Our own Bronx Acapulco cliff divers

[Peter Ostrander]

Our Own Bronx Acapulco cliff divers.  It’s been a long tradition that young boys would jump and dive off of the Columbia ‘C” rock or better known to locals a cable rock. The rock slice was created back in 1849 when the rail road cut through the peninsula. The peninsula was where the Isaac G. Johnson Iron foundry and rolling steel mill was once located. The foundry was condemned by the US Government in 1929 and the peninsula was cut through for ship traffic. The tip of the peninsula is now attached to Inwood park and houses the Environmental center and ball fields. Unfortunately,  all this effort to remove the peninsula was too late as ship traffic was declining and the only real benefit seems to have been the Circle Line tourist boats.

I grew up in Kingsbridge Heights and there was an annual migration to the Hudson River to fish and in warmer weather to swim. My swimming entailed only in the Hudson north of the Spuyten Duyvil Railroad bridge up to the Riverdale station with the best at the old Dodge dock. Swimming where the Harlen met the Hudson was dangerous as the current can be very strong.  But my friends and I NEVER jumped off of cable rock.  We climbed over the rock using what was remaining of the cable that once transversed the top like a handle rail.  At its highest point the jump is 110 Ft or about the height of a 10 story building.

The following link is to a 10 yrs old U-Tube video documentary following a group of 14–16-year-old Riverdalian boys who regularly would jump off cable rock for their own amusement and for those of Circle Line tourist.

The quality of this documentary film is excellent as it was professionally created as a ‘day in the life’ type of film. There is some off-color language, f bombs dropped as one would expect from a group of young boys. But the whole film rings true to life.  60yrs removed from my time down at the Hudson as a river rat, it felt like yesterday watching this film.

C-Rock (full Documentary)  https://youtu.be/IdR3jMHGFAw?si=cfxcSGnDiHC-735R

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