Hudson Heights is a residential neighborhood of the Washington Heights area of

Upper Manhattan Upper Manhattan is the most northern region of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its southern boundary has been variously defined, but some of the most common usages are 96th Street, the northern boundary of Central Park (110th Street), ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Most of the residences are in apartment buildings, many of which are

cooperatives A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...

, and most were constructed in the 1920s through 1940s. The

Art Deco style Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

is prominent, along with

Tudor Revival Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

. Notable complexes include

Hudson View Gardens Hudson View Gardens is a cooperative apartment complex located on Pinehurst Avenue and Cabrini Boulevard in the near vicinity of West 183rd and 185th Streets, located in the Hudson Heights subsection of the Washington Heights neighborhood in Ma ...

and

Castle Village __NOTOC__ Castle Village is a five-building cooperative apartment complex located on Cabrini Boulevard between West 181st and 186th Streets in the Hudson Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1938–1939 by ...

, which were both developed by Dr.

Charles V. Paterno Charles Vincent Paterno (born Canio Paternò, August 4, 1878 – May 30, 1946) was an Italian-born American real estate developer. He was called the "Napoleon of the Manhattan Skyscraper Builders". Life and career Born in Castelmezzano, in th ...

, and were designed by

George F. Pelham George Frederick Pelham (1867 – February 7, 1937) was an American architect and the son of George Brown Pelham, who was also an architect. Life and career Pelham was born in Ottawa, Ontario, coming to New York City when his father open ...

and his son, George F. Pelham, Jr., respectively. The neighborhood is located on a plateau on top of a high bluff overlooking both the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

on the west and the Broadway valley of Washington Heights on the east, and includes the highest natural point in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, located in Bennett Park. At above sea level, it is a few dozen feet lower than the torch on the

Statue of Liberty The Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''; French: ''La Liberté éclairant le monde'') is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the United States. The copper statue, ...

. At the northern end of the neighborhood, where Cabrini Boulevard meets Fort Washington Avenue at Margaret Corbin Circle, is

Fort Tryon Park Fort Tryon Park is a public park located in the Hudson Heights and Inwood neighborhoods of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The park is situated on a ridge in Upper Manhattan, close to the Hudson River to the west. It extends most ...

, conceived by

John D. Rockefeller Jr. John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 – May 11, 1960) was an American financier and philanthropist, and the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in M ...

, designed by the

Olmsted Brothers The Olmsted Brothers company was a landscape architectural firm in the United States, established in 1898 by brothers John Charles Olmsted (1852–1920) and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (1870–1957), sons of the landscape architect Frederick Law O ...

, and given to the city by Rockefeller in 1931.Kuhn, Jonathan. "Fort Tryon Park" in , p.473 The park contains within it

The Cloisters The Cloisters, also known as the Met Cloisters, is a museum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. The museum, situated in Fort Tryon Park, specializes in European medieval art and architecture, with a fo ...

– also conceived of by Rockefeller – which houses the

Medieval art The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, ge ...

collection of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Boundaries and geography

Similar to many other neighborhoods that are undergoing gentrification in New York City, this Washington Heights area was renamed by real estate brokers in the 1990s to sound more appealing to a different type of community than was attracted to the main part of Washington Heights. Like many New York City neighborhoods, the boundaries of Hudson Heights are not precise.Neighborhoods in New York City do not have official status, and their boundaries are not specifically set by the city. (There are a number of Community Boards, whose boundaries are officially set, but these are fairly large and generally contain a number of neighborhoods, and th
neighborhood map
issued by the Department of City Planning only shows the largest ones.) Because of this, the definition of where neighborhoods begin and end is subject to a variety of forces, including the efforts of real estate concerns to promote certain areas, the use of neighborhood names in media news reports, and the everyday usage of people. One definition has it bounded by the Hudson River to the west,

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

to the east, 173rd Street to the south, and

to the north, but another would limit the neighborhood to the top of the high ridge which physically separates it from the rest of Washington Heights. By this definition, Hudson Heights is bounded in the west by the

Henry Hudson Parkway The Henry Hudson Parkway is a parkway in New York City. The southern terminus is in Manhattan at 72nd Street, where the parkway continues south as the West Side Highway. It is often erroneously referred to as the West Side Highway throughout its ...

, in the east by

Fort Washington Avenue Fort Washington Avenue is a major north-south street in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. It runs from Fort Tryon Park to 159th Street, where it intersects with Broadway. It goes past Bennett Park, the highest natural point in ...

, in the south by West 181st Street and in the north by Fort Tryon Park.Staff (September 17, 2001
"Manhattan apartments at a discount: Hudson Heights"
''

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

'' The ridge the neighborhood sits on overlooks the river to the west and the Broadway valley to the east. In 2018, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' defined it as being bordered by 173rd Street in the south, Bennett Avenue in the east, the northern boundary of Fort Tryon Park in the north, and the Hudson River in the west.Jacobsen, Aileen (March 28, 2018

''

'' Using the more restrictive boundaries, the neighborhood's main north–south thoroughfares are Fort Washington Avenue (two-way), Pinehurst Avenue (one way south) and

Cabrini Boulevard Cabrini Boulevard spans the Manhattan neighborhood of Hudson Heights, running from West 177th Street in the south, near the George Washington Bridge, to Fort Tryon Park in the north, along an escarpment of Manhattan schist overlooking the Hen ...

(formerly Northern Avenue, one way north). Riverside Drive runs intermittently along the bottom of the ridge to the west, while Bennett Avenue and Overlook Terrace do the same on the east, with Overlook Avenue climbing to the top of the ridge at West 190th Street. The east–west streets are all numbered, from West 181st Street to West 190th Street, but none of those streets, with the exception of West 181st at the southern end of the ridge, cross all the way through the neighborhood: they are all interrupted at one point or another.

History

17th century

Before European explorers and settlers, the

Lenape The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory inclu ...

Indians lived on the island they called Mannahatta. Just to the north of Hudson Heights, in what is now

Inwood Hill Park Inwood Hill Park is a public park in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. On a high schist ridge that rises above the Hudson River from Dyckman Street to th ...

, the Lenape tribe exchanged the island for items worth about 60 Dutch Gilders in a deal with

Peter Minuit Peter Minuit (between 1580 and 1585 – August 5, 1638) was a Wallonian merchant from Tournai, in present-day Belgium. He was the 3rd Director of the Dutch North American colony of New Netherland from 1626 until 1631, and 3rd Governor of New ...

in 1626. He named the island New Amsterdam. The area north of central Manhattan was called Niew Haarlem until the British gained control of the area during the Revolutionary War. They renamed the area Lancaster, and gave it a northern border near what is now 129th Street. The ridge that overlooks the Hudson River was once inhabited by the

Wecquaesgeek The Wecquaesgeek (also Manhattoe and Manhattan) were a Munsee-speaking band of Wappinger people who once lived along the east bank of the Hudson River in the southwest of today's Westchester County, New York,Their presence on the east bank of th ...

Indians and called Chquaesgeck. Later it was called Lange Bergh (Long Hill) by Dutch settlers until the 17th century.

18th and 19th centuries

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.Burrows & Wallace (1999), p.448 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 The Battle of Fort Washington was fought in New York on November 16, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War between the United States and Great Britain. It was a British victory that gained the surrender of the remnant of the garrison of ...

. 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. 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. 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.Burrows & Wallace (1999), p.232 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 ... " 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.Renner, James (2007) ''Images of America: Washington Heights, Inwood, and Marble Hill''. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. 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

and West 187th Street.Feirstein, p.170 It was known as the Chittenden estate by 1864. C. P. Bucking, a manufacturer of sheepskins,Norcross, Frank Wayland (1901) ''A History of the New York Swamp'' Chiswick Press
p.208
/ref> named his home on land near the Hudson "Pinehurst", a name that survives as Pinehurst Avenue.

Early to mid-20th century

At the turn of the 20th century the woods started being chopped down to make way for homes. The area was settled by Irish immigrants in the early years of the century. The cliffs that are now

held the mansion of Cornelius Kingsley Garrison Billings, a retired president of the Chicago Coke and Gas Company. He purchased 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 high and made of Maine granite. In 1917, Billings sold the land to

for $35,000 per acre. Tryon Hall was destroyed by fire in 1925. The estate was the setting for the book ''

The Dragon Murder Case ''The Dragon Murder Case'' (first published in 1934) is a novel in a series by S. S. Van Dine about fictional detective Philo Vance. It was also adapted to a film version in 1934, starring Warren William as Vance. Plot A guest at an estate in ...

'' by

S. S. Van Dine S. S. Van Dine (also styled S.S. Van Dine) is the pseudonym used by American art critic Willard Huntington Wright (October 15, 1888 – April 11, 1939) when he wrote detective novels. Wright was active in avant-garde cultural circles in pre- Wor ...

, in which detective Philo Vance had to solve a murder on the grounds of the estate, where a dragon was supposed to have lived.

Fort Tryon

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..." 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..."Lowenstein (1989), pp.42-44 During the World War I, immigrants from Hungary and Poland moved in next to the Irish.Bennet, James (August 27, 1992)
"The Last of Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson: A Staunch, Aging Few Stay On as Their World Evaporates"
''

'' 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.

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.Hendrickson, Leslie (October 18, 2007
"Hudson Heights Climbing to the Next Level"
''

New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...

'' A disproportionately large number of Germans who settled in the area had come from Frankfurt-am-Main, possibly giving rise to new name. No other neighborhood in the city was home to so many

German Jews The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

, who had created their own central German world in the 1930s. So cosmopolitan was that world that in 1934 members of the German-Jewish Club of New York started ''

Aufbau ''Aufbau'' is a term which was used in publications from 1919 to 1947 in the German language. The term can be translated as "structure", "construction" or as "rebuilding", "reconstruction". Peter Galison advocated its use as a "keyword", in the ...

'', a newsletter for its members that grew into a newspaper. Its offices were nearby on Broadway. 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 Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

Stefan Zweig Stefan Zweig (; ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist, and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular write ...

, and

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...

. It was one of the only newspapers to report on the atrocities of the Holocaust during World War II." 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. After the war, Aufbau helped families that had been scattered by European battles to reconnect by listing survivors' names. ''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. 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. The neighborhood became less overtly Jewish into the 1970s as Soviet immigrants moved to the area. After the Soviet immigration, families from

the Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

, especially

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

and the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

, 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. In the 1980s African-Americans began to move in, followed shortly by other groups. "Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson" no longer described the area.

Late 20th and early 21st centuries

"Hudson Heights" began to be used as a name for the neighborhood around 1993.Calabi, Marcella and Ritter, Elizabeth Lorris (October 29, 2010
"How Hudson Heights Got Its Name"
''Hudson Heights Guide'' Neighborhood activists formed a group in late 1992 to help promote the neighborhoodGarb, Maggi (November 8, 1998

''

'' 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 did not start using the name until after the group was formed. The new name replaced the outdated reference to German heritage, which some have criticized, even though the German-speaking population is negligible at best. Although many Russian speakers still live there, Spanish-speakers vastly outnumber the

Russophone This article details the geographical distribution of Russian-speakers. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the status of the Russian language often became a matter of controversy. Some Post-Soviet states adopted policies of derussi ...

s, and English remains the ''

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

''. Elizabeth Ritter, the president of the owners' group, said, "We didn't set out to change the name of the neighborhood, but we were careful in how we selected the name of the organization." In 2011, ''

Curbed New York ''Curbed'' is an American real estate and urban design website founded as a blog by Lockhart Steele in 2006. The full website, founded in 2010, featured sub-pages dedicated to specific real estate markets and metropolitan areas across the Unit ...

'' published on article which used Hudson Heights as an example of "How to Gentrify a Neighborhood", the first step of which was "Create a nickname to separate the area from its crime-riddled past." Today the name "Hudson Heights" has been adopted by arts organizations such as Hudson Heights Duo and the Hudson Heights String Academy, and businesses including Hudson Heights Pediatrics and Hudson Heights Restoration. Newspapers from ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' and the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' to ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...

'' use the name in reference to the neighborhood, as did ''

The New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New Yor ...

'' before it went bankrupt, ''

Money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money ar ...

'' magazine in its November 2007 article named Hudson Heights the best neighborhood to retire to in New York City.Staff (November 2007
"New York - Best Place to Retire: Hudson Heights"
''

'' "Hudson Heights" was used by ''Gourmet'' magazine in its September 2007 article about dining in Washington Heights,Diaz, Junot (September 2007
"He'll Take El Alto"
''

Gourmet Gourmet (, ) is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by refined, even elaborate preparations and presentations of aesthetically balanced meals of several contrasting, of ...

''. Accessed June 4, 2009. and by ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' in May 2016 about a concert in

Demographics and real estate

The 2010 census determined that the population of the neighborhood, using the larger definition of its boundaries, south to West 173rd Street, to be 29,000, with 44% being non-Hispanic whites, and 43% Hispanic. In 2012, the average co-op in the neighborhood sold for $388,000, while in 2013 the average price was $397,000. In 2012 166 were sold, while 244 were sold in 2013. Rents were around $1,400 per month for a studio apartment, $1,700-$2,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, and around $3,000 for a two-bedroom; prices were higher if the apartments for sublets in a co-op building.

Residences

Nearly every structure was built before World War II – which in New York real estate parlance is referred to as pre-war – many of them in the

. Facades in the Tudor are also well represented, while others are in the

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

, Neo-Classical, and

Collegiate Gothic Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europ ...

styles. Many of the apartment houses are co-ops and a few are condos; the remainder are still rental buildings. The largest residential complexes in the area were started by real estate developer Dr.

;

opened in 1924 and was originally started and sold as a

housing cooperative A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Housing cooperatives are a distin ...

. The Tudor-style complex was designed by the architect

, and was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 2016. Pelham also designed The Pinehurst on Fort Washington Avenue at West 180th Street, which opened in 1908. Paterno is remembered by the Paterno Trivium, erected in spring 2000 at the intersection of Cabrini Boulevard, Pinehurst Avenue and West 187th Street. Pelham's son, George F. Pelham Jr., was the architect of

, on the other side of

. This series of five buildings was finished in 1939 and converted to a co-op in 1985. On May 12, 2005 a large, 65-foot high

retaining wall Retaining walls are relatively rigid walls used for supporting soil laterally so that it can be retained at different levels on the two sides. Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to a slope that it would not naturally keep to ...

separating the Castle Village complex from the

collapsed onto the northbound lanes of the parkway and the 181st Street northbound on-ramp. Portions of the wall were nearly 100 years old according to records indicating the wall was constructed between 1905 and the 1930s. The collapse lead to the on-ramp's closure for over two and half years; the entrance was reopened in March 2008. Beginning in the 1980s, some rental buildings in the area started converting to housing cooperatives or

condominium A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership structure whereby a building is divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. The term can be applied to the building or complex ...

s. In recent years, Hudson Heights has been an attractive area for homebuyers who want to stay in Manhattan but who can't afford downtown prices, or who want larger homes than those in the rest of Manhattan. The multiple co-ops and condos in the area formed the Hudson Heights Owners Coalition in 1993. Another large cooperative is the 16-story Cabrini Terrace at 900 West 190th Street, the tallest building in the neighborhood. Members of the co-op's board successfully lobbied the legislature to change the law that grants tax credits for the installation of solar panels in residences to include apartment buildings, which had been excluded. Cabrini Terrace inaugurated its solar panels at a ceremony on January 24, 2008.

Culture, food and shopping

West 187th Street shopping street Hudson Heights

A widely known museum in the area is

, where the

houses and displays its collection of

. In September, the park hosts the Medieval Festival, a free fair with costumed revelers, food and music. In its September 2007 issue, ''

'' described the Dominican restaurants in Washington Heights and Inwood, including many in Hudson Heights. Hudson Heights is among the neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan that participate in The Art Stroll, an annual festival of the arts which highlights local artists. Public places in Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill host impromptu galleries, readings, performances and markets over several weeks each summer.Uptown Art Stroll website
Accessed June 4, 2009 Bennett Park is the location of the highest natural point in Manhattan, as well as a commemoration on the east 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. James Gordon Bennett Jr. (May 10, 1841May 14, 1918) was publisher of the ''New York Herald'', founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett Sr. (1795–1872), who emigrated from Scotland. He was generally known as Gordon Bennett to distinguish him ...

, the publisher of the ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. Hi ...

''. 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. 2014 United Palace from corner

Many small shops are located on West 181st Street at the southern end of the neighborhood, and all along Broadway near to its border. In the middle of the neighborhood itself, there is a small shopping area at West 187th Street between

and

. 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. Nearby to Hudson Heights lies the United Palace, a church, live music venue, and non-profit cultural center located at 4140 Broadway between West 175th and 176th Streets. It was built in 1930 as Loew's 175th Street Theatre, a

movie palace A movie palace (or picture palace in the United Kingdom) is any of the large, elaborately decorated movie theaters built between the 1910s and the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opening every year between 192 ...

– one of five Loews had in New York City – designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb. Its lavishly eclectic interior decor was supervised by Harold Rambusch.., p.286 The theater originally presented films and live

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

and operated continuously until closed by Loew's in 1969. That same year it was purchased for over a half million dollars by the television evangelist Rev. Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II, better known as Reverend Ike. The theater became the headquarters of his United Church Science of Living Institute and was renamed the Palace Cathedral. It was completely restored and still continues to be maintained by the United Church. The building was designated a

New York City landmark The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...

by the

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...

on December 13, 2016.

Police and crime

Hudson Heights, along with Inwood, is patrolled by the 34th Precinct of the

NYPD The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

, located at 4295 Broadway. The 34th Precinct ranked 23rd safest out of 69 patrol areas for per-capita crime in 2010. The 34th Precinct has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 86.3% between 1990 and 2018. The precinct reported 1 murder, 27 rapes, 200 robberies, 315 felony assaults, 155 burglaries, 592 grand larcenies, and 87 grand larcenies auto in 2018.

Fire safety

Hudson Heights is served by the

New York City Fire Department The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), is an American department of the government of New York City that provides fire protection services, technical rescue/special operations services, ...

(FDNY)'s Engine Co. 93/Ladder Co. 45/Battalion 13, located at 515 West 181st Street.

Post office and zip codes

Hudson Heights is located in two ZIP Codes. The area south of 187th Street is part of 10033 while the area north of 187th Street is part of 10040. The

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the ...

operates two post offices near Washington Heights: the Washington Bridge Station at 518 West 181st Street and the Ft George Station at 4558 Broadway.

Religion

The Hebrew Tabernacle of Washington Heights is a Reform synagogue located at 551 Fort Washington Avenue, corner of 185th Street, in the neighborhood.''Hebrew Tabernacle Bulletin''
January-February 2019 It is across from Bennett Park on West 185th Street.David W. Dunlap (2004)
''From Abyssinian to Zion; A Guide to Manhattan's Houses of Worship''
Columbia University Press. It is

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

, with a bold and chalky

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

facade, with stainless steel and brass. The Hebrew Tabernacle Congregation purchased the building in 1973, and it became a

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of wor ...

. The Hebrew Tabernacle Congregation, founded in 1905 in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

by German-Jewish founders, had outgrown its 1920s building on West 161st Street between

and Fort Washington Avenue, and the Jewish congregants there were becoming increasingly isolated. As of 1982, many of the synagogue's members had come to New York in the 1930s as Jewish refugees from

central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...

(so many German Jews were in the neighborhood, that it was jokingly referred to as "Frankfurt on the Hudson"), and it had 500 families as members.''Crowns, Crosses, and Stars; My Youth in Prussia, Surviving Hitler, and a Life Beyond''
/ref> It is a member of the

Union for Reform Judaism The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), known as the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) until 2003, founded in 1873 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the congregational arm of Reform Judaism in North America. The other two arms establishe ...

. The

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

patron saint of immigrants, Mother Francesca Saverio Cabrini, is entombed at her shrine near the northern end of Fort Washington Avenue. Cabrini, America's first saint, was beatified in November 1938 and canonized in July 1946. She founded the

Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a Roman Catholic female religious congregation, founded in 1880 by Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini. Their aim is to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart by means of spiritual and corporal works ...

. The name of the street on the west side of the school and shrine was changed in 1938 from Northern Avenue to Cabrini Boulevard.Moscow, p. 38 Washington Heights is also the home of

Khal Adath Jeshurun Khal Adath Jeshurun (KAJ) is an Orthodox German Jewish Ashkenazi congregation in the Washington Heights neighborhood, in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It has an affiliated synagogue in the heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of ...

(KAJ or "Breuer's"), the German-Jewish Ashkenazi congregation established in the late 1930s. The congregation maintains the German-Jewish mode of worship, its liturgy, practices, and distinctive melodies. There are several educational institutions associated with KAJ as well. Other churches and synagogues in the area include Our Saviour's Atonement Lutheran Church; Congregation Mount Sinai Anshe; Uptown Community Church; Beth Am, The People's Temple;

Fort Washington Collegiate Church Fort Washington Collegiate Church is a Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church located at Magaw Place and 181st Street (Manhattan), 181st Street in the Washington Heights, Manhattan, Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York Ci ...

; Fort Tryon Jewish Center; Holyrood Church; and Congregation Shaare Hatikvah Ahavath Torah v'Tikvoh Chadoshoh.

Education

Schools

Mother Cabrini High School 701 Fort Washington Avenue

For grades kindergarten through 8, Hudson Heights is zoned to the

New York City Department of Education The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) is the department of the government of New York City that manages the city's public school system. The City School District of the City of New York (or the New York City Public Schools) is t ...

's P.S./I.S. 187 Hudson Cliffs; it had 796 students as of the 2016–2017 school year. In 2013, 43% of the school's third grade students met state standards in English, as opposed to 28% in the entire city. The School Quality Snapshot of 2016-17 showed that 51% of the school's students met the state's standards in both English and Math, which compares favorably to citywide figures of 41% in English and 38% in Math. Another public school in the extended definition of the neighborhood is P.S. 173, located on Fort Washington Avenue between West 173 and 174th Streets, which includes grades pre-K through 5. P.S. 173's state test scores show that 34% met state standards in English, as opposed to 40% citywide, and 37% met the Math standards, compared to 42% in the city as a whole. Also located in the neighborhood was the Roman Catholic Mother Cabrini High School, which closed at the end of the 2013–14 school year; the building is now a Success Academy Charter School. Private schools in the general area, including nearby Inwood, include Osher Early Learning Center; the Medical Center Nursery School; the YM/YWHA of Washington Heights and Inwood Nursery School; and the City College Academy of the Arts, a project funded by the

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was ...

Library

The nearest

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) ...

(NYPL) branch is the Fort Washington branch, located at 535 West 179th Street. The three-story Carnegie library opened in 1979.

Hospitals

The neighborhood has no local hospitals. The former St. Elizabeth's Hospital at 689 Fort Washington Avenue at West 190th Street has now been converted into cooperative apartments. The nearest hospitals are Allen Hospital at the northernmost tip of Manhattan, and

Columbia University Medical Center NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center (NYP/CUIMC), also known as the Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), is an academic medical center and the largest campus of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. It includes Co ...

at West 169th Street, both part of the New York-Presbyterian system.

Transportation

190th Street subway station from Corbin Circle

2018 George Washington Bridge Bus Station from West 179th Street and Fort Washington Avenue looking east

Both of the subway entrances in Hudson Heights are notable. The subway entrance at Fort Washington Avenue and West 193rd Street, which leads to the 190th Street station on the , is the only

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October ...

entrance in the

Gothic style Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

; 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. The station was listed on the

in 2005. The station also has the distinction of being one of the deepest in the entire subway system by distance to ground level. The 184th Street entrance of the 181st Street station, served by the as well, also stands out among entrances to the city's subway stations. Both of the stations provide

elevator An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They ...

connections between Hudson Heights, on the top of the ridge, and the Broadway valley of Washington Heights below. The 190th Street station elevators lead to the entrance at Bennett Avenue north of West 193rd Street, and the 184th Street elevators go to Overlook Terrace and 184th Street. When originally built,

fare control In rail transport, the paid area is a dedicated "inner" zone in a railway station or metro station, accessible via turnstiles or other barriers, to get into which, visitors or passengers require a valid ticket, checked smartcard or a pass. A sys ...

for both of these entrances were 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 A mezzanine (; or in Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft with non-sloped ...

level, making the elevators free for neighborhood residents to use, and providing easier pedestrian connection between Hudson Heights and the rest of Washington Heights.Guided tour (October 11, 2014) Fort Tryon Park Cottage The George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal, at West 179th Street and Fort Washington Avenue, was designed by the Italian architect and economist Pier Luigi Nervi and constructed in 1963. From a distance, the huge ventilation ducts look like concrete butterflies. Nervi's bust sits in the terminal's lobby. The station has been undergoing a renovation and is expected to re-open in the summer of 2015. Over 100,000 square feet of new shops will be included in the updated station.Hughes, C. L. (October 15, 2014
"Affordable Manhattan in Hudson Heights"
''

'' The

George Washington Bridge The George Washington Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge spanning the Hudson River, connecting Fort Lee, New Jersey, with Manhattan in New York City. The bridge is named after George Washington, the first president of the United S ...

, visible for miles from its entrance at 179th Street, earns this accolade from the noted architect

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

The George Washington Bridge over the Hudson is the most beautiful bridge in the world. Made of cables and steel beams, it gleams in the sky like a reversed arch. It is blessed. It is the only seat of grace in the disordered city.

Beneath the bridge, at the east stanchion, is the Little Red Lighthouse, where a namesake festival is held is in the late summer, and where a recreational swim finishes in early autumn. It is also a popular place to watch for

peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known as the peregrine, and historically as the duck hawk in North America, is a cosmopolitan bird of prey (raptor) in the family Falconidae. A large, crow-sized falcon, it has a blue-grey bac ...

s and the monarch butterfly migration.

Streets

The primary north–south streets in Hudson Heights are: *

– named after Fort Washington, the last fortified position of the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...

in New York before the city was taken over by the British in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

. *Pinehurst Avenue – named after "Pinehurst", the estate of sheepskin manufacturer C. P. Bucking *

– formerly "Northern Avenue", the street was renamed in 1938 for

Mother Cabrini Frances Xavier Cabrini ( it, Francesca Saverio Cabrini; July 15, 1850 – December 22, 1917), also called Mother Cabrini, was an Italian-American Catholic religious sister. She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a ...

, who was later canonized by the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. *Overlook Terrace – which runs at the bottom of the ridge from West 190th to 184th Street, was named for the view at the top of the street, before it descends *Bennett Avenue – which runs at the bottom of the ridge east of Overlook Terrace from Nagle Avenue to West 181st Street. It was named after James Gordon Bennett, Sr., who founded the ''

'' newspaper. His name is also enshrined on Bennett Park in the heart of the neighborhood. 250 Cabrini Boulevard 822 West 187th Street entrance Hudson Heights

250 Cabrini Boulevard 822 West 187th Street entrance Hudson Heights

Other named or co-named streets in the neighborhood include: *Alex Rose Place (West 186th Street between Chittenden Avenue and Cabrini Boulevard) –

Rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

was a milliner born in Warsaw in 1898 who became president of the United Hatters, Cap & Millinery Workers Union, and was a founder in 1944 of the

Liberal Party of New York The Liberal Party of New York is a political party in New York. Its platform supports a standard set of socially liberal policies, including abortion rights, increased spending on education, and universal health care. History The Liberal Part ...

. Rose was considered to be a political kingmaker, and helped Fiorello H. LaGuardia and

John Lindsay John Vliet Lindsay (; November 24, 1921 – December 19, 2000) was an American politician and lawyer. During his political career, Lindsay was a U.S. congressman, mayor of New York City, and candidate for U.S. president. He was also a regular ...

to reach office as Mayors of New York City. Rose lived at 200 Cabrini Boulevard nearby.Feirstein, p.169 *Chittenden Avenue – named in 1911 after Lucius Chittendon, a merchant from

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

and the owner of the land between West 185th to 198th Streets. The street runs from West 186th to 187th Street, just west of Cabrini Boulevard. Since the

runs almost directly below it, there are no buildings on the west side of the street, which therefore provides expansive views of the

and the Palisades. *Colonel Robert Magaw Place – named after Col. Robert Magaw, a lawyer from Philadelphia who commanded the American forces in Fort Washington during the

. The street runs for two blocks from West 181st to 183rd Streets, east of Fort Washington Avenue and west of Bennett Avenue. *Jacob Birnbaum Way (portion of Cabrini Boulevard at West 187th Street) – named after

Jacob Birnbaum Jacob (Yaakov) Birnbaum (10 December 1926 – 9 April 2014, aged 87) was the German-born founder of Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) and other human rights organizations. Because the SSSJ, at the time of its founding, in 1964, was the fir ...

, a human rights advocate born in Germany, and the founder in 1964 of

Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, also known by its acronym SSSJ, was founded in 1964 by Jacob Birnbaum to be a spearhead of the U.S. movement for rights of the Soviet Jewry. Small, medium, and 6-digit-size demonstrations, at important locat ...

, as well as other organizations. He lived at Cabrini and West 187th Street. The section of street was named after him on October 18, 2015.Zalman, Jacob (October 23, 2015
Jonathan Zalman, "New York City Street Dedicated to Soviet Jewish Activist Jacob Birnbaum"
''The Tablet'' *Margaret Corbin Circle and Margaret Corbin Drive – The circle is outside the main entrance to

, while the drive runs from there through the park to the

. Both are named after Margaret Corbin, a heroine of the American Revolution who took her husband's place in a cannon crew after he was killed, and subsequently the first female pensioner of the United States. Her annual pension was a suit of clothes and cash equivalent to the cost of a half-pint of liquor. *Paterno Trivium (intersection of Cabrini Boulevard, Pinehurst Avenue and West 187th Street) – named after Dr. Charles V. Paterno, a dentist-turned-real estate developer who built the Hudson View Gardens cooperative complex, and lived in a mansion known as "Paterno's Castle", on the site of what is now Castle Village, another one of his developments. The Trivium – Latin for the meeting of three streets – was designed by architect Thomas Navin, and was designated part of the

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolo ...

's "Greenstreets" program in 2000. It was formally dedicated on August 4, 2001, the birth date of Dr. Paterno. It features a small garden and benches for sitting.Parks Department informational sign on site. Accessed: March 8, 2017"Greenstreet: Highlights - Paterno Trivium"

website *

Plaza Lafayette Plaza Lafayette is a small, park and surrounding streets in the Hudson Heights neighborhood of Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York City. Named after the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution, the park is rough ...

(West 181st Street between Cabrini Boulevard and Riverside Drive) – The original name of Riverside Drive was "Boulevard Lafayette", named after the

Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revolutio ...

, the French hero of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

, and this small plaza retains the name. An overlook on the west end of the plaza features views of the Henry Hudson Parkway, the George Washington Bridge, the

, and the Palisades.

Parks

Parks in Hudson Heights include: FortTryonParkLindenTerrace

- a large, park assembled by

, designed by the

and presented to the city in 1931. It is the site of

, which houses the

collection of the

. * Bennett Park - the site of Fort Washington during the Revolutionary War, is a neighborhood park named after

James Gordon Bennett Sr. James Gordon Bennett Sr. (September 1, 1795 – June 1, 1872) was the founder, editor and publisher of the ''New York Herald'' and a major figure in the history of American newspapers. Early life Bennett was born to a prosperous Roman Catholic ...

, the publisher of the ''

''. It is the location of the highest natural point in Manhattan. *

J. Hood Wright Park J. Hood Wright Park is a park of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation which is located between Fort Washington and Haven Avenue, and between West 173rd and 176th Streets in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, N ...

- which is included in the extended definition of the neighborhood, is located between Fort Washington and Haven Avenues, and between West 173rd and 176th Streets. It is a neighborhood park named for

James Hood Wright James Hood Wright (known professionally as J. Hood Wright; November 4, 1836 – November 12, 1894) was an American banker, financier, corporate director, business magnate, and reorganizer of US railroads. He began as a bookkeeper but his mana ...

, a banker, financier and philanthropist, and includes a recreation center. * Fort Washington Park - runs along the Hudson River from West 155th Street to Dyckman Street, under the

. It includes the Little Red Lighthouse.

Notable residents

Notable current and former residents of Hudson Heights include: Henry A

* C. K. G. Billings, industrialist, avid horseman and eccentric tycoon; his estate, Tryon Hall, formed the basis for

, activist for the rights of Soviet Jews *Rabbi

Joseph Breuer Joseph Breuer, also known as Yosef Breuer (March 20, 1882 – April 19, 1980) was a rabbi and community leader in Germany and the United States. He was rabbi of one of the large Jewish synagogues founded by German-Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi op ...

, religious leader * Mother Francesca Saverio Cabrini, missionary, saint, and namesake of the neighborhood

High School A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

Shrine A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they ...

Boulevard A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway. Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls. In American usage, boulevards may ...

and Woods *

Laurence Fishburne Laurence John Fishburne III (born July 30, 1961) is an American actor. He is a three time Emmy Award and Tony Award winning actor known for his roles on stage and screen. He has been hailed for his forceful, militant, and authoritative charact ...

, actor * Scott Goldstein, writer, producer, director *

Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...

(born 1923), diplomat and statesman *

Daniel D. McCracken Daniel D. McCracken (July 23, 1930 – July 30, 2011) was a computer scientist in the United States. He was a professor of Computer Sciences at the City College of New York, and the author of over two dozen textbooks on computer programming, wit ...

, early computer pioneer,

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

professor, and author *

Lin-Manuel Miranda Lin-Manuel Miranda (; born January 16, 1980) is an American songwriter, actor, playwright and filmmaker. He is known for creating the Broadway musicals ''Hamilton'' (2015) and '' In the Heights'' (2005), and the soundtracks for the Disney animat ...

, playwright, actor, and musician, owns two

co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

units in the Castle Village complex in Hudson Heights. *

, a doctor who became a real estate developer, he built

and

, two of the largest complexes in the neighborhood, the latter on the site of his own mansion, which was known as "Paterno's Castle". The Paterno Trivium at the intersection of Cabrini Boulevard, Pinehurst Avenue and West 187th Street is named for him. * Alex Rose, labor leader * James R. Russell, scholar of

Ancient Near Eastern The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( E ...

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

and Armenian Studies, and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

professor * Rabbi

Shimon Schwab Shimon (Simon) Schwab (December 30, 1908 – February 13, 1995) was an Orthodox rabbi and communal leader in Germany and the United States. Educated in Frankfurt am Main and in the ''yeshivot'' of Lithuania, he was rabbi in Ichenhausen, Bavaria, ...

, religious leader * Dr.

Ruth Westheimer Karola Ruth Westheimer ( Siegel; born June 4, 1928), better known as Dr. Ruth, is a German-American sex therapist, talk show host, author, professor, Holocaust survivor, and former Haganah sniper. Westheimer was born in Germany to a Jewish fam ...

(born 1928), better known as Dr. Ruth,

German-American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...

sex therapist Sex therapy is a strategy for the improvement of sexual function and treatment of sexual dysfunction. This includes sexual dysfunctions such as premature ejaculation or delayed ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, lack of sexual interest or arousa ...

, talk show host, author, professor,

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...

, and former

Haganah Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the I ...

sniper A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...

.Morris, Bob. (December 21, 1995
"At Home With: Dr. Ruth Westheimer; The Bible as Sex Manual?"
''

In popular culture

The 1985 film ''

We Were So Beloved ''We Were So Beloved'' is a 1985 documentary film by Manfred Kirchheimer about Jewish survivors of the Holocaust living in Washington Heights, Manhattan in New York City. It consists of interviews with family and friends interspersed with writt ...

'' tells the stories of neighborhood Jews who escaped the Holocaust. A musical that began performances in 2007, ''

In The Heights ''In the Heights'' is a musical with concept, music, and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes. The story is set over the course of three days, involving characters in the largely Dominican American neighborhood of ...

'', takes place on 181st Street and Fort Washington Avenue, and was written and produced by

who grew up in northern Manhattan. The same year, ''

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao ''The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao'' is a 2007 novel written by Dominican American author Junot Díaz. Although a work of fiction, the novel is set in New Jersey in the United States, where Díaz was raised, and it deals with the Dominican ...

,'' a novel by

Junot Diaz Junot is a French name that may refer to the following notable people: ;Given name *Junot Díaz (born 1968), Dominican American ;Surname * Laure Junot, Duchess of Abrantes (1784–1838), French writer *Jean-Andoche Junot Jean-Andoche Junot, 1s ...

, referred to Anglo women carrying yoga mats in the neighborhood as a harbinger of gentrification; the book won the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

for letters in 2008."Columbia University School of Journalism, Pulitzer Prizes for Letters"
Accessed June 4, 2009

Gallery

File:2014 Fort Tryon Park Cottage.jpg, The Fort Tryon Park Cottage is a remnant of one of the estates which abounded in the area File:Fort Wash Collegiate Ch jeh.JPG,

File:St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine from Cabrini Boulevard.jpg, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine File:West 187th Street stairs from below.jpg, Nine flights of stairs connect Overlook Terrace and Fort Washington Avenue at West 187th Street File:181st Street subway station, entrance on Fort Washington Avenue between 183rd and 185th Streets.jpg, The 181st Street subway entrance between West 183rd and 185th Streets provides elevators which lead to... File:181st Street subway station entrance at 184th Street and Overlook Terrace.jpg, ...the entrance at 184th Street and Overlook Terrace in the Broadway valley of Washington Heights below File:St. Elizabeth's Hospital 689 Fort Washington Avenue.jpg, The former St. Elzabeth's Hospital is now cooperative apartments File:186-196 Pinehurst Avenue entrance Hudson Heights.jpg, The entrance to 186-196 Pinehurst Avenue

References

Informational notes Citations Bibliography * * *Lowenstein, Steven M. (1989
''Frankfurt on the Hudson: The German Jewish Community of Washington Heights, 1933-1983, Its Structure and Culture''
Detroit: Wayne State University Press. * *

External links

* {{Manhattan, state=collapsed Neighborhoods in Manhattan Washington Heights, Manhattan