Morningside Heights, Manhattan

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Residential buildings on West 116th Street opposite Columbia University between Morningside Drive and Amsterdam Avenue

Morningside Heights is a neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City and is chiefly known as the home of institutions such as Columbia University, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York, the Riverside Church, and St. Luke's Hospital.

Morningside Heights is bounded by the Upper West Side to the south, Morningside Park to the east, Harlem to the north, and Riverside Park to the west. In terms of street names, the edges of the neighborhood may roughly be considered either 106th Street or 110th Street on the south, Riverside Drive on the west, 123rd Street or 125th Street on the north, and Morningside Drive on the east. The main thoroughfare is Broadway.

The neighborhood has also been referred to as the "Academic Acropolis," the "Acropolis of New York," "Bloomingdale Village," "White Harlem," or "South Harlem" (SoHa), and has also been thought of alternately as part of either Harlem or the Upper West Side neighborhoods.

1 History
2 Academic Acropolis
3 Sites
4 Famous residents
- 4.1 Morningside Gardens residents
- 4.2 Students
5 Political
6 References
7 External links

[edit] History

On September 16, 1776, the Battle of Harlem Heights was fought in Morningside Heights, with the most intense fighting occurring in a sloping wheat field that is now the location of Barnard College.

Use of the name "Morningside Heights" for the neighborhood arose in the late 19th century as a replacement for Bloomingdale Village. This latter name had become associated with the Bloomingdale Asylum which once occupied the present location of the main campus of Columbia University, and as the neighborhood became a more residential location, people desired to shed that association. Following Columbia's move to the neighborhood from Midtown in the 1890s, residential and institutional development accelerated.

Many of the apartment buildings and rowhouses were built for New York's prosperous middle class, but by the mid-20th century the increasing prevalence of Single Room Occupancy (S.R.O.) hotels led to attendant socioeconomic problems and a decline in the nieghbourhood. Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities presented the neighbourhood as a key example of the failure of the urban planning techniques of the era. The social problems in the area prompted Columbia to purchase much of the neighborhood's real estate, leading to accusations of forced eviction and gentrification. This process reached its apotheosis in 1968, when protests erupted in both the neighborhood and on Columbia's campus over the university's proposal to build a gym in Morningside Park. Allegations were hurled that the park's proposed separate entrance for Harlem residents on the lower level of the park was segregated, and that public park space was being annexed by a wealth private institution. The university was eventually forced to abandon the plan, though it has still expanded its presence in the neighborhood markedly over the last few decades, and gentrification has proceeded apace. Recently, the university has been seeking to expand significantly in nearby Manhattanville.

Many may now consider Morningside Heights merely an extension of the Upper West Side, though many residents do not admit to such a lack of distinction. In the last decade, some businesses in the area have started using the name SoHa (or "South of Harlem") to refer to the neighborhood. Examples of this include Max's SoHa restaurant and the former SoHa nightclub.

[edit] Academic Acropolis

The label Academic Acropolis has been used to describe the area, since it sits on one of the highest natural points in Manhattan and contains numerous academic institutions. Much of the neighborhood is the campus of Columbia University, and the university also owns a large amount of the non-campus real estate. Other educational institutions in the neighborhood include Barnard College, Union Theological Seminary, Jewish Theological Seminary, Manhattan School of Music, Teachers College, Bank Street College of Education, Wadleigh Secondary School, Thurgood Academy, St. Hilda's & St. Hugh's School, and the School at Columbia.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies is also located in the neighborhood, directly above Tom's Restaurant (see below).

[edit] Sites

West 121st Street seen from Amsterdam Avenue, Riverside Church in the background

Non-academic landmarks in Morningside Heights include the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine (aka, "St. John the Unfinished"), Grant's Tomb, Riverside Church, The Interchurch Center (aka, "The God Box"), International House, and St. Luke's Hospital.

The real Tom's Restaurant also appeared in Seinfeld.

Arguably the most famous restaurant in Morningside Heights (and one of the most famous diners in the world) is Tom's Restaurant on Broadway at W. 112th St. After being featured in the song "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega (an alumna of Barnard College), it became known as the daily hangout of the characters of the television sitcom Seinfeld. (Exterior shots of Tom's were used on Seinfeld; the interior of the restaurant looks very little like the fictional "Monk's Cafe," as the scenes in Monk's were filmed on a set in California.) Tom's is now part of the regular Seinfeld New York Tour conducted by Kenny Kramer.

The West End Bar is another famous local restaurant, one which served especially as a meeting place for writers of the Beat Generation in the 1940s and 50s as well as one for student activists prior, during, and after the Columbia University protests of 1968. It is currently being absorbed into a Cuban restaurant chain, "Havana Central", and will be known as "Havana Central at the West End".

[edit] Famous residents

George Gershwin began composing his Rhapsody in Blue while living on 110th Street in Morningside Heights. Film director Cecil B. De Mille lived on 114th Street.

Comedian George Carlin grew up on 121st Street. In the comedy piece "White Harlem", which appears on his Occupation: Foole album, he said that younger residents would refer to the neighborhood as "White Harlem". This is due to the fact that "White Harlem" would likely be considered an intimidating locale by outsiders and give inhabitants thereof greater respect from outsiders, whereas conversely a young person from "Morningside Heights" would have a much great probability of being abused simply by virtue of the fact that they live in a locale called "Morningside Heights".

[edit] Morningside Gardens residents

Several famous neighborhood residents have lived in Morningside Gardens, an experimental co-op project built in 1957 between 123rd Street and LaSalle Streets, and Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues. Morningside Gardens was the result of Robert Moses' Morningside-Manhattanville urban renewal plan, and was successful in the sense that it combined the middle income Gardens with the NYCHA General Grant Houses to the East and North of it, and maintained a commercial strip along Amsterdam Avenue. The Gardens prided itself on being an integrated community and for most of its existence, those selling their apartments were not allowed to take any significant profit until 2006, when the co-op voted to allow residents to sell their co-ops for 80% of market value, or 3x what the previous maximum sale price was, per apartment. Many professional African-Americans moved to Morningside Gardens to maintain roots with the black community of Harlem and to enjoy the benefits of a safe and integrated community. Among those were Thurgood Marshall, first black justice named to the Supreme Court. Singer/coposer Fiona Apple and science fiction writer Samuel Delany also lived in the complex as a youth.

[edit] Students

Numerous other famous people have resided in the area while attending or teaching at Columbia University. They can be seen under the List of Columbia University people.

Several, however, have had significant engagements with the neighborhood itself. While writing a master's thesis on William Blake at Columbia University, Thomas Merton attended Corpus Christi Catholic Church on West 121st St., where he formally converted to Catholicism. Langston Hughes' poem Theme for English B, written as a class assignment while he was attending Columbia, briefly describes his route from school through Morningside Park to his home in Harlem.

[edit] Political

The neighborhood is part of the Fifteenth Congressional District of New York, which includes much of Harlem. Traditionally, Morningside Heights has been heavily Democratic.

The neighborhood's ZIP codes are 10025 and 10027.