[2][3] As Amsterdam Avenue, the thoroughfare stretches 129 blocks north – narrowing to one lane in each direction as it passes through Yeshiva University's Wilf Campus, between 184th and 186th Streets – before connecting with Fort George Avenue south of Highbridge Park at West 193rd Street.

On the north side of Highbridge Park, unconnected to Amsterdam Avenue on the south side, Tenth Avenue then runs for slightly less than a mile from the northern terminus of the Harlem River Drive at Dyckman Street, to the intersection of West 218th Street where it merges into Broadway.

[4] The Hudson River Railroad's West Side Line ran along Tenth Avenue from its intersection with West Street to the upper city station at 34th Street, after which it veered to Eleventh Avenue; the line was completed to Peekskill, New York in 1849.

Over this part of the right-of-way, the rails were laid at grade along the streets, and since by the corporation regulations locomotives were not allowed, the cars were drawn by a dummy engine, which, according to an 1851 description, consumed its own smoke.

[11] In 1929, the city, the state, and New York Central agreed on the West Side Improvement Project,[12] conceived by Robert Moses.

[13] The 13-mile (21 km) project eliminated 105 street-level railroad crossings and added 32 acres (13 ha) to Riverside Park; it also included construction of the West Side Elevated Highway.

[15] The name was intended to recall the Dutch roots of Manhattan's earliest colonization in the 17th century, when the city was known as New Amsterdam.