Gun Hill Road is a major thoroughfare in the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...

. The road stretches for from the Mosholu Parkway in Norwood to Stillwell Avenue in Baychester, near an exit for the

Hutchinson River Parkway The Hutchinson River Parkway (known colloquially as The Hutch) is a north–south parkway in southern New York in the United States. It extends for from the massive Bruckner Interchange in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx to the New York ...

Van Cortlandt Park Van Cortlandt Park is a park located in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. Owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, it is managed with assistance from the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance. The park, the city's third-lar ...

and the Mosholu Golf Course are both located at the western terminus of Gun Hill Road.

Street description

The west end of Gun Hill Road is at the Mosholu Parkway, where the road continues west as Van Cortlandt Park South toward

Manhattan College Manhattan College is a private, Catholic, liberal arts university in the Bronx, New York City. Originally established in 1853 by the Brothers of the Christian Schools (De La Salle Christian Brothers) as an academy for day students, it was la ...

. After an intersection with

Jerome Avenue Jerome Avenue is one of the longest thoroughfares in the New York City borough of the Bronx, New York, United States. The road is long and stretches from Concourse to Woodlawn. Both of these termini are with the Major Deegan Expressway which r ...

, Gun Hill Road passes to the south of the Mosholu Golf Course. Also, the road name officially changes from West Gun Hill Road to East Gun Hill Road. At an intersection with DeKalb Avenue in Norwood, the road passes by the North Central Bronx Hospital and the

Montefiore Medical Center Montefiore Medical Center is a premier academic medical center and the primary teaching hospital of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York City. Its main campus, the Henry and Lucy Moses Division, is located in the Norwoo ...

. Northwest of there, the road acts as the southern border of Woodlawn Cemetery. At

Webster Avenue Webster Avenue is a major north–south thoroughfare in the Bronx, New York City, United States. It stretches for from Melrose to Woodlawn (on the Bronx- Westchester borderline). The road starts at the intersection of Melrose Avenue, East 165t ...

, Gun Hill Road passes the Williams Bridge station of the

Metro-North Railroad Metro-North Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, is a suburban commuter rail service run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a public authority of the U.S. state of New York and under contract with the Connectic ...

. Soon after, the road crosses over the

Bronx River Parkway The Bronx River Parkway (sometimes abbreviated as the Bronx Parkway) is a long parkway in downstate New York in the United States. It is named for the nearby Bronx River, which it parallels. The southern terminus of the parkway is at Story Aven ...

, at exit 9. The following major intersection is

White Plains Road White Plains Road is a major north-south thoroughfare which runs the length of the New York City borough of the Bronx. It runs from Castle Hill and Clason Point in the south to Wakefield in the north, where it crosses the city line and becomes ...

, which Gun Hill Road intersects within Williamsbridge Square. At this intersection, the road also meets the

subway station A metro station or subway station is a station for a rapid transit system, which as a whole is usually called a "metro" or "subway". A station provides a means for passengers to purchase tickets, board trains, and evacuate the system in th ...

that serves the . As the road and enters

Williamsbridge Williamsbridge is a neighborhood geographically located in the north-central portion of the Bronx in New York City. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise are East 222nd Street to the north, Boston Road to the east, East G ...

, there is an intersection with Boston Road, which carries

U.S. 1 U.S. Route 1 or U.S. Highway 1 (US 1) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs from Key West, Florida, north to Fort Kent, Maine, at the Canadian border, making i ...

. Between the DeWitt Place and Sexton Place intersections, the road passes the second subway station for Gun Hill Road, which serves the . Now entering the neighborhood of Baychester, the road intersects with Edson and Ely avenues, in which the former acts as the southbound service road for the

New England Thruway Interstate 95 (I-95) is part of the Interstate Highway System and runs from Miami, Florida, to the Canada–United States border near Houlton, Maine. In the U.S. state of New York, I-95 extends from the George Washington Bridge in New Yor ...

. Directly after, the road intersects with exit 10 for

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...

. The road becomes one-way for 0.2 miles (0.3 kilometers) and intersects with Waring Avenue. The road terminates at an intersection with Stillwell Avenue and exit 4S of the

History

During the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

, the road was an important artery over which the British and the colonists fought. In January 1777, the colonists brought a cannon to the top of a hill and fired at the British. The hill, now inside Woodlawn Cemetery, was locally called Gun Hill afterwards. The road was known as Kingsbridge Road (part of the original

Boston Post Road The Boston Post Road was a system of mail-delivery routes between New York City and Boston, Massachusetts that evolved into one of the first major highways in the United States. The three major alignments were the Lower Post Road (now U.S. Ro ...

) until 1875, when it was renamed Gun Hill Road. It did not originally extend east of White Plains Road but was extended by segments to the

Hutchinson River The Hutchinson River is a freshwater stream located in the Bronx, and Southern Westchester County, New York. The river forms in Scarsdale at Brookline Road and flows 10 miles (16 km) south until it empties into Eastchester Bay in ...

, by 1938. In 1941, the New York City Planning Department proposed the Gun Hill Crosstown Highway as an upgrade, but nothing happened with this plan. In the mid-1960s, the Tri-State Transportation Commission proposed a new route just a mile north of Gun Hill Road called the City Line Expressway; this plan also did not advance.

Transportation

Commuter rail

The Williams Bridge station, a former

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mi ...

station, now serves the

Harlem Line The Metro-North Railroad Harlem Line, originally chartered as the New York and Harlem Railroad, is an commuter rail line running north from New York City to Wassaic, in eastern Dutchess County. The lower from Grand Central Terminal to Sou ...

. It is located near the intersection with Bronx River Parkway.

Subway

There are two

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October ...

stations on Gun Hill Road: * Gun Hill Road on the

IRT White Plains Road Line The White Plains Road Line is a rapid transit line of the A Division of the New York City Subway serving the central Bronx. It is mostly elevated and served both subway and elevated trains until 1952. The original part of the line, the part op ...

at White Plains Road, serving the * Gun Hill Road on the

IRT Dyre Avenue Line The IRT Dyre Avenue Line (formerly the IND Dyre Avenue–East 174th Street Line) is a New York City Subway rapid transit line, part of the A Division. It is a branch of the IRT White Plains Road Line in the northeastern section of the Bronx, n ...

at Seymour Avenue, serving the

Bus

Several buses travel on Gun Hill Road. The primary routes that traverse the corridor are the

Bx28 The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) operates a number of bus routes in the Bronx, New York, United States. Many of them are the direct descendants of streetcar lines (see list of streetcar lines in the Bronx). All local buses are ope ...

, Bx30, and Bx38. Bx 39

Major intersections

References

{{Coord, 40, 52, 57.4, N, 73, 52, 51.8, W, display=title Streets in the Bronx