Located along the Hudson River in the Bronx, New York City, Spuyten Duyvil is most likely a loose derivation of a seventeenth century Dutch phrase "spuit den duyvil," which translates to "in spite of the Devil," a reference to the roughness of the nearby waters caused by double tides. This area, first explored in 1609 by Henry Hudson, developed into a small community by the second half of the nineteenth century with the completion of the Hudson River Railroad. In 1904, the first subway to connect Manhattan and the Bronx was completed, and the Third Avenue elevated line was expanded further northward, offering affordable transportation from Manhattan to the Bronx.

Ernest Lawson depicted Spuyten Duyvil on numerous occasions, with other examples held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut.