His life-size, highly dramatic bird portraits, along with his embellished descriptions of wilderness life, hit just the right note at the height of the Continent’s Romantic era. “The American Woodsman” was literally an overnight success. In 1826 he sailed with his partly finished collection to England. Floating down the Mississippi, he lived a rugged hand-to-mouth existence in the South while Lucy earned money as a tutor to wealthy plantation families.

John James Audubon (1785-1851), “America’s Woodsman,” was born in Haiti, moved to just outside Philadelphia to avoid conscription into Napoleon’s army … and took an interest in America’s wildlife:Īudubon set off on his epic quest to depict America’s avifauna, with nothing but his gun, artist’s materials, and a young assistant. One of the massive apartment buildings found along 181st, this one at Audubon Avenue.

Fort Tryon Park and The Cloisters - can’t-be-missed highlights of northern Manhattan (I’ll have to do Fort Tryon Park in FNY soon) - are attainable from West 181st Street west to Fort Washington Avenue and going north for about 12 blocks. Sign at Amsterdam Avenue and the 181st Street end of Washington Bridge. (The Alexander Hamilton Bridge – Trans-Manhattan Expressway – George Washington Bridge route is the main traffic express route) … Your webmaster took advantage of one of the March breaks in the monsoons to wander about High Bridge in the Bronx, and as my fleece jacket allowed the sun to soak my shirt through with sweat, a march across Washington Bridge to 181st Street, the main east-west shopping artery in northern Manhattan. Early 2010 in NYC has featured some crazy weather - three feet of snow in February, which fell in three storms sunny and very warm in March, accompanied by several rounds of flooding rain and at this writing on April 7, 85 degrees is expected for a high temperature in the afternoon.

Golden star 181st broadway