The view from uptown: a cultural panoramic of Washington Heights

Written by Megan Pickarski

“Fruit Bus,” by Susan Sermoneta is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Walking down Broadway, you can’t help but notice the relative calmness that floats in the air. It’s late in the morning and the hard working people of the Heights are stretching their arms and preparing for the day. Boxes of fruits and vegetables line the streets as employees and business owners begin to set up for the day. While gentrification has (very) slowly begun to creep in, Washington Heights has still managed to hold on to its essence – strongly rooted in family and a tight knit community. Small mom and pop businesses, restaurants, and bakeries sprinkle the streets, and it’s hard to imagine it any other way.

THE THEN AND NOW

Washington Heights has transformed drastically over the years, changing with the cultural tides. The Irish immigrant community was the first to touch down in the Heights in the early 1900s after the Great Potato Famine left many Irishmen poor and starving, forcing them to flee to the United States in search of greater opportunity. While first settling in the Lower East Side, they eventually moved north to the Heights in search of better living conditions and more space. Jewish immigrants slowly filled in around the 1930s in the years leading up to the Second World War, in an effort to escape the Nazi regime and anti-Semitic forces that were quickly gaining momentum in their homelands. As the first generation grew up, the large Jewish community began to funnel out into the suburbs of New York City in an effort to establish a more ‘family-friendly’ community. The Greeks began to arrive around the same time, in an attempt to escape economic turmoil and political persecution in their homeland. The Greek community planted strong roots in Washington Heights, hitting a peak in the 1960s. However, when Greece joined the European Union in the 1980s, emigration to the United Stated decreased drastically and the once booming population has now all but vanished, leaving behind only a few Greek Orthodox Churches scattered around the neighborhood. The demise of the Greek population brings us finally to the Dominican and other Latino immigrant communities, which make up the majority of Washington Height’s population today.

THE NUMBERS

According to the most recent statistics, Washington Heights has the largest number of immigrants in the city – nearly 80,200, representing over 49 percent of the neighborhood’s total population. Dominicans make up the large majority (over 60 percent) of the foreign-borns, with other Latino immigrants, notably from Mexico, Ecuador, and Cuba, also present in substantial numbers.

THE CULTURAL EXTERIOR

While maybe once flooded with Irish pubs, Greek restaurants, and Hebrew storefronts, it is now hard to walk down the street without hearing a lick of Spanish, and most of the restaurants and bakeries have Spanish names.

“Street in Washington Heights, NYC,” by Susan Sermoneta is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This lends to the neighborhood’s authenticity. You can’t really get food like this anywhere else in the city. Perhaps one of the most famous restaurants is El Malecon, occupying the corner of 175^th and Broadway. Thirty years ago, two brothers, Pablo and Javier Gomez, decided to open up a restaurant that catered to the growing Dominican population. It’s now known for having the best roasted chicken around, and is one of the restaurants most frequented by neighborhood locales. Walking by, you can see the roasted chicken browning in the window, making it difficult not to stop in for a quick bite.

Across the street is one of the neighborhood’s most beautiful attractions: the United Palace. It’s impossible to miss, standing tall and regal, and boasting magnificent architecture; its vintage feel forces you to acknowledge its history. The building first opened in 1929 as the Lowes Wonder Theater. In 1969 it was bought by the Christ Community Church, and currently functions as both a place of worship and showcase for the arts.

It would be remiss of me not to mention Coogan’s, one of the only remnants left behind by the Irish. It serves as a wonderful juxtaposition between the old and new – heavily decked out in everything Irish, it has become a popular place for the locals to hang out and now hosts a “bilingual karaoke” (English-Spanish) twice a week. As the New York Times once wrote, it serves as the “bridge between the two sides.”

THE HISTORIC DRAMA AND THE HAPPY ENDING

“Washington Heights, from Fort Washington down to Overlook and Bennett and Broadway,” by Susan Sermoneta is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Although now relatively safe and quiet, Washington Heights has experienced its fair share of violence and historic drama – a history that it wears on its sleeve. As the highest point in Manhattan, it was originally named Fort Washington by the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and served as a strategic defense base against the British. In 1776, Fort Washington fell to the British, in a battle that left hundreds of the Continental Army’s soldiers dead, and thousands captured and held as prisoners. Several centuries later, history made its mark once more at the Audubon Ballroom, on 165^th and Broadway. In 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated while giving a speech at the ballroom, the spot where he had held his weekly OAAU (Organization of Afro-American Unity) meetings. Walking past the ballroom now, it is almost too eerie to think about the blood spilled on these streets.

It wasn’t long after the assassination that Washington Heights began to slip. The neighborhood was hit with a crime epidemic in the early 1980s, perhaps lending to its gritty exterior. The neighborhood had one of the highest crime rates in Manhattan, its streets burdened with gang crime and a crack-cocaine epidemic. However, the neighborhood proved resilient and thanks to an increase in police presence and help from the community, the Heights slowly began to pick up the pieces and it currently boasts one of the lowest crime rates in the borough.

Although a less celebratory part of the Heights’ history, it’s important to mention because the struggles of the neighborhood are what helped make it what it is today. That, and it makes for a much more interesting story.