great escape of the past? Moses Gates, an urban planner, licensed New York City tour guide, and visiting assistant professor of demography at the Pratt Institute, takes us on a tour around High Bridge, which was a favorite destination for well-heeled Manhattanites at the turn of the century. From High Bridge’s beginnings as an engineering marvel and place of privileged leisure, to its mid-twentieth century abandonment, and the restoration underway today, this walking tour will reflect on escape and the processes of change in New York City.