Upper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River.
Geography
In modern terms, the Upper West Side is bound by West 59th St., Central Park, West 110th St., and the Hudson River. North lie Morningside Heights, site of Columbia University, and Harlem beyond. South lies the west side of Midtown and Hell's Kitchen (aka Clinton). The entire western edge alongside the river is Riverside Park.
From west to east, the avenues of the UWS are Riverside Drive, West End Ave., Amsterdam Ave., Columbus Ave., and Central Park West. The 51-block stretch of Broadway forms the spine of the neighborhood and moves diagonally across the avenues; it begins at its juncture with Central Park West at Columbus Circle (59th St.), crosses Columbus Ave. at Lincoln Square (65th St.), crosses Amsterdam Ave. at Verdi Square (72nd St.), and then merges with West End at Straus Square (aka Bloomingdale Square, at 107th St.).
Traditionally the neighborhood ranged from the former village of Harsenville, centered on the old Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) and 65th St., west to the railroad yards along the Hudson, then north to 110th St., where the ground rises to Morningside Heights. With the building of Lincoln Center its name, though perhaps not the reality, was stretched south to 59th St.
History
Originally the name Bloomingdale (from the Dutch "Bloemendal"), or the Bloomingdale District, applied to the west side of Manhattan from about 23rd St. up to the Hollow Way (modern 125th St.), and it contained numerous farms and country residences of many of the city's well-off. The main artery of this area was the Bloomingdale Road, which began north of where Broadway and the Bowery Lane join (at modern Union Square) and wended its way northward up to about modern 116th St. in Morningside Heights, where the road further north was known as the Kingsbridge Road. Within the confines of the modern-day Upper West Side, the road passed through areas known as Harsenville, Striker's Bay, and Bloomingdale Village.
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Upper West Side-to-be contained some of colonial New York's most ambitious houses, spaced along Bloomingdale Road. It became increasingly infilled with smaller, more suburban villas in the first half of the nineteenth century, and in the middle of the century, parts had become decidely lower class. The Hudson River Railroad line right-of-way, granted in the late 1830s, soon ran along the riverbank, and creation of the Central Park caused many squatters to move their shacks westward into the UWS. Parts of the nieghborhood became a ragtag collection of squatters' housing, boarding houses, and rowdy taverns.
As this development occurred, the old name of Bloomingdale Road was slowly being chopped away and the name Broadway was progressively being applied further northward to include what had been lower Bloomingdale Road. In 1868, the city began straightening and grading the section of the Bloomingdale Road from Harsenville north, and it became known as "The Boulevard". It retained that name until the end of the century, until the name Broadway finally supplanted it.
Development of the neighborhood lagged even while Central Park was being laid out in the 1860s and 70s, then was stymied by the Panic of 1873. Things turned around when the elevated train's rapid transit was extended up Ninth Avenue (renamed Columbus Avenue in 1890), and with Columbia University's relocation to Morningside Heights in the 1890s, using lands once held by the Bloomingdale Asylum. The Upper West Side was built in a boom from 1885 to 1910.
In the early part of the 1900s, the Upper West Side area south of 67th St. was heavily populated by African-Americans and supposedly gained its nickname of "San Juan Hill" in commemoration of African-American soldiers who were a major part of the assault on Cuba's San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War. But by 1960, the area was a rough neighborhood of tenement housing and was used for exterior shots in the movie musical "West Side Story". Urban renewal then swept through with the construction of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Lincoln Towers apartments during 1962-1968.
In a subsequent phase of urban renewal, the rail yards which had formed the Upper West Side's southwest corner were replaced by the Riverside South residential project and a southward extension of Riverside Park. The evolution of Riverside South had a 40-year history, often extremely bitter, beginning in 1962 with the first proposal made by the Penn Railroad itself. The most ambitious proposal, and the one generating the most opposition was Donald Trump's "Television City" concept of 1985, which would have included a 152-story tower. In 1991, civic groups signaled that they were willing to accept a development about 40% smaller in scope than Trump proposed, and things finally started moving. By 2004 construction is essentially complete, but still to be resolved is the future of the West Side Highway viaduct over the park area.
The Bloomingdale district was the site for several long-established charitable institutions: their unbroken parcels of land have provided suitably-scaled sites for Columbia University and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, as well as for some vanished landmarks, such as the Schwab Mansion on Riverside Drive, the most ambitious free-standing private house ever built in Manhattan.
The name Bloomingdale is still used in reference to a part of the Upper West Side, essentially the location of old Bloomingdale Village, the area from about 96th St. up to 110th St. and from Riverside Park east to Amsterdam Ave. The triangular block bound by Broadway, West End Ave., 106th St. and 107th St., although generally known as Straus Park (named for Isidor Straus and his wife Ida), was officially designated Bloomingdale Square in 1907. The neighborhood also includes the Bloomingdale School of Music and Bloomingdale branch of the New York Public Library. Adjacent to the Bloomingdale neighborhood is a neighborhood called Manhattan Valley, focused on the downslope of Columbus Ave. and Manhattan Ave. from about 102nd St. up to 110th St.
Landmarks and institutions
Corporate
Cultural
Education
Food and gourmet
Amsterdam Ave. from 67th St. up to 92nd St. is thick with retaurants, Columbus Ave. is also to a slightly lesser extent. The following lists a few neighborhood institutions and famous places.
- Barney Greengrass the Sturgeon King - gourmet grocery, Amsterdam Ave. and 86th St., founded 1908
- Café des Artistes - 67th St. at Central Park West, founded 1917
- Cafe Lalo - dessert cafe, 83rd St. at Amsterdam, seen in You've Got Mail
- Citarella - gourmet grocery, Broadway and 75th St., founded 1912 at 164th St. and later moved to UWS
- Edgar's Cafe - dessert cafe, 84th St. at Broadway, so named because Edgar Allan Poe lived at this location during 1844-1845 while composing "The Raven"
- Fairway Market - market and grocery, Broadway and 74th St., founded c. 1950
- H&H Bagels - Broadway and 80th St., founded 1972
- Tom's Restaurant - Broadway and 112th St. in Morningside Heights, founded c. 1950
- Zabar's - gourmet grocery, Broadway and 80th St., founded 1934
Historical
Religious
Residences
The apartment buildings along Central Park West, facing the park, are some of the most exclusive apartments in New York, if not the world. The Dakota at 72nd St. has been home to numerous celebrities including John Lennon. Other famous buildings include the San Remo, Eldorado, Beresford and Majestic on CPW all built by Emory Roth, and along Broadway, the Apthorp and the Ansonia Hotel.
In film, television, and the arts
The Upper West Side has been a setting for many movies and television shows because of its pre-War architecture, colorful community and rich cultural life. Ever since Edward R. Murrow went "Person-to-Person" live, the length of Central Park West in the 1950s, West Siders scarcely pause to gape at on-site trailers, and jump their skateboards over coaxial cables.
The neighborhood is also known for the conjunction of affluent lifestyles and liberal politics, and is frequently used by conservative critics as shorthand for "out-of-touch liberal elite". It is a dependable punchline for liberal jokes.
Movies
- The Apartment (1960)
- Cruel Intentions (1999)
- Cruel Intentions 3 (2004), takes place at an Upper West Side prep school
- Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), includes a scene set outside the subway station at 72nd St. and Broadway
- Ghost Busters (1984), the opening of the movie, when a library is overrun with ghosts, is actually at Columbia University and the building where Sigourney Weaver's character lives is 55 Central Park West, at 66th St.
- Kissing Jessica Stein (2002)
- Rosemary's Baby (1968), apartment building in movie is The Dakota
- Single White Female (1992), apartment building in movie is the Ansonia
- Vanilla Sky (2001), car accident at center of movie happens in Riverside Park, near 96th Street
- West Side Story (1961), takes place in tenements where Lincoln Center is today, around 66th Street
- You've Got Mail (1998), used many UWS locations, such as the park at 72nd Street and Riverside Drive. The DVD of movie includes an interactive tour of the neighborhood. The storyline is also in some degree appropriate to the area in that a well-loved UWS independent bookstore, Shakespeare & Co., was driven out of business in the late 1990s when it was sandwiched by two branches of a national chain bookstore, one of them just a block away. Another amusing sidelight relating to the local character of the movie was the scene in which the two principals enter a movie theater. The multiplex exists, and the sub-theater in which they go to watch the movie later showed You've Got Mail.
- Various Woody Allen movies
- The end of Annie Hall involves a shot of the Thalia Theater at 96th and Broadway.
Television
- Law and Order - often used Upper West Side and Morningside Heights locations near Columbia University for filming.
- Seinfeld - Jerry in the series lived at 129 West 81st St., and the series used exteriors from locations such as Tom's Restaurant and H&H Bagels.
- Sex and the City - used many locations including Papaya King and Zabar's.
Music
- "Classical Rap" - this parody by Peter Schickele, on his album "P.D.Q. Bach: Oedipus Tex & Other Choral Calamities", describes the travails of living on the Upper West Side, as a Yuppie chants hip-hop lyrics to a classical instrumental background.
