Port Jervis, New York, and related area photographs
About four miles from Port Jervis, the Hawk’s Nest section of New York State Route 97, which is part of the Scenic Upper Delaware Byway, has been frequently used in advertisements and commercials like this one for Porsche. In 2016 the Hawk’s Nest had a brief but important role in the hit 3D movie, Dr. Strange, and it was also featured in the film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This 2018 article calls Route 97 “New York’s Windiest Road.”
At the foot of the Hawk’s Nest stand sturdy, hand-laid stonework walls that serve as reminders of the Delaware and Hudson Canal (c.1828-1898) which ran parallel to the river here. Opposite the Delaware River from the Hawk’s Nest are Pike County, Pennsylvania and a railroad track line still used today that the famed Erie Railroad first laid in the late 1840s.
It has been said by some that the Lenape (Delaware Indian) people who once lived here for thousands of years used the top of the Hawk’s Nest as a light beacon for signaling to a chain of such points in the region’s river valleys far beyond.
This ancient corridor is also part of the National Park Service managed Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River whose rare “wild and scenic” designation is given to less than one percent of all our rivers because of their outstanding natural, recreational, and cultural value.
Click this link to open a map showing Port Jervis area points of interest and their locations including this one.
03/28/11 – David E. Davis Jr., Dean of Automotive Journalism, Dies at 80 (NY Times article behind paywall) Davis’s May 1990 American Driver article that began by talking about the Hawk’s Nest was republished as a tribute to him in the March 2011 issue of Automobile Magazine.
An approximately 30 minute drive from Port Jervis along Route 97 will lead to the oldest wire suspension bridge in the United States. Constructed in 1847-1848 as “The Delaware Aqueduct,” it originally served to replace a rope ferry used to move canal boats across the Delaware River here as they continued toward their primary destination near the coalfields of northeast Pennsylvania. After loading their cargo the boats return trip took them 108 miles to near Kingston, NY, where goods were further transported via the Hudson River. The structure was designed by John A. Roebling, future engineer of the famous Brooklyn Bridge in New York City and manufacturing perfector of the wire stranded rope that makes such suspension bridges possible. A museum/home of noted author, Zane Grey is also found here just across the river in Lackawaxen, PA.
Click this link to open a map showing Port Jervis area points of interest and their locations including this one.