Early history made by the British in November 1776 following the fall of
Fort Washington during the
Revolutionary War Washington Heights is part of the section of
northern Manhattan that is the homelands of the
Wecquaesgeeks (originally a name for the area meaning "birch-bark country"), a band of the
Wappinger and a
Lenape Native American people. The winding path of
Broadway north of 168th Street and
St. Nicholas Avenue to its south is living evidence of the old Wecquaesgeek trail which travelled along the
Hudson Valley from
Lower Manhattan all the way through
Albany. On the plateau west of Broadway between 175th and 181st Streets, the residents had been cultivating crops in a field known to
Dutch colonists as the "Great
Maize Field".
17th century Arriving in 1623, the
Dutch initially worked as trade partners with the American Indians but became more and more hostile as time went on, with the natives frequently reciprocating. The Dutch referred to the elevated area of northwestern Washington Heights as "Long Hill" while the
Fort Tryon Park area specifically carried the name "Forest Hill".
18th and 19th centuries None of the land in present-day Washington Heights was under private ownership until 1712, when it was parceled out in lots to various landowners from the village of
Harlem to the south.
Fort Washington was a group of fortifications on the high points of Washington Heights, with its central site at present-day
Bennett Park (known then as Mount Washington) built a few months prior opposite
Fort Lee, New Jersey, to protect the
Hudson River from enemy ships. Under British control, the position was renamed Fort Knyphausen for the
Hessian general
Wilhelm von Knyphausen, who played a major part in the victory; its lesser fortification at present-day Fort Tryon Park was renamed for
Sir William Tryon, the last governor of New York before it was taken back by the Continental Army. she was also honored with the naming of Margaret Corbin Drive in 1977. After changing ownership several times, the tavern moved to a new building in 1885, following the original structure's destruction for the widening of Broadway. Before the apartment development of the 20th century, many wealthy citizens built grand mansions in Washington Heights. The most famous landowner in the southwest part of the neighborhood was ornithologist
John James Audubon, whose estate encompassed the from 155th to 158th Street west of Broadway. On the eastern side, by Edgecombe Avenue between 160th and 162nd Streets, the
Morris–Jumel Mansion has been successfully preserved to this day. The land of the estate had been owned by Jan Kiersen and her son-in-law Jacob Dyckman before it was bought by British colonel
Roger Morris in 1765 and completed the same year. In 1776, the house was commandeered as a headquarters by George Washington, and after changing hands a few times was purchased by Stephen and
Eliza Jumel in 1810. this estate was once owned by
William "Boss" Tweed but got its current name from William Libbey, who purchased it in 1880. Even more extravagant, Paterno Castle was situated on the estate of real estate developer
Charles Paterno by the Hudson River at 181st Street. Built in 1907, the mansion was demolished thirty years later for Paterno's
Castle Village complex, where pieces of the original structure still remain. The neighborhood's largest estate was the property of industrial tycoon
C. K. G. Billings, taking up in the southern part of Fort Tryon Park. In 1886, the
Third Avenue Railway was extended from 125th Street to 155th Street along Amsterdam Avenue. However, higher residential density would not be supported until the extension of the
Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT)'s
first subway line (now part of the
Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line). Although skyrocketing land values sparked early predictions that upper-class apartment buildings would dominate the neighborhood, such development was limited in the pre-
World War I period to the
Audubon Park area west of Broadway and south of 158th Street. Buildings such as the 13-story Riviera included elaborate decor and generous amenities to attract higher-paying tenants. Many of the new residents came from crowded immigrant neighborhoods such as the
Lower East Side, As a result of the development of new housing, the total population of Manhattan north of 155th Street grew from just 8,000 in 1900 to 110,000 by 1920. The demographics of the neighborhood were undergoing significant change. While the
Protestant population remained stagnant, first- and second-generation
Irish and
Eastern European Jews continued to move in. Around the start of
World War II, Irish groups such as the
Christian Front arose, drawing large crowds to their
antisemitic rallies, coupled with the vandalism of synagogues and beating of Jewish youth by Irish youth in gangs such as the Amsterdams. It was during this period that the popular boundary of Washington Heights shifted from 135th Street to 155th Street, as many residents of European descent refused to include African Americans in their conception of the neighborhood. The process underlying this segregation is exemplified in the history of one of Washington Heights' most famous apartment buildings:
555 Edgecombe Avenue. Built in 1914, the 14-story building rented to various relatively affluent white people until 1939, when the owner cancelled all the tenants' leases and began renting exclusively to black people. While organizations like the Neighborhood Protective Association of Washington Heights had kept the neighborhood virtually all-white throughout much of the 20th century, the overcrowded conditions of Harlem led to growth in demand for apartments outside the neighborhood. Throughout the 1940s, the building had a number of notable black residents, such as
Paul Robeson,
Kenneth Clark, and
Count Basie. The incident took place in the
Highbridge Pool, a
Works Progress Administration-funded pool built in 1936 which had no racial restrictions but was nonetheless an environment of racial hostility in the changing landscape of the neighborhood. The neighborhood's black population also increased, numbering over 25,000 by 1980, and residing in all areas of the neighborhood while remaining a plurality in the southeastern section. On the other hand, the German Jewish exodus was characterized by a decrease in overall population but an increasing presence in the neighborhood's northwestern corner. The combination of the recent passing of the U.S.
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Balaguer's policy of freely granting passports, and the Dominican Republic's high unemployment rate created the conditions for growing emigration from the Dominican Republic to the United States. Some of the initial migrants were left-wing revolutionaries exiled by the Balaguer regime, theorized to have been granted visas through an unwritten agreement with the United States, but the majority of arrivals came for better economic opportunities. In
Quisqueya on the Hudson: The Transnational Identity of Dominicans in Washington Heights, Jorge Duany describes how Washington Heights developed as a "transnational community", continually defined by its connection to the
Dominican Republic. The majority of Dominican immigrants viewed their stay in the United States as purely economically motivated while they remained culturally attached to the Dominican Republic; many also sent
remittances home, imagining an eventual retirement to the island.
School conflicts During the 1970s, Washington Heights' School District 6 (including Inwood and Hamilton Heights) was the scene of numerous conflicts over
de facto racial segregation and unequal resource distribution within the district's schools. At the time, District 6's demographics were rapidly changing due to white students' withdrawal from the public school system and the broader trend of white flight, while the black and Latino student population rapidly increased. the school was relatively prestigious in the decades after its 1925 founding, graduating people such as
Alan Greenspan,
Henry Kissinger, and
Murray Jarvik. Although George Washington remained racially mixed through the early 1970s, the school had a tracking system that saw white students leave the school better prepared for college, and violence frequently broke out among gangs identifying by race. and the
1968 teachers' strike By the end of 1970, the high school had seen the resignation of three principals and multiple incidents of violence against students, teachers, and security guards; while many safety improvements were made throughout the 1970s, its academic performance continued to decline. In 1999, the school took its present form as the
George Washington Educational Campus composed of four smaller schools.
Late 20th and early 21st centuries Immigration trends For the remainder of the 20th century, the Dominican community of Washington Heights continued to increase considerably, most notably during the mid to late 1980s, when over 40,000 Dominicans settled in Washington Heights,
Hamilton Heights, and
Inwood. propelling the neighborhoods' combined population to 208,000, the highest level since 1950. Even as they arrived in great numbers, Dominicans who came to the neighborhood faced a difficult economic situation, with many of the manufacturing jobs they disproportionately occupied having disappeared throughout the 1970s and 1980s. During the late 20th century, other immigrant groups began to make their home in the neighborhood as well. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a moderate influx of
Soviet Jews occurred following a loosening of the country's emigration policy, predominantly professionals and artists pushed out by
antisemitism and drawn by economic opportunity. Smaller communities of
Central Americans,
Colombians, and
Chinese immigrants had also developed. In the present day, Washington Heights also has an
Orthodox Jewish community served by numerous
synagogues, many of which have noticed more young Jewish families move into the neighborhood during the 2000s.
1980s crime and drug crisis , one of several highway connections that made Washington Heights a hotspot for the
cocaine trade in the 1980s. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Washington Heights was severely affected by the
crack-cocaine epidemic, as was the rest of New York City. bringing a negative reputation to Dominican Americans as a group. Then-U.S. Attorney
Rudy Giuliani and Senator
Alphonse D'Amato chose the corner of 160th Street and Broadway for their widely publicized undercover crack purchase, and in 1989,
The New York Times called the neighborhood "the crack capital of America". By 1990, crack's impact on crime was evident: 103 murders were committed in the 34th Precinct that year, along with 1,130 felony assaults, 1,919 robberies, and 2,647 burglaries. Another contributing factor was that, as Dominican dealers such as
Santiago Luis Polanco Rodríguez brought the group higher status in cocaine operations, the heavily Dominican Washington Heights became increasingly important as a strategic location. Washington Heights also had a high level of unemployment and poverty in the 1980s and 1990s, providing ample economic motivation for young people to enter the drug trade. Overall distrust of the police may have stemmed from the perception of corruption, which was alleged numerous times concerning the 34th Precinct overlooking drug crimes for bribes. Tensions between residents and the
NYPD came to a head on July 4, 1992, when José "Kiko" Garcia was shot by 34th Precinct Officer Michael O'Keefe on the corner of 162nd Street and
Saint Nicholas Avenue. Although evidence later supported that the killing was a reaction to violence initiated by Garcia, many residents quickly suspected wanton
police brutality. What began as a peaceful demonstration for Garcia's death turned into a violent riot, causing multiple fires, 15 injuries, and one death. Then-mayor
David Dinkins, who had met with the Garcia family following the killing, pleaded for an end to the rioting: "You do not build a better city by destroying it. ... There is much anger in the community about the death of Jose Garcia and other incidents. But you do not obtain justice by being unjust to others."
Crime drop and community improvement During the mid to late 1990s, Washington Heights experienced a drastic decrease in crime that continued through the 21st century. From 1990 to 2023, reported motor-vehicle thefts, murders, and burglaries each fell by over 85%, felony assaults, rapes, and robberies by over 65%, and grand larcenies by around 45%. The crime drop, which was felt across all major U.S. cities, owed itself largely to the decrease in new users and dealers of crack cocaine, and the move of existing dealers from dealing on the streets to dealing from inside apartments. In Washington Heights, this meant a move back to the established cocaine dealing culture that had existed before the introduction of crack. As Terry Williams observes in
The Cocaine Kids: The Inside Story of a Teenage Drug Ring, many dealers from the pre-
freebasing period put greater emphasis on knowing their customers and hid their operations more carefully from police, as opposed to dealers of the crack days who would deal openly and fight violently in the competition for the drug's high profits. Another local policing strategy was the "model block" initiative, first attempted in 1997 on 163rd Street between
Broadway and
Amsterdam Avenue, a location notable for the dealers who set up a "fortified complex" complete with traps and electrified wires to prevent police raids on their apartment. The program was controversial, facing criticism from the
New York Civil Liberties Union and resistance from residents for its invasion of privacy. As crime decreased, Washington Heights also saw a recovery of many of its community institutions, including parks. and several corpses were found in the park.
21st century After work from the
Fort Tryon Park Trust and the
New York Restoration Project throughout the 1990s and 2000s, funded by the city with the help of generous private donations, the park and its reputation were restored. In 1997, the New York Restoration Project began to work on maintaining the park, but without the necessary funding much of the park's disrepair continued. In 2016, however, the park received $30 million in restoration funding through the city's Anchor Parks initiative, with the full restoration set to be finished by 2021. Throughout the 2010s, Washington Heights residents made modest economic gains. According to
American Community Survey data the neighborhood's poverty rate decreased from 27% to 18% in the approximate 2008–2018 period. In the same period, the unemployment rate decreased from 14% to 9% and the proportion of residents with
bachelor's degrees increased from 29% to 35%. Furthermore, there have been several businesses faced with drastic rent increases, such as Coogan's, a well known restaurant and bar that managed to renegotiate with its landlord,
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, following outcry by many locals, including
Lin-Manuel Miranda. Washington Heights residents face many difficulties with the rental housing market; over a quarter of households pay the majority of their income in rent. In 2018, ground was broken on Amsterdam Avenue and 180th Street by developer Youngwoo & Associates for the
MVRDV-designed Radio Tower & Hotel. The tower, a 22-story multi-use building with office space, retail space and a 221-room hotel, is the first major mixed-use development to be built in Washington Heights in nearly five decades. The hotel opened in July 2022. ==Geography==