Washington Heights, Manhattan

Coordinates: 40°50′30″N 73°56′15″W / 40.84167°N 73.93750°W

Washington Heights seen from the west tower of the George Washington Bridge, the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge.[1][2] Note Little Red Lighthouse at base of east tower.
The highest point on Manhattan is in Bennett Park in Washington Heights, within the subsection of Hudson Heights. The inset at bottom left magnifies the plaque at right.

Washington Heights is a neighborhood in the northern portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan. The area, with over 150,000 inhabitants as of 2010, is named for Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest point on Manhattan island by Continental Army troops during the American Revolutionary War, to defend the area from the British forces. Washington Heights is bordered by Harlem to the south, along 155th Street, Inwood to the north along Hillside Avenue, the Hudson River to the west, and the Harlem River and Coogan's Bluff to the east.

History

Early history

Location of Washington Heights

In the 18th century, only the southern portion of the island was settled by Europeans, leaving the rest of Manhattan largely untouched. Among the many unspoiled tracts of land was the highest spot on the island, which provided unsurpassed views of what would become the New York metropolitan area.[3]

When the Revolutionary War came to New York, the British had the upper hand. General George Washington and troops from his Continental Army camped on the high ground, calling it Fort Washington, to monitor the advancing Redcoats. The Continental Army retreated from its location after their defeat on November 16, 1776, in the Battle of Fort Washington.[4] The British took the position and renamed it Fort Knyphausen in honor of the leader of the Hessians, who had taken a major part in the British victory.[5][6] Their location was in the spot now called Bennett Park. Fort Washington had been established as an offensive position to prevent British vessels from sailing north on the Hudson River. Fort Lee, across the river, was its twin, built to assist in the defense of the Hudson Valley.[3] The progress of the battle is marked by a series of bronze plaques along Broadway.

Looking east up 181st Street from Plaza Lafayette, in a hilly section of Washington Heights

Not far from the fort was the Blue Bell Tavern, located on an intersection of Kingsbridge Road, where Broadway and West 181st Street intersect today, on the southeastern corner of modern-day Hudson Heights.[7] On July 9, 1776, when New York's Provincial Congress assented to the Declaration of Independence, "A rowdy crowd of soldiers and civilians ('no decent people' were present, one witness said later) ... marched down Broadway to Bowling Green, where they toppled the statue of George III erected in 1770. The head was put on a spike at the Blue Bell Tavern ... "[7]

The tavern was later used by Washington and his staff when the British evacuated New York, standing in front of it as they watched the American troops march south to retake New York.[8]

By 1856 the first recorded home had been built on the site of Fort Washington. The Moorewood residence was there until the 1880s. The property was purchased by Richard Carman and sold to James Gordon Bennett Sr. for a summer estate in 1871. Bennett's descendants later gave the land to the city to build a park honoring the Revolutionary War encampment. Bennett Park is a portion of that land. Lucius Chittenden, a New Orleans merchant, built a home on land he bought in 1846 west of what is now Cabrini Boulevard and West 187th Street.[9] It was known as the Chittenden estate by 1864.[8] C. P. Bucking named his home Pinehurst on land near the Hudson, a title that survives as Pinehurst Avenue.[9]

Tourists in Washington Heights

The series of ridges overlooking the Hudson were sites of villas in the 19th century, including the extensive property of John James Audubon.

Early and mid-20th century

At the turn of the 20th century the woods started being chopped down to make way for homes. The cliffs that are now Fort Tryon Park held the mansion of Cornelius Kingsley Garrison Billings, a retired president of the Chicago Coke and Gas Company. He purchased 25 acres (100,000 m2) and constructed Tryon Hall, a Louis XIV-style home designed by Gus Lowell. It had a galleried entranceway from the Henry Hudson Parkway that was 50 feet (15 m) high and made of Maine granite.[10][11] In 1917, Billings sold the land to John D. Rockefeller Jr. for $35,000 per acre. Tryon Hall was destroyed by fire in 1925. The estate was the basis for the book "The Dragon Murder Case" by S. S. Van Dine,[12] in which detective Philo Vance had to solve a murder on the grounds of the estate, where a dragon was supposed to have lived.[8]

In the early 1900s, Irish immigrants moved to Washington Heights. European Jews went to Washington Heights to escape Nazism during the 1930s and the 1940s. During the 1950s and 1960s, many Greeks moved to Washington Heights; the community was referred to as the "Astoria of Manhattan." By the 1980s–90s, the neighborhood became mostly Dominican.

Fort Tryon

During World War I, immigrants from Hungary and Poland moved in next to the Irish.[13] Then, as Naziism grew in Germany, Jews fled their homeland. By the late 1930s, more than 20,000 refugees from Germany had settled in Washington Heights.[14]

The beginning of this section of Washington Heights as a neighborhood-within-a-neighborhood seems to have started around this time, in the years before World War II. One scholar refers to the area in 1940 as "Fort Tryon" and "the Fort Tryon area." In 1989, Steven M. Lowenstein wrote, "The greatest social distance was to be found between the area in the northwest, just south of Fort Tryon Park, which was, and remains, the most prestigious section ... This difference was already remarked in 1940, continued unabated in 1970 and was still noticeable even in 1980..."[15] Lowenstein considered Fort Tryon to be the area west of Broadway, east of the Hudson, north of West 181st Street, and south of Dyckman Street, which includes Fort Tryon Park. He writes, "Within the core area of Washington Heights (between 155th Street and Dyckman Street) there was a considerable internal difference as well. The further north and west one went, the more prestigious the neighborhood..."[15]

Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson

In the years after World War II, the neighborhood was referred to as Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson due to the dense population of German and Austrian Jews who had settled there.[16] A disproportionately large number of Germans who settled in the area had come from Frankfurt-am-Main, possibly giving rise to new name.[15] No other neighborhood in the city was home to so many German Jews, who had created their own central German world in the 1930s.[17]

Stairs running from the end of Pinehurst Avenue down to West 181st Street

So cosmopolitan was that world that in 1934 members of the German-Jewish Club of New York started Aufbau, a newsletter for its members that grew into a newspaper. Its offices were nearby on Broadway.[18] The newspaper became known as a "prominent intellectual voice and a main forum for German Jewry in the United States," according to the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. "It featured the work of great prominent writers and intellectuals such as Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein, Stefan Zweig, and Hannah Arendt. It was one of the only newspapers to report on the atrocities of the Holocaust during World War II."[19]

In 1941, it published the Aufbau Almanac, a guide to living in the United States that explained the American political system, education, insurance law, the post office and sports.[20] After the war, Aufbau helped families that had been scattered by European battles to reconnect by listing survivors' names.[21] Aufbau‍ '​s offices eventually moved to the Upper West Side. The paper nearly went bankrupt in 2006, but was purchased by Jewish Media AG, and exists today as a monthly news magazine. Its editorial offices are now in Berlin, but it keeps a correspondent in New York.[22]

When the children of the Jewish immigrants to the Hudson Heights area grew up, they tended to leave the neighborhood, and sometimes, the city. By 1960 German Jews accounted for only 16% of the population in Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson.[13] The neighborhood became less overtly Jewish into the 1970s as Soviet immigrants moved to the area. After the Soviet immigration, families from the Caribbean, especially Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, made it their home. So many Dominicans live in Washington Heights that candidates for the presidency of the Dominican Republic campaign in parades in the area.[23]) In the 1980s African-Americans began to moved in, followed shortly by other groups. "Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson" no longer described the area.

Late 20th and early 21st centuries

1980s crime epidemic

Although Washington Heights currently has among the lowest reported crime rates within neighborhoods in Manhattan,[24] it was once very different.

In the 1980s, the area was severely affected by the crack cocaine epidemic, as was the rest of New York City. This was due, in part, to the neighborhood crack gang, known as the Wild Cowboys or the Red Top Gang, who were associated with Santiago Luis Polanco Rodríguez. The Wild Cowboys were responsible for the higher number of crimes, especially murders, during the late 80s and early 90s. Robert Jackall wrote a book, Wild Cowboys: Urban Marauders and the Forces of Order,[25] describing the events that took place during that period of lawlessness. Homelessness was rampant. Washington Heights had become the largest drug distribution center in the Northeastern United States during that time.[26] A housing project in the neighborhood was nicknamed “Crack City,”[27] an epithet commonly bestowed upon rough areas at the time.

Former 32nd Precinct House on 152nd Street, a NYC Landmark

On October 18, 1988, 24-year-old Police Officer Michael Buczek was murdered by Dominican drug dealers in Washington Heights. The killers fled to the Dominican Republic where one later died in police custody and a second was apprehended by U.S. Marshals in 2000. The third suspect was apprehended in the Dominican Republic in May 2002. Fifteen years after the shooting, Pablo Almonte, 51, and Jose Fernandez, 52, received the maximum sentence, 25 years to life, for their roles in the murder of Officer Buczek. Daniel Mirambeaux, the alleged shooter, died in June 1989, plunging to his death under mysterious circumstances after he was ordered turned over to the United States.

In the ensuing years, the Buczek family founded the Michael John Buczek Foundation. There is a street, an elementary school, and a little league baseball field named in honor of Michael John Buczek. The Michael Buczek Little League hosts 30 teams with over 350 boys and girls, and is coached by officers from the 34th precinct.

Urban renewal

Crime fell in the subsequent years. Police presence increased, building landlords allowed police to patrol in apartment buildings, which led to the arrests of thousands of drug dealers a year in Washington Heights. The arrest of police officers involved in drug dealing changed the neighborhood dramatically.[28] People were also being stopped for quality of life crimes. A new police precinct was also added in the area.[26] Today, its crime rate, along with that of neighboring Harlem, is much lower.[29]

Even though crime complaints were down 5.88% in 2007 over 2001 (and down 65.47% from 1993), there were five murders in lower Washington Heights (that is, below W. 178th St.) in 2007.[29] By comparison, in the upper portion of Washington Heights, where the 34th Precinct includes Fort George, Hudson Heights and as well as the separate neighborhood of Inwood, there was only one murder in 2007; likewise, above W. 179th Street, crime complaints were down 21.05% in 2007 over 2001 (and down 83.15% from 1993).[30]

That puts lower Washington Heights on par with Harlem, where the 30th Precinct also recorded five murders in 2007.[31] By comparison, the 13th Precinct (Flatiron District, Stuyvesant Town and Union Square) recorded three murders in 2007[32] and the 20th Precinct (the Upper West Side) recorded none.[33]

By the 2000s, after years when gangsters ruled a thriving illegal drug trade, urban renewal began. Many Dominicans moved to Morris Heights, University Heights, and other West Bronx neighborhoods, as well as Los Angeles, California.[34] While gentrification is often blamed for rapid changes in the neighborhood, the changes in population also reflect the departure of the dominant nationality. Even though Dominicans still make up 73 percent of the neighborhood, their moves to the Bronx have made room for other Hispanic groups, such as Ecuadorians, according to The Latino Data Project of the City University of New York.[35] The proportion of whites in Washington Heights has declined from 18 percent in 1990 to 14 percent in 2005.[36]

In 2011, Washington Heights was the fourth-safest neighborhood in Manhattan, according to one analysis of police records. Its "Crime and Safety Report,"[37] which ranks every neighborhood in the five boroughs, found that the drop in crime in Upper Manhattan led the neighborhood nearly to the top; Inwood ranked third. By comparison, Greenwich Village ranked 68th.

Geography

Washington Heights is on the high ridge in Upper Manhattan that rises steeply north of the narrow valley that carries 133rd Street to the former ferry landing on the Hudson River that served the village of Manhattanville. Though the neighborhood was once considered to run as far south as 133rd Street, modern usage defines the neighborhood as running north from Hamilton Heights at 155th Street to Inwood, topping out at just below Hillside Avenue or Dyckman Street, depending on the source.[38]

The wooded slopes of Washington Heights seen from a sandy cove on the Hudson as they were about 1845 are illustrated in a canvas by John James Audubon's son, Victor Clifford Audubon, conserved by the Museum of the City of New York.[39]

Location of Manhattan's highest point

Fifteen blocks from the northern end of Washington Heights, in its Hudson Heights neighborhood near Pinehurst Avenue and West 183rd Street in Bennett Park, is a plaque marking Manhattan's highest natural elevation, 265 feet (81 m) above sea level, at what was the location of Fort Washington, the Revolutionary War camp of General George Washington and his troops, from whom Washington Heights takes its name.[40]

Sub-neighborhoods

Fort Tryon and Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson, as described above, were ethnic enclaves that existed in Washington Heights at one time or another.

Other enclaves include Hudson Heights, Fort George, and El Alto.

Hudson Heights

Fort Washington Collegiate Church
The Plaza Lafayette provides a panoramic view of Fort Washington Park, the George Washington Bridge, the Hudson River and the New Jersey Palisades

Hudson Heights is generally considered to extend as far east as Broadway,[41][42] although others shrink it to the blocks between Fort Washington Avenue and the Hudson River. The name seems to have stuck starting in the 1990s, when neighborhood real estate brokers and activists started using it.[42]

Neighborhood activists formed a group in late 1992 to help promote the neighborhood[42] and after considering several names, settled on the one that became part of their organization's name: Hudson Heights Owners' Coalition. According to one of the group's founders, real estate brokers didn't start using the name until after the group was formed.[43] Elizabeth Ritter, the president of the owners' group, said that they "didn’t set out to change the name of the neighborhood, but [they] were careful in how [they] selected the name of the organization."[44] "Hudson Heights" actually began to be used as a name for a section of the neighborhood a year later.[43]

The new name replaced the outdated reference to German heritage, which some have criticized, even though the German-speaking population is negligible at best.[45] Although many Russian speakers still live there, Spanish-speakers vastly outnumber the Russophones, and English remains the lingua franca.

Hudson Heights' name has been adopted by such varied entities in the area as arts organizations and businesses. Newspapers from The Wall Street Journal,[46] the New York Times[47] to The Village Voice[48] use the name in reference to the neighborhood, as did The New York Sun,[49] and by Gourmet magazine.[50] Money magazine in its November 2007 article naming Hudson Heights the best neighborhood to retire to in New York City.[51]

Fort George

Hudson Heights is not the only Washington Heights neighborhood with a distinct name. Historically, Fort George runs from Broadway east to the Harlem River, and from West 181st Street north to Dyckman Street. The largest institution in Fort George is Yeshiva University, whose main campus sits east of Amsterdam Avenue in Highbridge Park. A branch of the Young Men's & Women's Hebrew Association is in the neighborhood, and George Washington High School sits on the site of the original Fort George. Fort George Presbyterian Church is on St Nicholas Avenue. One of Manhattan's rare semi-private streets is also there. Washington Terrace runs south of West 186th Street for a half-block between Audubon and Amsterdam Avenues. The single-family homes there were built for middle-class families but some have been unoccupied for years. The M3 and M101 bus routes serve the area.[52]

El Alto

Interestingly, new names for neighborhoods are generally considered to be ersatz creations of real estate agents and, therefore, emblematic of gentrification. However, the newest name for Washington Heights – an alternative, really – comes not from people with dollar signs in their eyes. The Spanish-speaking Caribbean immigrants who have flocked here for decades call Washington Heights a name worthy of its elevation: El Alto.[53]

Points of interest

Parks

Noted sites

Among the Heights' now-vanished riverfront estates was "Minnie's Land", the home of ornithological artist John James Audubon, who is buried in Trinity Church Cemetery churchyard of the neighborhood's Church of the Intercession (1915), a masterpiece by architect Bertram Goodhue. Also buried there is poet Clement Clarke Moore, who wrote "'Twas the Night Before Christmas".

Columbia University Medical Center and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, the medical campus and school, respectively, of Columbia University, lie in the area of 168th Street and Broadway, occupying the former site of Hilltop Park, the home of the New York Highlanders – now known as the New York Yankees – from 1903 to 1912. Across the street is the New Balance Track and Field center, an indoor track and home to the National Track & Field Hall of Fame.

The cloister from Bonnefont-en-Comminges, at The Cloisters

The best known cultural site and tourist attraction in Washington Heights is The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park at the northern end of the neighborhood, with spectacular views across the Hudson to the New Jersey Palisades. This branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is devoted to Medieval art and culture, and is located in a medieval-style building, portions of which were purchased in Europe, brought to the United States, and reassembled.

Audubon Terrace, a cluster of five distinguished Beaux Arts institutional buildings, is home to another major, though little-visited museum, The Hispanic Society of America. The Society has the largest collection of works by El Greco and Goya outside the Museo del Prado, including one of Goya's famous paintings of Cayetana, Duchess of Alba. In September 2007, it commenced a three-year collaboration with the Dia Art Foundation. The campus on Broadway at West 156th Street also houses The American Academy of Arts and Letters, which holds twice yearly, month-long public exhibitions, and Boricua College.

Manhattan's oldest remaining house, the Morris-Jumel Mansion, is located in the landmarked Jumel Terrace Historic District, between West 160th and West 162nd Street, just east of St. Nicholas Avenue. An AAM-accredited historic house museum, the Mansion interprets the colonial era, the period when General George Washington occupied it during the American Revolutionary War, and the early 19th century in New York.

The Paul Robeson Home, located at 555 Edgecombe Avenue on the corner of Edgecombe Avenue and 160th Street, is a National Historic Landmark building. The building is now known for its famous African American residents including actor Paul Robeson, musician Count Basie, and boxer Joe Louis.

Other famous Washington Heights residents include Althea Gibson the first African American Wimbledon Champion, Frankie Lymon of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" fame, Leslie Uggams who was a regular on the Sing Along with Mitch Show. Other musicians who resided in the area for significant periods of time were jazz drummers Tony Williams and Alphonse Muzon and Grammy award winning Guitarist Marlon Graves.

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated during a speech at the Audubon Ballroom, on Broadway at West 165th Street. The interior of the building was demolished, but the Broadway facade remains, incorporated into one of Columbia's Audubon Center buildings. It is now the home of the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center.[55] Several shops, restaurants and a bookstore occupy the first floor.

At the Hudson's shore, in Fort Washington Park[56] stands the Little Red Lighthouse, a small lighthouse located at the tip of Jeffrey's Hook at the base of the eastern pier of the George Washington Bridge. It was made famous by a 1942 children's book and is the site of a namesake festival in the late summer. A 5.85-mile recreational swim finishes there in early autumn.[57] It's also a popular place to watch for peregrine falcons.[58]

Transportation

Bridges

Three of the bridges that cross the Harlem River are visible: High Bridge (foreground); Alexander Hamilton Bridge (middle, behind High Bridge); and the Washington Bridge (background). In this photo, looking north, Manhattan is on the left and the Bronx the right.

Washington Heights is connected to Fort Lee, New Jersey across the Hudson River via the Othmar Ammann-designed George Washington Bridge, the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge.[1] The Pier Luigi Nervi-designed George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal is located at the Manhattan end of the bridge, at West 179th Street and Fort Washington Avenue. Constructed in 1963, the terminal has huge ventilation ducts that look like concrete butterflies from a disttance.[59] Nervi's bust sits in the terminal's lobby.

The Trans-Manhattan Expressway, a portion of Interstate 95, proceeds from the George Washington Bridge in a trench between 178th and 179th Streets. To the east, the Highway leads to the Alexander Hamilton Bridge across the Harlem River to the Bronx and the Cross Bronx Expressway. The Washington Bridge crosses the Harlem River just north of the Alexander Hamilton Bridge. High Bridge is the oldest bridge in New York City still in existence, crossing the river just south of the Alexander Hamilton Bridge at 175th Street in Manhattan. Originally it carried the Croton Aqueduct as part of the New York City water system and later functioned as a pedestrian bridge that has been closed since 1970. On January 11, 2013, mayor Michael Bloomberg broke ground for the redevelopment of the High Bridge as a pedestrian and bicycle bridge, with anticipated completion in 2015.[60]

Elevation changes

Because of their abrupt, hilly topography, pedestrian navigation, particularly in Upper Manhattan and the West Bronx, is facilitated by many step streets.[61] The longest of these in Washington Heights, at approximately 130 stairs, connects Fort Washington Avenue and Overlook Terrace at 187th Street.[62]

Traversal of the elevation change can also be used using the three massive elevators within the 181st Street subway station, with entrances on Overlook Terrace and Fort Washington Avenue.[63] A similar situation exists at 190th Street. When originally built, fare control for both of these stations was in the station house, outside the elevators, which meant that they could only be used by paying a subway fare, but both have had fare control moved down to the mezzanine level, making the elevators free for neighborhood residents to use, and providing easier pedestrian connection between Hudson Heights and the rest of Washington Heights.[64]

Subway

Washington Heights is well served by the New York City Subway. On the IND Eighth Avenue Line, service is available at the 155th Street and 163rd Street – Amsterdam Avenue stations (A C trains), the 168th Street station (1 A C trains), and the 175th Street, 181st Street, and 190th Street stations (A train). Along the IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line, the 1 train stops at 157th Street, 168th Street, 181st Street, and 191st Street.

The 190th Street station contains the subway's only entrance in the Gothic style,[65] although when originally built, it was a plain brick building; the stone facade was added later to bring the building into harmony with the entrance to Fort Tryon Park just across Margaraet Corbin Circle.[64] The station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. The 190th Street station, along with the 191st Street station, has the distinction of being one of the deepest in the entire subway system by distance to ground level.[66] Therefore, the IND 181st Street and 190th Street stations provide elevator connections between Hudson Heights, on the top of the ridge, and the Broadway valley of Washington Heights below. The iRT 191st Street station also has elevators to street level.

Bus

MTA Regional Bus Operations' M2, M3, M4, M5, M98, M100, M101, Bx3, Bx6, Bx7, Bx11, Bx13, Bx35, and Bx36 routes serve the area[52]

Community

Culture

The Art Stroll is an annual festival of the arts that highlights local artists. Public places in Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill host impromptu galleries, readings, performances and markets over several weeks each summer.[67]

Bennett Park is the location of the highest natural point in Manhattan, as well as a commemoration on the west side of the park of the walls of Fort Washington, which are marked in the ground by stones with an inscription that reads: "Fort Washington Built And Defended By The American Army 1776." Land for the park was donated by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the publisher of the New York Herald. His father, James Gordon Bennett, Sr., bought the land and was previously the Herald's publisher. Bennett Park hosts the annual Harvest Festival in September and the children's Halloween Parade – with trick-or-treating afterwards – on All Hallow's Eve.

Many small shops are located on West 181st Street at the southern end of the neighborhood, and all along Broadway. In the middle of the neighborhood itself, there is a small shopping area at West 187th Street between Cabrini Boulevard and Fort Washington Avenue.

News of Upper Manhattan is published weekly in The Manhattan Times, a bilingual newspaper. Its annual restaurant guide, highlights the area's burgeoning restaurant scene. Events are also listed in the Washington Heights & Inwood Online calendar.[68]

Racial makeup

Today the majority of the neighborhood's population is of Dominican birth or descent (the area is sometimes referred to as "Quisqueya Heights"), and Spanish is frequently heard spoken on the streets.[69] Washington Heights has been the most important base for Dominican accomplishment in political, non-profit, cultural, and athletic arenas in the United States since the 1960s. Most of the neighborhood businesses are locally owned.[38] Many Dominican immigrants come to network and live with family members. Bishop Gerard Walsh, former long-time pastor of St. Elizabeth's Roman Catholic Church, located in Washington Heights, said that many residents go to the neighborhood for "cheap housing," to obtain jobs "downtown," to receive a "good education," and "hopefully" to leave the neighborhood.[70]

Before the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in 2001, according to an article in The Guardian, the flight had "something of a cult status in Washington Heights." A woman quoted in the newspaper said "Every Dominican in New York has either taken that flight or knows someone who has. It gets you there early. At home there are songs about it." After the crash occurred, makeshift memorials appeared in Washington Heights.[70]

Arts

Heralding the arts scene north of Central Park is the annual Uptown Arts Stroll. Artists from Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill are featured in public locations throughout upper Manhattan each summer for several weeks. As of 2008, the Uptown Art Stroll is run by Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance.

The Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA), led by Executive Director Sandra A. García Betancourt, was founded in 2007 to support artists and arts organizations in Washington Heights and Inwood. Their stated mission is to cultivate, support and promote the work of artists and arts organizations in Northern Manhattan. In 2008, NoMAA awarded $50,000 in grants to seven arts organizations and 33 artists in the Washington Heights/Inwood art community. NoMAA sponsors community arts events and publishes an email newsletter of all art events in Washington Heights and Inwood.[71]

Sports

Historic

Fort Washington Armory

Five clubs in American professional sports played in the Washington Heights area: the New York Giants, who are now the San Francisco Giants, the New York Mets, the New York Yankees, the Football New York Giants and the New York Jets. The baseball Giants played at the Polo Grounds at West 155th Street and Eighth Avenue from 1911–1957, the Yankees played there from 1913–1922, and the New York Mets played their first two seasons (1962 and 1963) there as well as the Football Giants (1925–1955) and New York Jets (1960–1963).

Before the Yankees played at the Polo Grounds, they played in Hilltop Park on Broadway between 165th and 168th from 1903–1912; at the time they were known as the New York Highlanders. On May 15, 1912, after being heckled for several innings, the great Ty Cobb leaped the fence and attacked his tormentor. He was suspended indefinitely by league president Ban Johnson, but his suspension was eventually reduced to 10 days and $50. One of the most amazing pitching performances of all time took place at Hilltop Park; on September 4, 1908, 20 year-old Walter Johnson shut out New York 3-0 with a five-hitter. The park is now the Columbia University Medical Center, a major hospital complex, which opened on that location in 1928. Washington Heights was the birthplace of Yankee star Alex Rodriguez. Slugger Manny Ramírez grew up in the neighborhood, moving there from the Dominican Republic when he was thirteen years old and attending George Washington High School, where he was one of the nation's top prospects. Hall-of-Fame infielder Rod Carew, a perennial batting champion in the 1970s, also grew up in Washington Heights, having emigrated with his family from Panama at the age of fourteen. The New York Yankee's Lou Gehrig who grew up on 173rd and Amsterdam. He attended the elementary school P.S. 132 on 185th Wadsworth Ave. The Yankee captain lived in Washington Heights for most of his life.

The New York Mets and New York Jets both began play at the Polo Grounds while their future home, Shea Stadium in Queens, was under construction.

Modern

The New Balance Track and Field Center, located in the Fort Washington Avenue Armory, maintains an Olympic-caliber track that is one of the fastest in the world.[72] Starting in January 2012, the Millrose Games will be held there after nearly a century in Madison Square Garden.[73]

In addition, high school and colleges hold meets at the Armory regularly, and it is open to the public, for a fee, for training. The auditorium seats 2,300 people.

Also at the Armory is The National Track and Field Hall of Fame, along with the Charles B. Rangel Technology & Learning Center for children and students in middle school and high school. The facility is operated by the Armory Foundation, which was created in 1993.

The Armory is the starting point for an annual road race founded by Peter M. Walsh, the Coogan’s Salsa, Blues, and Shamrocks 5K, which is run in March.[74] The race is sanctioned by the New York Road Runners, and counts toward a guaranteed starting spot in the New York Marathon.

Mountain bike races take place in Highbridge Park in the spring and summer. Sponsored by the New York City Mountain Bike Association,[75] the races are held on alternate Thursdays and are open to professional competitors and amateurs. Participating in these races is free, but the All-City Cross Country Classic requires a registration fee because prize money is awarded.

Extreme swimmers take part in the Little Red Lighthouse Swim, a 5.85-mile swim in the Hudson River from Clinton Cove (Pier 96) to Jeffrey’s Hook, the location of the Little Red Lighthouse.[76] The annual race, sponsored by the Manhattan Island Foundation, attracts more than 200 competitors. The course records for men and women were both set in 1998. Jeffrey Jotz, 28, of Rahway, N.J., finished in 1 hour, 7 minutes and 36 seconds. Julie Walsh-Arlis, 31, of New York, finished in 1:12:45.

A group of local politicians, sports enthusiasts, and community organizers have, for the past two years, organized an event for children called the "Uptown Games."[77] The event has an aim of "teaching kids at an early age what a pleasure it is to be physically active," according to one of the 2012 organizers, Cliff Sperber, of the New York Road Runners Association.[78] The Uptown Games is held at the Fort Washington Avenue Armory.

Religious institutions

Christian institutions include:

Jewish institutions include:

Education

Colleges and universities

University education includes Yeshiva University and Boricua College. The medical campus of Columbia University hosts the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the College of Dental Medicine, the Mailman School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, and the biomedical programs of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, which offer Masters and Doctorate degrees in several fields. These schools are among the departments that comprise the Columbia University Medical Center.

Despite its name, CUNY in the Heights, the uptown campus of the City University of New York, is not in the Heights, but in Inwood.[79] The CUNY XPress Center, however, is in the Fort George neighborhood of Washington Heights, but it is not a campus. Instead, its purpose is to assist immigrants and to help students enroll in one of the CUNY schools.[80]

Primary and secondary schools

Private primary and secondary schools include Mother Cabrini High School, The School of The Incarnation, The School of Saint Elizabeth, Yeshiva Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, and the City College Academy of the Arts, a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Other private schools include the Herbert G. Birch School for Exceptional Children, Medical Center Nursery School and the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy.

Public primary and secondary schools are assigned to schools in the New York City Department of Education. High Schools include: George Washington High School

The Equity Project is a charter school serving grades 4–6.

Zoned middle schools include:

Grade 6 and 7 option schools include:

Zoned elementary schools include:

Public libraries

Washington Heights Branch of the New York Public Library

New York Public Library operates the Washington Heights Branch at 1000 St. Nicholas Avenue at West 160th Street, and the Fort Washington Branch at 535 West 179th Street at Audubon Avenue.[81] The branch was closed for renovations beginning in April 15, 2010,[82] but it is currently open.[83]

Local newspapers

The Manhattan Times is the bilingual community newspaper serving the Washington Heights and Inwood neighborhoods of Northern Manhattan for the past 10 years. The Manhattan Times is published every Wednesday and is distributed primarily through black street boxes. The Manhattan Times is also available for subscription.

The sections of each edition reflect the interests of the community: Uptown Dining, Real Estate, Health & Fitness, Green Times, and more. The Manhattan Times has created numerous partnerships over the years with local institutions and organizations.

The print version is distributed free on Wednesdays in street boxes, local businesses, nonprofits and residential buildings.

Although the Manhattan times newspaper is only published weekly, news is updated daily on the Manhattan Times website for the local community.

In popular culture

  • The ABC soap opera Ryan's Hope was set in Washington Heights.
  • In the film Citizen Kane, Jedidiah Leland is spending the remainder of his life in the fictitious "Huntington Memorial Hospital" on 180th Street.
  • Parts of the film Salt were filmed here, in particular at the 12-story Riviera, a 1910 Beaux-Arts style co-op on 157th Street and Riverside.
  • The final scene from the film Force of Evil, where Joe Morse discovers the body of his brother near the Hudson River, was filmed on location in the park several yards south of the George Washington Bridge.
  • The Broadway musical In the Heights is set in Washington Heights.
  • CSI: NY Season 2 Episode 16 ("Cool Hunter") features a man found dead in a playground in Washington Heights. Many CSI: NY episodes were filmed in the neighborhood, but located in other neighborhoods in the episodes.
  • The film Pride and Glory takes place in the yet-to-be gentrified streets of Washington Heights.
  • The film Mad Hot Ballroom features students from a school in Washington Heights.
  • The film Die Hard with a Vengeance features the same school as one where a bomb is located.
  • The film The Saint of Fort Washington is not entirely geographically accurate, but is set in the neighborhood, particularly the Fort Washington Avenue Armory and J. Hood Wright park.
  • The song "Halloween Parade" by Lou Reed mentions "a crack team from Washington Heights"
  • The film Coogan's Bluff features a scene where Clint Eastwood chases the criminal he is to bring back to Arizona through the Cloisters.
  • The film How to Marry a Millionaire features the George Washington Bridge entering into Washington Heights when Waldo Brewster, a grumpy businessman (Fred Clark), and Loco Dempsey (Betty Grable), driving back into Manhattan from the "Elks Lodge", are pulled over by motorcycle cops so the bridge commission can recognize "the lucky couple" as the occupants of the bridge's 50th millionth vehicle.
  • The 2002 movie Washington Heights starring Manny Perez is the story of a young illustrator trying to escape to the cultural barriers of the Latino neighborhood of Washington heights.
  • The film The Brave One, with Jodie Foster, was filmed in some sections of Washington Heights; she and her boyfriend are attacked in a scene filmed in Fort Tryon Park, and the final scene with Terrence Howard was filmed on Elwood Street between Broadway and Nagle Avenue.
  • The film Get Rich or Die Tryin', with rapper/actor Curtis Jackson, includes scenes filmed in Inwood/Washington Heights, including the scenes that featured "young 50 Cent" filmed in and around 207th street as well as 159th and Riverside.
  • In the song "Broadway Baby" from the musical Follies, aging chorus girl Hattie wishes she could be a star all over Manhattan, "from Battery Park to Washington Heights!"
  • In the song "Shiksa Goddess" from the musical The Last Five Years, Jewish romantic lead Jamie Wellerstein states that he had "Shabbas dinners on Friday nights with every Shapiro in Washington Heights!"
  • The song "This Is Why I'm Hot" by MIMS has the line "I hit Wash Heights with the money in the bag".
  • The song "A-Punk" by the band Vampire Weekend mentions Washington Heights.
  • The Showtime series Weeds features Washington Heights as the location of Nancy Botwin's halfway house in Season 7.
  • The film American Gangster, was filmed in some sections of Washington Heights.
  • The film Frances Ha, ends with the main character moving to Washington Heights.

Notable residents

Notable current and former residents of Washington Heights include:

References

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Port Authority of New York and New Jersey – George Washington Bridge". The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Retrieved September 13, 2013.
  2. ↑ Bod Woodruff, Lana Zak, and Stephanie Wash (November 20, 2012). "GW Bridge Painters: Dangerous Job on Top of the World's Busiest Bridge". ABC News. Retrieved September 13, 2013.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Burrows & Wallace (1999), p.448
  4. ↑ "The Battle of Fort Washington, Revolutionary War" on AmericanRevolution.org
  5. ↑ Jenkins, Stephen. The Greatest Street in the World: The Story of Broadway, Old and New, from the Bowling Green to Albany, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1911. p.36
  6. ↑ It appears as "Fort Knyphausen" on the British Headquarters map of c. 1781 that was the starting point for Eric W. Sanderson, Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City 2009: 48, et passim.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Burrows & Wallace (1999), p.232
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Renner, James, Images of America: Washington Heights, Inwood, and Marble Hill. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2007.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Fierstein, Sanna. Naming New York: Manhattan Places and How They Got Their Names, New York: New York University Press, 2001. p.170
  10. ↑ "C.K.G. Billings Sells Famous Tryon Hall: Prominent New Yorker, Whose Name is Withheld, Buys Riverside Drive Estate; Mansion Cost $2,000,000 – Built on Site of Fort of Revolutionary Frame, the House is One of New York's Show Places", New York Times (January 4, 1917) p. 22. Accessed June 4, 2009
  11. ↑ Renner, James. "C.K.G. Billings", on the Hudson Heights Owners Coalition website Accessed June 4, 2009.
  12. ↑ Van Dine, S.S. The Dragon Murder Case. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1934.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Bennet, James. "The Last of Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson: A Staunch, Aging Few Stay On as Their World Evaporates" New York Times (August 27, 1992)
  14. ↑ Lowenstein (1989), p.18
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Lowenstein (1989) pp.42–44
  16. ↑ "Hudson Heights Climbing to the Next Level" New York Sun
  17. ↑ Ressig, Volker. Frankfurt on the hudson, oder: Die Liebe für Amerika, die Sehnsucht für Europa (Trans.: "Frankfurt on the Hudson, Or: The love for America, the longing for Europe.") Körber-Stiftung.
  18. ↑ "Inwood/Washington Heights" Immigrant Heritage Trail
  19. ↑ "A Jewish Journal Reborn in Berlin" German Embassy in Washington, D.C
  20. ↑ Lowenstein (1989), p.51
  21. ↑ Blake, Maria. "Second Life." Columbia Journalism Review, Vol. XLVII, No. 2, July/August 2008, p. 12.
  22. ↑ Aufbau, Das Jüdische Monatsmagazin
  23. ↑ "Washington Heights" Columbia 250
  24. ↑ , accessed 23 February 2012
  25. ↑ "Wild Cowboys: Urban Marauders & the Forces of Order", Amazon.com. Retrieved 30-01-2007.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 In Washington Heights, Drug War Survivors Reclaim Their Stoops, accessed November 5, 2006
  27. ↑ “... a housing project in New York City's Washington Heights section, nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war ...” Jim Kouri. Retrieved 31-01-2008
  28. ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DB163DF930A15755C0A964958260 query.nytimes.com
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 CompStat, 33rd Precinct. Police Department, City of New York
  30. ↑ CompStat, 34th Precinct. Police Department, City of New York
  31. ↑ CompStat, 30th Precinct. Police Department, City of New York
  32. ↑ CompStat, 13th Precinct. Police Department, City of New York
  33. ↑ CompStat, 20th Precinct. Police Department, City of New York
  34. ↑ Fernandez, Manny. "New Winds at an Island Outpost." The New York Times. March 4, 2007. 1.
  35. ↑ “Northern Manhattan Gentrifying? Study says no.” The Manhattan Times, Vol. 9, December 11, 2008, p. 3
  36. ↑ “The Latino Population of New York City, 2007,” Report 20, Dec. 2008, Center for Latin American, Caribbean & Latino Studies, City University of New York.
  37. ↑ , accessed 22 February 2012
  38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 Nguyen, Pauline and Sanchez, Josephine. "Ethnic Communities in New York City: Dominicans in Washington Heights", New York University. Accessed May 21, 2007. "Washington Heights stretches roughly thirty-five blocks across the northern tip of Manhattan island. It encompasses a broad tract of land, taking in 160th Street to about 189th Street and all that lies between the wide avenues of Broadway, St. Nicholas Boulevard, and Fort Washington Avenue. The majority of its occupants are the smiling, chestnut-skinned immigrants of the Dominican Republic, whose steady arrival accounts for 7 percent of New York City's total population, and makes up its highest immigrant group."
  39. ↑ Illustrated in Sanderson 2000:69.
  40. ↑ New York Department of Parks and Recreation: Bennett Park, accessed June 24, 2006
  41. ↑ "Our boundaries are ... west of Broadway." Hudson Heights Owners' Coalition. hhoc.org
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 42.2 42.3 Garb, Maggie. "If You're Thinking of Living In Hudson Heights: High Above Hudson, a Crowd of Co-ops,", The New York Times, November 8, 1998. "It is situated west of Broadway ..."
  43. ↑ 43.0 43.1 Calabi, Marcella and Ritter, Elizabeth Lorris. "How Hudson Heights Got Its Name" Hudson Heights Guide, (October 29, 2010)
  44. ↑ Harris, Elizabeth A. "Living in Hudson Heights: An Aerie Straight Out of the Deco Era". New York Times (October 16, 2009) Accessed March 7, 2010.)
  45. ↑ "Profile of Selected Social Characteristics: 2000; Census Tract 273, New York County, New York, Language Spoken at Home" United States Census Bureau. Accessed June 4, 2009; and "Profile of Selected Social Characteristics: 2000; Census Tract 275, New York County, New York, Language Spoken at Home" United States Census Bureau Accessed June 4, 2009
  46. ↑ Mokha, Kavita Mokha. "Hudson Heights Pumps More-for-Less Theme" Wall Street Journal (April 8, 2011). Accessed April 13, 2011.
  47. ↑ Eligon, John. "In Hudson Heights, A Bid to Keep the Economy's Woes from Becoming Their Own", New York Times (April 22, 2008) Accessed June 4, 2009.
  48. ↑ Schlesinger, Toni. "NY Mirror: Studio in Hudson Heights", The Village Voice (January 1, 2002). Accessed June 4, 2009.
  49. ↑ "Hudson Heights Climbing to the Next Level" The New York Sun
  50. ↑ Diaz, Junot. "He'll Take El Alto" Gourmet (September 2007) Accessed: June 4, 2009
  51. ↑ "New York – Best Place to Retire: Hudson Heights" Money (November 2007)
  52. ↑ 52.0 52.1 Manhattan Bus Map
  53. ↑ http://www.warburgrealty.com/blog/?p=2841
  54. ↑ Dunlap, David W. "A Medical Center Works on Its Health", The New York Times, October 4, 1998. Accessed July 15, 2008.
  55. ↑ Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial & Educational Center.
  56. ↑ Fort Washington Park, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
  57. ↑ Little Red Lighthouse Swim, Manhattan Island Foundation
  58. ↑ Fort Washington Park: Peregrine Falcons in New York City, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
  59. ↑ White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot with Leadon, Fran (2010). AIA Guide to New York City (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195383867., p.570
  60. ↑ "NYC to Restore the High Bridge Over Harlem River"
  61. ↑ STEP STREETS, Forgotten NY
  62. ↑ Step street at Google. "187th Street" (Map). Google Maps. Google.
  63. ↑
  64. ↑ 64.0 64.1 Guided tour, Fort Tryon Park Cottage (October 11, 2014)
  65. ↑ "Down In the Hole, Forgotten NY Subways & Trains" on Forgotten New York
  66. ↑ "The Deepest and Highest Subway Stations in NYC: 191st St, 190th Street, Smith & 9th" on Untapped Cities (June 26, 2013)
  67. ↑ Uptown Art Stroll website Accessed June 4, 2009
  68. ↑ "Calendar" on Washington Heights & Inwood Online
  69. ↑ Fernandez, Manny. "New Winds at an Island Outpost". The New York Times, March 4, 2007. Accessed May 21, 2007. "Dominicans, in fact, increased as a percentage of the total population in Washington Heights and Inwood, from 43 percent in 1990 to 53 percent in 2005."
  70. ↑ 70.0 70.1 Younge, Gary. "Flight to the death: Just two months after 9/11, a Queens suburb suffered the second-worst plane crash in US history. Five years on, residents tell Gary Younge, the cause remains worryingly unresolved ", The Guardian, November 11, 2006. Accessed January 24, 2008.
  71. ↑ Manhattan Times Profile: Sandra García Betancourt: Creating a Masterpiece
  72. ↑ History, Armory Track and Field Foundation
  73. ↑ Wayne Coffey. "Millrose Games, after almost 100 years at Madison Square Garden, will be held at The Armory in 2012," The New York Daily News, May 12, 2011.
  74. ↑ Coogan's Salsa, Blues and Shamrocks 5K, New York Road Runners
  75. ↑ New York City Mountain Bike Association
  76. ↑ Manhattan Island Foundation
  77. ↑ 500 students expected to take part in second Uptown Games at New Balance Track & Field Center at the Armory. NY Daily News. Retrieved on 2013-07-23.
  78. ↑ First “Uptown Games” promote active lifestyle for local youths | APRIL 04,2012. Manhattantimesnews.com (2012-04-04). Retrieved on 2013-07-23.
  79. ↑ "108 Cooper St. at (West) 207 th St." CUNY in the Heights, Adult and Continuing Education Department.
  80. ↑ CUNY Citizenship & Immigration Project
  81. ↑ "Washington Heights Branch." New York Public Library. Retrieved on December 22, 2008.
  82. ↑ Celebrate Brooklyn! 2011. Nyc-Arts. Retrieved on 2013-07-23.
  83. ↑ Washington Heights Library | The New York Public Library | The New York Public Library. Nypl.org (2013-08-27). Retrieved on 2013-09-07.
  84. ↑ Nelson, Amy K. "Alvarez following in some famous footsteps", ESPN.com, June 3, 2008. Accessed June 10, 2008. "In just a few days, Montas and the entire Washington Heights community anticipate that their native son, Pedro Alvarez, a star third baseman for Vanderbilt University, will be the highest player ever drafted from the upper Manhattan neighborhood of New York City."
  85. ↑ Mickle, Tripp. "At George Washington High School, Beisbol is a Hit", New Media Workshop at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Accessed May 21, 2007. "Since the mid-1980s, the school has produced two World Series winners in the Major Leagues: Manny Ramírez of the Boston Red Sox and former Florida Marlins shortstop Alex Arias."
  86. ↑ Author / Illustrator. Jerry Craft. Retrieved on 2013-07-23.
  87. ↑ "This Week In Baseball History – Week ending 10/5", Sporting News, October 8, 2007. Accessed June 10, 2008. "In 1958, the Carew family migrated to America and settled in the Washington Heights section of New York City."
  88. ↑ Gonzalez-Andino, Heriberto. "Rapero Don Dinero se presenta hoy en NJ", El Diario La Prensa, July 27, 2005. Accessed June 7, 2007. "Mientras el reggaet?n ha irrumpido con fuerza en el mercado musical, Don Dinero se mantiene fiel en el hip hop."
  89. ↑ Times Topics: People – Jim Dwyer, The New York Times. Accessed June 28, 2007. "Born and raised in the city, Jim is the son of Irish immigrants. For the last 30 years, he has lived in Washington Heights with his family."
  90. ↑ Staff. "Hudson Heights delivers", New York Daily News, March 7, 2008. Accessed March 20, 2008. "Hudson Heights continues to deliver on big space, river views and affordable apartments. And celebrities. Actor Laurence Fishburne lives in historic Castle Village overlooking the Hudson."
  91. ↑ Weiss, Dick. "Flores, from Dominican Republic, takes unusual journey.", New York Daily News, March 20, 2004. Accessed June 7, 2007. "Luis Flores never figured his future would be in basketball when he was growing up in San Pedro de Marcos, a Dominican Republic hotbed for major league baseball prospects.... But all that changed when his parents sent him from that sun-drenched Caribbean island to live with his grandparents Basilio and Juanita Flores in Washington Heights when he was just 8 years old. "
  92. ↑
  93. ↑ Bruce Hooton 1965 Interview of Elias Goldberg at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art
  94. ↑ Martin, Justin. "Greenspan: The Man Behind the Money", Perseus Publishing. Accessed June 7, 2007. "A few years prior to the great stock market crash of 1929, Alan Greenspan's parents moved into an apartment in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan."
  95. ↑ Half The Song! Half The Dance And OUT!
  96. ↑ Jacon K. Javits Playground, accessed December 27, 2006. "Jacob Javits was born on the Lower East Side to Russian Jewish parents. He lived variously in Brooklyn and Manhattan, including this neighborhood, on West 192nd Street, when he was 15."
  97. ↑ Cold War Files: Henry Kissinger, accessed December 27, 2006. "He spent his high-school years in the Washington Heights section of upper Manhattan but never lost his pronounced German accent. Kissinger attended George Washington High School at night and worked in a shaving-brush factory during the day."
  98. ↑ Kaplan, Thomas. "Paul Kolton, Who Led the American Stock Exchange, Dies at 87", The New York Times, October 29, 2010. Accessed October 29, 2010.
  99. ↑ Morse, Stephen S. "Joshua Lederberg (1925–2008)", Science (magazine), March 7, 2008, vol 319, p. 1351.
  100. ↑ Broad, William J. "Joshua Lederberg, 82, a Nobel Winner, Dies", The New York Times, February 5, 2008. Accessed April 22, 2008. "Dr. Lederberg was born May 23, 1925, in Montclair, N.J., to Zvi Hirsch Lederberg, a rabbi, and the former Esther Goldenbaum, who had emigrated from what is now Israel two years earlier. His family moved to the Washington Heights section of Manhattan when he was 6 months old."
  101. ↑ Sinclair, Tom. "Still a Marvel! Meet Stan Lee: The mind behind Spider-Man and Hulk. EW talks with the legend who rewrote the book on comics in the '60s, and planted seeds for today's biggest summer movies", Entertainment Weekly, June 20, 2003. Accessed June 7, 2007. "To fully understand how Lee, a poor Jewish kid from New York's Washington Heights, came to be the Munificent Monarch of the Mighty Marvel Universe, we must journey back through the mists of time, all the way to the first quarter of the last century, to reveal...the Origin of Stan Lee!"
  102. ↑ Sanneh, Kelefa. "In Search of New York at a Hip-Hop Summit", The New York Times, June 5, 2007. Accessed June 7, 2007. "Sometime around 6:30 the Washington Heights-raised rapper Mims ? better known as the ?This Is Why I?m Hot? guy ? hit the stage to tell the crowd why he is hot. (It?s related somehow to his flyness.)"
  103. ↑ DaSouth.com (July 28, 2011). "Reach Records announces signing of Andy "C-Lite" Mineo at Legacy Conference". DaSouth. Retrieved December 5, 2012.
  104. ↑ "Andy Mineo's Biography". Reach Records Website. Reach Records. Retrieved December 5, 2012.
  105. ↑ Guzman, Sandra. "'MANNY' OF THE YEAR: DOMINICAN ACTOR PEREZ IS SET TO STAR IN A DOZEN (!) NEW MOVIES", The New York Post, August 8, 2007. Accessed September 23, 2007. "Perez, who was raised in Providence, Rhode Island, where most of his family still lives, decided long ago that he was not moving to Los Angeles to make it. He lives in and loves Washington Heights."
  106. ↑ Biography of Freddie Prinze, Museum of Broadcast Communications , accessed January 3, 2007.
  107. ↑ Rankin website bio, Accessed August 4, 2011. "Growing up in the multicultural hotbed of New York's Washington Heights neighborhood, he absorbed a broad array of musical influences, from AfroCuban to Top 40 to Jazz to Brazilian."
  108. ↑ "Head of Production – Manny Ramírez, baseball player for the Red Sox – Statistical Data Included", Baseball Digest, August, 2001 by Gordon Edes. "For a Dominican kid who grew up in the non-trendy side of Manhattan—that upper end of the island known as Washington Heights—Manny Ramírez tends to have his name dropped in the same sentence as the game's biggest stars, past and present, and isn't out of place in their company."
  109. ↑ "Alex Rodriguez: he arrived in New York to cries of both "Hallelujah!" and "Is he worth it?" but after his bumpy, bruised beginnings in the Bronx, baseball's heavy-hitting superstar has hit his stride", Interview (magazine), July 2004. "The kid who was born in Washington Heights, New York City, and grew up in Miami had no doubts about handling the pressure in a town where movie stars are second-class citizens to top-tier ballplayers."
  110. ↑ Sandomir, Richard. "Daffy Days of Brooklyn Return for Vin Scully", The New York Times, October 5, 2006. Accessed May 21, 2007. "Scully?s lyrical voice has belonged to Los Angeles for so long that only older fans can recall Scully?s time with the Dodgers in Brooklyn from 1950 to 1957 after growing up in the Bronx and in Washington Heights. His last known address in New York was 869 West 180th Street; he took the subway to Ebbets Field during his first Dodgers season."
  111. ↑ Boland Jr., Ed. "F.Y.I.", The New York Times, June 15, 2003. Accessed December 3, 2007. "An article about TAKI 183, which appeared in The New York Times on July 21, 1971, revealed that he was a 17-year-old who lived on 183rd Street in Washington Heights."
  112. ↑ Dr. Ruth: The Private Parts, accessed December 27, 2006. "Dr. Ruth and her husband, Fred Westheimer, still reside in the same three-bedroom apartment in Washington Heights where they raised their two children."
  113. ↑ Kahn, Ashley. "Jerry Wexler: The Man Who Invented Rhythm & Blues: Aretha Franklin producer, Atlantic Records co-chief and music business pioneer dies at age 91", Rolling Stone, August 15, 2008. Accessed August 17, 2008. "He was born Gerald Wexler in 1917 to a working class family, and grew up during the Depression in the upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights."

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Washington Heights, Manhattan.