Hudson Heights

Children play and seniors gather in Bennett Park, whose rock outcropping, at left, is the highest spot on Manhattan. General Washington's fort was here in 1776; the parallel stone paths, lower right, mark the location of its original walls.

     Most of the neighborhood was built at the end of the turn of the last century. The architectural details of Hudson Heights apartment buildings hint at the era. Gargoyles, turrets and Gothic-style facades are whimsical reminders of the past, with Art Deco and neo-Classical designs representing styles popular at the time. The New York Times composed this slide show of the architecture and people.

Neighborhood denizens.

     As with most New York neighborhoods, the boundaries are inexact. Broadly speaking, Hudson Heights is bounded on the south by the George Washington Bridge and to the north by Fort Tryon Park; to the east by Broadway and by the Hudson River to the west. Along with Fort George and Sherman Creek, it’s one of several smaller neighborhoods within Washington Heights, Manhattan’s biggest neighborhood in area and population. According to the 2000 census, 208,400 people live here. The September 20, 2007, issue of Time Out New York ranked Washington Heights Number 3 in its list of neighborhoods with New York soul.

     The area was called Lang Berge (Long Hill) by Dutch settlers until the 18th century, when it become home to Fort Washington and Fort Tryon during the Revolutionary War. In the years following World War I the neighborhood was referred to as both Fort Washington and Fort Tryon, both of which had become names of parks. "Fort Tryon" lives on in the Not For Tourists Guide to New York City, the Tryon Towers apartments on Pinehurst Avenue, and at the Fort Tryon Jewish Center.

    Starting in the late 1930s, the area was called Frankfurt-on- the-Hudson because of the tight community of German Jews who settled here, including a disproportionate number from Frankfurt-am- Main. Given New Yorkers' penchant for making clever abbreviations from their neighborhoods' names, we're lucky no one thought to shorten the German reference to FrOTH.

     Not that name changes have stopped. In the last couple of decades immigrants from the Caribbean moved in; they refer to Washington Heights as El Alto.

The Fort Washington Collegiate Church at Advent.

     In 1993 the Hudson Heights Owners' Coalition was formed, taking the credit for adopting the area's new name. It may have been suggested by a line written in 1992 by James Bennet, who published it in an essay in The New York Times: "... a community ... where breezes from the Hudson blow across the rocky heights that helped give the area its name."

     Today Hudson Heights is home to a growing number of artists, professionals and families, and retains its strong flavors from the Domi- nican Republic and the nations of the Russian Federation. Boundaries are melting throughout the neighborhood, as The New York Times reports.

Outdoors

Atop Bennett Park.

     Residents love the parks. The closest is Bennett Park, pictured above (and at the top of this page), with a children’s playground and the distinction of being the highest natural point in Manhattan, at 265’ 5” above sea level. The park is the locus for children’s events, including the Fall Harvest Festival and the Hudson Heights Halloween parade. Historically, it was the location of Fort Washington when the British attacked Manhattan in 1776. It is from this spot that the Continental Army retreated north after the Battle of Fort Washington in November 1776.

Our two most famous landmarks in Fort Washington Park.

     Fort Washington Park begins where Riverside Park ends, with a bike trail from Hudson Heights to the Battery. In our neighborhood, the park is home to peregrine falcons, the monarch butterfly, tennis courts, basketball courts, and the Little Red Lighthouse of  storybook fame. The light- house is the focal point of an annual children’s festival. It's also opened occasionally on summer weekends; check our Events page for the next chance to climb to the top.

     Fort Tryon Park's commanding views were key to both sides during the Revolutionary War, with cannons placed along its promon- tories. A century ago the millionaire Cornelius Billings kept a Victorian pastry of a country estate in the park, which had its own 1,600-foot driveway. These days, the spot provides unmatched views of the Hudson River and the Palisades on the New Jersey shore. IThe park is also the site of the annual historical re-enactment of the Battle of Fort Washington (which actually occurred on the present-day Bennett Park, above).

   There’s plenty more there today than a battle site. The New York City Parks Department ranks it as a Flagship Park, entitling it to greater resources. Among the benefits is the Heather Garden, where amateur botanists join park professionals in keeping the plantings resplendent year-round. Nestled inside a Depression-era home is the New Leaf Café, a non-profit restaurant operated by the New York Restoration Project, which was founded by Bette Midler in 1995.

A dolphin fountain entertains children.

     The Dolphin Park is a children's park two short blocks from our front door. Properly called the George Washington Bridge Park, its familiar name comes from the life-size dolphin sprinkler inside. This sliver of a park is limited to young children and their care-givers, and also offers a sandbox and swing set. It opens in the spring, and is always staffed by volunteers from the West 181 Street Beautification Project. The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey owns the park.

Crowds always attends the Dog-o-ween costume contest.

     The nearest dog run is in J. Hood Wright Park, on Fort Wash- ington Avenue between West 176th and 174th Streets. Located at the west end of the park, the run allows dogs to spend some time off the leash. A group of dog owners runs the J. Hood Wright Canine Club, which sponsors events and promotes the improvement of the park.
     Find out more about neighborhood dogs at FtDog, a site devoted to Fort Tryon Park, and Inwoof, covering Inwood.

     The area of the Wright Park for humans includes handball, volley- ball, and basketball courts, restrooms, a children's playground with a giant model of the George Washington Bridge, and a "tot lot" play- ground just for toddlers.

     To the north of Hudson Heights is Inwood Hill Park, the only natural forest left on Manhattan. It's an excellent spot for birding and hikes. The park is also the location, according to legend, of the pur- chase of Manhattan. In 1626, the story goes, Peter Minuit, a Dutchman, visited the principal Indian village on the island and bought Manhattan for goods worth about 60 guilders.

Restaurants, Retail and Relaxation

Restaurants and shops fill the street along West 181st St.

     More and more options for spending time, and money, in the neigh- borhood keep opening. The dining scene has been profiled in Gourmet (November 2007), which featured its Dominican roots, and the Michelin Guide, which in 2006 recommended the New Leaf Café as a “cozy getaway” where the kitchen has “creative instincts.” The bar hosts Friday night jazz performances.

              JESSICA ANTOLA/New York Magazine   

Shave, haircut and a walk-in humidor
at the neighborhood cigar shop

     Lively retail activity on 181st  and 187th Streets includes several restaurants (organic, Mexican, sushi, and pizza slices, among others), a wine bar, a Pilates studio, a millinery, and a cigar shop complete with walk-in humidor. Even more stores line Broadway and St. Nicolas Avenue, retail activity that will be supplemented by an overhaul of the shops at the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal. 

A milliner's window on 181st St.

     Hudson Heights is the home of the only movie theater north of 125th Street, Coliseum Cinemas. When it opened, as the RKO Coliseum, its 3,000-seat auditorium made it the third-largest movie theater in the United States. The house has been subdivided, allowing four screens. Devotées of independent film can join other cinéasts at monthly screenings of off-beat films near Bennett Park.

     On Broadway at 176th Street is the United Palace, originally one of three Loew's Wonder Theaters in New York. It now hosts church services on Sundays and concerts the rest of the week. The Allman Brothers' annual New York residency starts there in this week; Elvis Costello plays in April; and Mark Knopfler performs in May.
     Since 2007, performers have included B. B. King, Vampire Weekend, Bob Dylan, Monsters of Folk, Sonic Youth, Beck, the Baltimore Symphony performing Bernstein's Mass, Sigur Rós, Chick Corea, Ani Di Franco, Widespread Panic, Björk, The Arcade Fire, and Sir Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in The Rite of Spring.

     The lively arts abound outdoors in the summer. The Gorilla Repertory presents Shakespeare in Fort Tryon Park, while the Inwood Shakespeare Festival, in Inwood Hill Park, features opera, musicals and children's productions in addition to a selection from Shakespeare. In the late summer, Curious Frog, a curious name for a theatrical group, stages plays from antiquity and -- that's right -- Shakespeare. One troupe, Pied Piper, focuses on children.

     If plays are not your thing, visit this list of cultural events at museums, galleries and parks in Hudson Heights, Fort George, Sherman Creek and Audubon Park. It includes college sports in Inwood, Fort George and Lower Washington Heights.

The Beaux Arts campus of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
and the Hispanic Society of America, c. 1950.

     To the south of Hudson Heights is the American Academy of Arts and Letters, whose purpose "is to foster and sustain an interest in Literature, Music, and the Fine Arts by identifying and encouraging individual artists." Founded in 1898, the academy has 250 members. You can visit its grand Beaux Arts buildings, on Audubon Terrace, west of Broadway between West 155th and 156th Streets, when it opens for its two annual exhibitions.

     The Academy shares space on Audubon Terrace with the Hispanic Society of America. Its museum and library are free and open to the public. "The collections of the Hispanic Society are unparalleled in their scope and quality outside the Iberian Peninsula," the Society says.
     The society's museum is undergoing a two-month renovation and will reopen in early May (the date was postponed two months). The library remains open, but call ahead to verify its hours.

Resources

     Trinity Cemetery lies one block south of Audubon Terrace at Broadway between West 154th and 155th Streets. In 1824 Trinity Parish bought the land from John James Audubon, the naturalist. He is buried here, along with Clement Clarke Moore, a professor of Classics at Union Theological Seminary who is best known for writing A Visit From Saint Nicholas (1822). Most people recognize the poem as The Night Before Christmas. The tomb of Charles Dickens's son, Alfred Tennyson Dickens, is here, and many members of the Astor family, including John Jacob Astor, lie here as well. The cemetery was declared a historic landmark in 1969.

Learn about the history of our neighborhood.   

     The busiest bridge in the world crosses the Hudson River. In 2007, more than 108 million vehicles crossed the steel structure. Built in 1931, it even has a minor role in Citizen Kane. Le Corbusier called it "the only seat of grace in the disordered city." But remarkably little has been written about until now, with The George Washington Bridge: Poetry in Steel. Michael Aaron Rockland traces its history from the planning stage (when it was "The Bridge from Fort Washington to Fort Lee," reflecting an earlier name for our neighborhood and no name for the GWB) to the post-9/11 mentality. It was published in 2008 by Rivergate Books.

     An exhaustive collection of photographs of upper Manhattan has been put together in Washington Heights, Inwood, and Marble Hill, above left, a pictorial history edited by James Renner. Images of architectural sites, parks, historical markers, and aerial views are described by Renner, a member of the Washington Heights-Inwood Historical Society who lives in the area. (He also wrote the entry about Trinity Cemetery that's linked to above.) Published in 2007, you can order it from Arcadia Publishing.

     For a scholarly study on the demographics of Washington Heights, read Frankfurt on the Hudson: The German Jewish Community of Washington Heights, 1933-82, Its Structure and Culture, above right. The author, Prof. Stephen M. Lowenstein, grew up in Hudson Heights when it was known as Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson. His book traces the area's changes, from the time it was known as Fort Tryon through the twilight of German influence. It was published in 1989 by Wayne State University Press. 

Fictional depictions come with and without pictures.

     Junot Díaz wrote a novel about an overweight computer nerd who lives in New Jersey, Washington Heights, and the Dominican Republic. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, above left, tells the story of a young Dominicano who is an aspiring science fiction writer, which garnered a Pulitzer Price for Fiction this year. It was published in 2007 by Riverhead Books.

    A children's classic, The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge, above right, tells the story of an important little guy whose purpose is eliminated when a massive steel structure, festooned with lights, is built above it. Jeffrey's Hook is the setting, and (spoiler alert!) the George Washington Bridge becomes the lighthouse's friend. By Hildegarde H. Swift with the memorable illustrations of Lynd Ward. It is published by Harcourt Children's Books.

     Teach your children pedestrian safety and bike safety at Safety City, a program sponsored by the New York City Department of Trans- portation. Free classes are available for children aged 5 through 14 at 672 W. 158 Street.

     One of the nation’s most respected teaching hospitals is down Fort Washington Avenue at 168th Street. The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons is among the medical faculties at the New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. The college’s web site hosts an exhaustive neighborhood guide. It’s somewhat outdated, but gives plenty of useful details about the neigh- borhood's offerings, including parking, child care, and religious services. (Note that it’s a pdf download.)

The George Washington Bridge "is the only seat of grace
in the disordered city."  So said Le Corbusier.

     Find out current information from The Pinehurst's Events page, and our neighborhood weekly newspaper, The Manhattan Times, which is published in English and Spanish. Be sure to check its annual res- taurant review.

     The Hudson Heights Owners Coalition maintains a list of businesses and organizations our neighborhood, while the Wash- ington Heights and Inwood Online calendar covers all of Upper Manhattan.