There are many splendid doors to homes in Washington Heights/Inwood, 71,410 to be precise in 2016. Over the years, the function of these doors has changed, and some are more magnificent than others.
In the 1950s, people remember that they kept their doors open and unlocked! Open doors meant a good neighborhood, lots of adult watchfulness over children who played on the sidewalks and streets, and a place to get a drink while playing dominoes.
By the time that I got to Washington Heights, the doors were only opened in very well-knit blocks and usually were metal with a bar of steel behind them at night. The scratches and dents on the doors were danger signs that meant Fort New York at night.
Truth be told, we have only talked to people behind about 300 of those doors. We did enter all the outside entrance doors on one block on 153rd Street. The experience was exciting: which door had the greater prize behind it?
About half the doors opened to Puerto Rican families in low-rise buildings. The fathers like Victor dreamed of going back to Puerto Rico while they played dominoes on the porches in the evening. There were always good food odors wafting through the doors. Three doors opened into taller buildings with mainly Dominican American residents, who were quick to protect you on their block. Domingo would walk up and down the street with a steel rod during the annual barbeque in August. One door cautiously opened into an abandoned building that was being rebuilt by some squatters. One door opened to an African American family who invited us to their church around the corner. One opened to reveal a Russian, a relative of a refugee from the White Russian army that fought the Communists, and another revealed an Irish priest from Nicaragua. Do you see how interesting going through the doors of Washington Heights/Inwood can be!?
Behind the Washington Heights/Inwood doors live 221,929 people (in 2017). Community District 12 is a big area with a population that would make it the 72nd largest city in the United States. Washington Heights South is the third most densely populated neighborhood in New York City.
The total population depends on how you define Washington Heights/Inwood. We use the boundaries that the city government has given to Community District 12. But some people define a larger area for Washington Heights/Inwood.
The northern boundary of the community district is Spuyten Dyvil Creek which turns into the Harlem River (unless you want to enter into the argument that Marble Hill is really part of Inwood, not the Bronx).
The southern boundary has always been a little bit more flexible. At one time Washington Heights went all the way down to 135th Street. No more, but many people south of the official boundary of 155th Street say, “I live in Washington Heights.” To African Americans, the identification of south of 155th Street with West Harlem might make sense because the high-stepping Sugar Hill District almost stretches up to 155th Street and is just west of Amsterdam Avenue. However, most Hispanics identify with Washington Heights. The only person that I know who claims to be part of Hamilton Heights centered around City College is a drug dealer who reports to a local drug boss who operates out of a club near 145th Street.
Drug dealer territories sometimes crisscross official and neighborhood opinion with their own logic. In the day of the “Wild Cowboys” in the Bronx, they claimed a corner at 157th Street. They are long gone, but maybe some other gang (many of the Dominican gangs have moved their center of gravity over to the Bronx) now claim a toehold of the Bronx into Washington Heights.
The population took a nosedive in the 1970s-1980s but now it is growing about .7% a year. Gentrification and the expansion of Columbia University Medical Center are feeding part of the growth. In the coming years if Mayor de Blasio’s fill-in policy of building affordable housing in the open spaces of public housing continues, then the population increase may accelerate somewhat.
A guide to the population areas of Washington Heights and Inwood.
There are two large population centers, one each for Washington Heights and Inwood . In the north-central part of Inwood, two census tracts next to each other contain over 21,000 people.
The other population center is around the George Washington Bridge. One census district just north of the bridge has nearly 14,000 residents. At 181st Street, the business district is very active and, as an “Opportunity Zone” is now gentrifying rapidly. A Manhattan firm has announced that it has received funding from China to erect a 22-story building on Amsterdam Avenue between 180th and 181st Streets, which will include a boutique hotel, offices, and retail space. The population concentration extends south of the bridge around the Columbia University Medical Center that sees millions of patients every year.
Washington Heights/Inwood is notable as a poor area that has few public housing projects. On the one hand, that means that a lot of pre-war buildings were preserved. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s NYCHA 2.0 plan implemented a fill-in policy which means that private market-rate and affordable (25% of the units) housing will be built within the housing project spaces. Those plans are already being implemented at the housing projects around 155th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Supposedly, the revenue from these buildings will mean that desperately needed repairs and clean-up of mold and lead paint will be made in Washington Heights/Inwood public housing. New leadership of New York City’s public housing took over in August 2019.
The big public housing projects in Washington Heights are the Audubon, Bethune, and Dyckman Houses. Audubon Houses consist of a twenty-story building with 167 apartments. Bethune Gardens is also a tower with many older residents. Dyckman Houses is made up of seven,14-story buildings with 1,167 apartments and about 4,000 residents.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spent his childhood in the 1950s and 1960s in Dyckman Houses, Building 3 on the fifth floor. He started his legend with his first dunk, in eighth grade, in Dyckman Park courts, now called Monsignor Kett Playground. He remembers watching Willie Mayes play stickball with local kids. He then played for a Catholic high school team, leading them to a 71-game winning street.
A big issue is whether the buildings will include enough space for lower and middle-class residents to establish and operate community organizations like AA, religious worship and faith-based community services, sports teams meetings, and the like. A related issue is whether the public housing projects will finally allow commercial operations like bodegas to rent space. This would certainly provide jobs and build the community. The older generation of reformers was not very favorable to capitalism, so they kept business out of the projects.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is held hearings in 2019 on a new policy to disallow anyone who cannot verify their immigration status from living in public housing or living in a market-rate apartment with a federal rental subsidy, even if their child or other family members are eligible for assistance. The policy would significantly affect the public housing residents in Washington Heights/Inwood. It is one more reason now to help unregistered immigrants and green-card holders to move to citizenship status. Who knows what the future holds?
Jean Garcia, a resident, made a documentary called 1909 to expose the chronic problems of the “disgusting” Audubon Houses at 1909 Amsterdam Avenue in South Washington Heights. NYCHA is preparing to build a new structure to hold a family assistance center, a community room (available for religious groups), and a boiler. Garcia is advocating for no federal budget cuts for repairing public housing.
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