Into the Wild

Penny’s Excellent Adventure

SCHEDULE:
8:00am | Fort Washington Park Tennis Courts // $Free

For years we’ve wondered about the courts at the foot of the George Washington Bridge in Washington Heights. If you stick your head out your car window on the lower level of the bridge you can just spy em through the trees, perched about twenty feet from the rivers edge. 

Easily accessible they’re not, which is why we’ve been deterred until recently. The courts are named for the heavily wooded and hilly park they’re in—Fort Washington Park Tennis Courts—and are directly across the river from Fort Lee. What’s up with all the forts you’re wondering? At the start of the Revolutionary War, George Washington strategically built forts on either side of the river here because they were the highest points with the steepest inclines around. 

The red coats eventually captured both these forts, unfortunately. But G Dubs was no dummy, these Brits had to work for it through this tough terrain, as did we in our trek to play a little (monarch) free tennis. Fortunately our trusty little extra duty Penn(y) tennis ball led the way (see videos below) through a dingy tunnel, along a winding forest trail, down to a highway and an underpass or two, back into the woods, over a bridge above train tracks, and eventually down some grand stone steps to the courts. The courts are mid, so not sure we’ll be regulars here. But the setting is very special and totally worth the adventure.

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