Off-setting the shortness of 11th Avenue is 10th Avenue, which runs more than 10 miles from 218th St. in Inwood to Gansevoort Street in the West Village.

Like all the other avenues west of Central Park, 10th Avenue is also known as Amsterdam Avenue north of 59th Street (except for its final stretch in Inwood between Dyckman Street and 218th Street). I'd always wondered why the West Side avenues all lost their original names above the park while the East Side avenues all retain theirs, and it turns out the answer is very simple: Real Estate Developers. As the Upper West Side began to develop in the late 1800s, the people building and selling housing didn't want the new addresses to be associated with the tenements and factories to the south, so 8th Avenue became Central Park West, 9th Avenue became Columbus, 10th Avenue became Amsterdam, and 11th Avenue became West End.

10th Avenue runs through a number of neighborhoods and historical sites, but I've written about most of them before, so here are some pictures.

Start of walk

10th Ave at 218th St.

Ad hoc Car Wash

10th Ave. btw 216th St. and 215th St.

Flat Fixed

10th Ave. btw 207th St. and 206th St.

Mountain bike course

Amsterdam Ave. at Ft. George Ave.

School

Amsterdam Ave. btw 188th St. and 187th St.

Apartment building

Amsterdam Ave. btw 180th St. and 179th St.

White buildings

Amsterdam Ave. btw 175th St. and 176th St.

More apartments

Amsterdam Ave. btw 168th St. and 167th St.

Cosmopolitan Baptist Church

Amsterdam Ave. btw 165th St. and 164th St.

Mural

Amsterdam Ave. btw 159th St. and 158th St.

Cool old mansion (or something) [Edit: It was a police station.]

Amsterdam Ave. btw 152nd St. and 151st St.

Wry smile

Amsterdam Ave. btw 152nd St. and 151st St.

Cool building

Amsterdam Ave. btw 146th St. and 145th St.

Mayor of Harlem

Amsterdam Ave. btw 146th St. and 145th St.

Neat brickwork

Amsterdam Ave. btw 123rd St. and 122nd St.