The Bronx surrounds the neighborhood to the west, north, and east, while the Harlem River is its southern border.

It served as a crossing point to the mainland when the colonial British had the King's Bridge constructed in 1693 to span the Spuyten Duyvil Creek.

Marble Hill remained an island until it was physically connected to the Bronx in 1913, when the old northern bend of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek was filled in.

On August 18, 1646, Governor Willem Kieft, the Dutch Director of New Netherland, signed a land grant to Mattius Jansen van Keulan and Huyck Aertsen which included the whole of the present community.

Many settlers circumvented the toll for the ferry by crossing the creek from northern Marble Hill to modern Kingsbridge, Bronx, a point where it was feasible to wade or swim through the waters.

[14][15] In 1669 Verveelen transplanted his ferry to the northern tip of Marble Hill, at today's Broadway and West 231st Street.

[15][19] In 1693 Frederick Philipse, a Frisian-born merchant who had sworn allegiance to the Crown upon the British takeover of Dutch New Netherlands in 1664, built the King's Bridge at Marble Hill near what is now West 230th Street in the Bronx.

[17] Granted the title Lord of Philipse Manor, he established a plantation and provisioning depot for his shipping business upriver on the Hudson in present-day Sleepy Hollow.

[22] The Dyckmans used the proceeds to finance a new operation on the west side of Broadway and 226th Street that was to be managed by Benjamin Palmer, who owned property on City Island.

This particular raid was under the command of General William Heath, which, when the cannons opened up, forced the Hessians to retreat from the tavern to the fort to return fire.

The marble was quarried for the federal buildings in lower Manhattan when New York was the capital of the United States in the 1780s.

[26] Saint Stephen's United Methodist Church, a community fixture since its 1898 construction, is located at 228th Street and Marble Hill Avenue.

The congregation was founded on Mosholu Parkway in 1826 and was incorporated a decade later, making it one of the earliest religious institutions in the area.

This waterway ran 1500 feet east–west from the Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the Harlem River at approximately 222nd Street, cutting off Marble Hill from Manhattan Island.

[35][36] This rendered Marble Hill an island bounded by the canal to the south and the original course of the Harlem River to the north.

[39] At 210 West 230th Street, at the southwest corner with Broadway, is a plaque designating the area as the site of the King's Bridge.

The site of the Dyckman Free Bridge is located on the grounds of today's Marble Hill Houses.

These buildings even boast one pedestrian alley, Marble Hill Lane, in a manner similar to in Inwood and surrounding Bronx neighborhoods.

"[40] The blocks of Marble Hill with these single-story houses were described as a "well-kept secret": relatively cheap, with ample space and a backyard.

[47]: 98  Teunissen was killed in an Indian raid in 1655, and his wife and child were held hostage until they were ransomed by the Dutch authorities.

[18] Van Corlear Place, which comprises half of a U-shaped street curving around Marble Hill, has detached one- and two-family homes in addition to a few brick townhouses.

[18] In Washington Irving's book A History of New York, van Corlaer is said to have drowned while crossing Spuyten Duyvil Creek.

In 2002, before construction, developers purchased adjacent land from six owners, with the largest building on these lots being a deteriorating, 3+1⁄2-floor, 326,000 sq ft (30,300 m2) warehouse owned by NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital.

[52] Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Inwood and Marble Hill was 46,746, a change of -2,341 (-5%) from the 49,087 counted in 2000.

[55] The entirety of Bronx Community District 8, which comprises Marble Hill as well as Kingsbridge, Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil, Fieldston, and Van Cortlandt Village, had 102,927 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 80.9 years.

John F. Kennedy High School was built in the former riverbed on the western side of Marble Hill, and was opened in September 1972.

[80] The station was relocated from the east side of Broadway to the west side in the late-1970s and is now served by the Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line, which provides commuter railroad service to Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan, locations in the Bronx, and points north.

The incident was met with boos and nose-thumbing by 50 residents of Marble Hill, who referred to the effort as similar to an "Anschluss".

[38][98][99] The confusion has been so great that when New York City Councilman Guillermo Linares was elected as Marble Hill's representative in 1991, he originally thought the neighborhood was part of the Bronx.

[38] Marble Hill residents remain part of a political district that includes the northernmost areas of Manhattan (Washington Heights and Inwood), but city services – for example, the fire and police departments – come from and are in the Bronx for reasons of convenience and safety, since the only road connection to the rest of Manhattan is a lift bridge, the Broadway Bridge.