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UPPER
WEST SIDE
The
Upper West Side has become one of Manhattan's most coveted locations. Full
of entertainment, fashionable stores and drop-dead gorgeous architecture,
the Upper West Side attracts a wide variety of residents, visitors, and
garden-variety wanderers. Charming townhouses, luxurious co-ops, and
to-die-for condos with park and river views tend to be some of the most
sought-after residences in Manhattan. You'll also find distinguished
pre-war brownstones, many of them lining the blocks west of Broadway, and
stunning landmarks that cast shadows along the western edge of Central
Park. Two of the most architecturally distinguished buildings in the
country, the impressive Dakota and the Italian Baroque San Remo, with its
looming twin towers, are both on Central Park West. These and many other
choice addresses on the shady streets and Central Park West are home to
celebrities of all types; Dustin Hoffman, Yoko Ono, and Jerry Seinfeld are
just a few of the celebs enjoying the area's residential bliss.
The
area canvasses 59th to 125th Street between Central Park to the east and
Hudson River on the west. While primarily wealthy, there are also middle
class residents here, all living in peaceful harmony. The area includes
many artists, actors, celebrities, educators, and professionals. The Upper
West Side also boasts its own culture. It is home to the Museum of Natural
History with its mammoth dinosaurs, a truly awe-inspiring Planetarium, and
the magnificent Lincoln Center, as well as numerous other performing arts
centers. Popular and trendy bars, as well as gourmet food (think Zabars)
and outdoor restaurants, are commonplace in this hip and luxurious locale.
This
fun-packed, diverse neighborhood with its tree-shaded streets, friendly
neighbors, and charming residences-some with magical views of the Hudson
River-illustrates with remarkable persuasion why professionals, artists,
and academics alike hunger to live here.
Architecture
Central Park West is the city's most architecturally distinguished
residential street.
Although Park and West End avenues are more homogeneous and consistent,
they do not have the bravura of Central Park West's magnificent towers.
The twin-towered San Remo, Majestic, Century and El Dorado apartment
buildings and the triple-towered Beresford apartment building created
the city's most romantic residential skyline. The San Remo and the
Beresford were designed by Emery Roth, whose architectural firm, Emery
Roth & Sons, went on to design many of the city's major office
buildings in the post-World War II era. The El Dorado was designed by
Margon & Holder with Emery Roth as a consultant. The Century and the
Majestic were designed by the Office of Irwin S. Chanin and Jacques
Delamarre. The Majestic, San Remo and Beresford replaced hotels of the
same names that were erected in the prior building generation around
the turn of the century. The Majestic Hotel even had a roof garden. The
Century replaced the splendid Century Theater, one of the city's
finest.
The great towers, of course, are not the avenue's only glories and its
most famous building is the Dakota at 1 West 72nd Street. The Dakota
was designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh who would later be the architect
of the Plaza Hotel.
When the Dakota was built in 1884, it stood as a fairly isolated
building in an area that was little developed although it was only a
few blocks south of the sprawling American Museum of Natural History.
It has withstood the test of time well and its very spacious apartments
with high ceilings, entered through a two-story archway on 72nd Street
leading to four lobbies at the corners of its large courtyard, are
among the most desirable in the city and have attracted many
celebrities, including the late John Lennon of the Beatles. Its fame
was somewhat augmented by its use in the movie, "Rosemary's Baby." The
fortress-like, yellow brick building, which was one of the city's first
luxury apartment houses, is surrounded by a dry moat with a fabulous,
low, cast-iron fence.
The same year as the Dakota was completed, the city changed the name of
Eighth Avenue above 59th Street to Central Park West. Five years
earlier, the Ninth Avenue "El" reached as far north on what is now
Columbus Avenue as 81st Street.
What distinguishes Central Park West from Fifth Avenue, of course, is
its flamboyance. Fifth Avenue had initially been developed north of
61st Street with mansions that resulted with it being known as
"Millionaire's Row." Central Park West, on the other hand, had been
developed more commercially, in part because many theaters were in its
vicinity. The apartment buildings that replaced the Fifth Avenue
mansions tended to be elegant, but quite conservative, and many were
not developed until soon after World War II when standards, and ceiling
heights, were lowered dramatically. In contrast, Central Park West was
largely fully developed before the Depression set in fully and its
architecture reflects an appropriately optimistic grandeur.
The "new" post-war economy can best be seen just to the west of the
Dakota where a stark, white-brick, 36-story apartment building, known
as the Mayfair Towers at 15 West 72nd Street, designed by Horace
Ginsbern & Associates, replaced the tennis courts of the Dakota in
1964.
Fortunately, most of Central Park West has been spared the ignominy of
post-war construction and its ambiance is almost Parisian especially in
front of some of its more ornamented facades such as the Prásáda,
designed by Charles W. Romeyn and Henry R. Wynne, the Langham, designed
by Clinton & Russell, and the St. Urban, designed by Robert S. Lyons,
or its Art Deco masterpieces such as the Ardsley, designed by Emery
Roth & Sons, at 320 Central Park West and 55 Central Park West,
designed by Schwartz & Gross .
The avenue's two most important cultural institutions, the American
Museum of Natural History, designed by Calvert Vaux and J. Wrey Mould
originally and center Theodore Roosevelt Memorial entrance designed by
John Russell Pope, and the New York Historical Society, which are
adjacent, are very important because of their vast treasures although a
bit ungainly in their designs. The natural history museum, which
occupies a four-square-block site known as Manhattan Square, at one
time had a master plan that called for a uniform Romanesque-style
design that was very impressive, but economics led to its unfortunate
abandonment. The south facade of the wonderful institution indicates
the kind of architecture that the master plan contemplated. In 1942
Robert Moses and his design collaborator, Aymar Embury II proposed a
radical remodeling of the museum's facades that was approved by the
museum's adminstration but fortunately not undertaken and the fine 77th
Street facade was designated a landmark in 1967. In 1997, the museum's
famous Hayden Planetarium was demolished for rebuilding and was soon
replaced by very striking, glass-enclosed facility donated by Frederick
Rose, one of the city's leading residential developers.
One of the major design controversies on Central Park West involved the
New York Historical Society, designed by York & Sawyer and Walker &
Gillette, which has a very major collection of Hudson River School
paintings and many other fine collections. The institution was
hard-pressed economically and it commissioned Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer to
design a mixed-use tower behind it for expanded museum space and
condominium apartments. The design was fabulous because it was very
compatible with the institution's own low-rise building, but it also
carried on the great high-quality tradition of the San Remo and
Beresford buildings and would have been a significant and fine addition
to the Central Park West skyline.
All of Central Park West from 62nd to the south side of 96th Street is
contained in the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District, a
landmarks designation by the city that requires that all exterior
alterations to buildings within the district be approved by the city's
Landmarks Preservation Commission.
(The district extends westward to Broadway at 69th Street and to the
east side of Amsterdam Avenue from 71st Street to the south side of
77th Street and to the west side of Amsterdam Avenue from the north
side of 79th Street to the south side of 84th Street.)
There are several notable religious structures on Central Park West
including the First Church of Christ, Scientist at 1 West 96th Street,
designed by Carrčre & Hastings , the Universalist Church of New York at
4 West 76th Street, designed by William A. Potter, Congregation
Shearith Israel at 99 Central Park West, the oldest Jewish congregation
in the United States, designed by Brunner & Tryon, the Second Church of
Christ, Scientist, at 77 Central Park West, designed by Frederick R.
Comstock, and the New York Society for Ethical Culture at 64th Street,
designed by Robert D. Kohn .
Unlike Fifth Avenue, Central Park West retains two-way traffic above
62nd Street. The Eighth Avenue subway has several stops along Central
Park West and cross-town buses run at 96th, 86th and 81st Streets and
on 66th and 65th Streets.
Because of its stupendous Central Park vistas, fine architecture and
good transportation, Central Park West is the best address on the Upper
West Side. |
Geography
In modern terms, the Upper West Side is bound by West 59th St., Central Park Central Park is a large park (843 acres = 3.4 km˛, a rectangle of 2.5 miles/4 km by one-half mile/800 m) in Manhattan, New York. An oasis for Manhattanites escaping from their skyscrapers, the park is well-known worldwide after its appearance in many movies and television shows, which made it one of the most famous city parks in the world.
The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted
West 110th St., and the Hudson River The Hudson River, called Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk in Mahican, is a river running mainly through New York State but partly forming the boundary between the states of New York and New Jersey. It is named for Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Netherlands, who explored it in 1609, though the first European to see it was the Italian Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524 whose expedition was financed by the citizens of Lyon, France, under the auspices of King Francois I. Early European settlement of the area clustered around the river.
North lies Morningside Heights Morningside Heights. It is a neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City and is bound by the Upper West Side, Morningside Park, Harlem, and Riverside Park. Streets marking its edges are 110th and 125th Streets, Riverside Drive, and Morningside Drive. (Some define the southern edge as being 106th St., and a few place it as far south as 100th St.) The main thoroughfare is
Broadway, site of Columbia University
Columbia University, officially known as Columbia University in the City of New York, is a private institution of higher education. It is one of the world's foremost research universities, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1754 under a royal charter granted by England's King George II, Columbia has grown over time to comprise 20 schools and affiliated institutions.
Harlem is a neighborhood of Manhattan, long known as a major African American cultural and business center. Although the name is sometimes reckoned as comprising the whole of upper Manhattan, traditionally Harlem is bounded on the south by East 96th Street (where the railroad tracks emerge from the tunnel under Park Avenue) and west of Fifth Avenue by Central Park, on the west by Morningside Heights, then along Broadway near Riverside Church to the Hudson River, on the north by 155th (or 160th) Street and Coogan's Bluff, and on the east by the East River and Harlem River.
The exact size of the Midtown area is disputed. Most agree that the core commercial area extends from 40th Street up to the southern edge of Central Park on 59th Street and from Third Avenue in the east to Ninth Avenue in the west, but some take a broader view and classify Midtown as the whole area of Manhattan between 23rd and 59th Streets and between the Hudson and East
Rivers and Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen (also known as Clinton) is a neighborhood of New York City. It is the area between 34th and 59th Streets, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River.
Originally the expression "Hell's Kitchen" referred to a rough neighborhood in South London. The term in reference to New York first appeared in print on September 22, 1881 when a New York Times reporter went to a police guide to get details of a multiple murder there. He referred to a particular tenement at 39th Street and 10th Avenue as "Hell's Kitchen", and said that the entire section was "probably the lowest and filthiest in the city". According to this version, 39th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues became known as Hell's Kitchen and the name was later expanded to the surrounding streets.
. (aka Clinton). The entire western edge alongside the river is Riverside Park Riverside Park is a scenic waterfront park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, consisting of a narrow four-mile strip of land between the Hudson River and the gently curving rise-and-fall of Riverside Drive. When the park was first laid out, access to the river was blocked by the right-of-way of the New York Central RR Hudson Line; it was covered over with an esplanade later.
From west to east, the avenues of the UWS are Riverside Drive Riverside Drive is a scenic north-south thoroughfare in New York City. The boulevard runs generally parallel to the Hudson River from West 72nd St. to near the George Washington Bridge at West 181st St. on the west side of Manhattan. At times Riverside Drive is a wide avenue; at other points it narrows to a serpentine neighborhood street. Some of the most coveted addresses in New York are located along its route.
West End Ave., Amsterdam Ave., Columbus Ave., and Central Park West Central Park West is a scenic avenue in New York City.
As its name indicates, "CPW" forms the western edge of Central Park. It also forms the eastern boundary of the Upper West Side. It runs 51 blocks from Columbus Circle (at 59th St., or Central Park South) to Frederick Douglass Circle (at 110th St., or Cathedral Parkway). South of Columbus Circle, in Midtown, CPW becomes Eighth Avenue. North of Frederick Douglass Circle, in Harlem, it is alternately known as Eighth Avenue or Frederick Douglass Boulevard.
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)
Broadway, as the name implies, is a big, wide avenue in New York City, New York, and is one of the main north-south thoroughfares in the city. It runs the length of Manhattan, the central borough, being the only street running from almost the southern tip of the island, where it starts at Bowling Green, to the northern tip.
65th St., west to the railroad yards along the Hudson, then north to 110th St., where the ground rises to Morningside Heights Morningside Heights is a neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City and is bound by the Upper West Side, Morningside Park, Harlem, and Riverside Park. Streets marking its edges are 110th and 125th Streets, Riverside Drive, and Morningside Drive. (Some define the southern edge as being 106th St., and a few place it as far south as 100th St.) The main thoroughfare is Broadway.
With the building of Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a 15-acre complex of buildings in New York which serves as home for 12 arts companies. It was built during Robert Moses's program of urban renewal in the 1960s. It was the first gathering of major cultural institutions into a centralized location in an American city, and was located between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues, between 62nd and 66th Streets.
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 Union Square is an important and historic intersection in New York City.
Union Square was located where Broadway and the Bowery Lane came together in the early 19th century. Today it is bound by 14th St., Union Square East, 17th St., and Union Square West. Important thoroughfares which lead away from the park are Broadway, leading both north and south; Fourth Ave., leading southeast to the Bowery; and Park Avenue South. Neighborhoods around the park are the Flatiron District to the north, Chelsea to the west, Greenwich Village and New York University to the south, and Gramercy to the east.
and wended its way northward up to about modern 116th St. in Morningside Heights Morningside Heights is a neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City and is bound by the Upper West Side, Morningside Park, Harlem, and Riverside Park. Streets marking its edges are 110th and 125th Streets, Riverside Drive, and Morningside Drive. (Some define the southern edge as being 106th St., and a few place it as far south as 100th St.) The main thoroughfare is Broadway.
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 The Panic of 1873 was touched off on September 18, 1873, when the Philadelphia banking firm Jay Cooke and Company closed its doors and declared bankruptcy. It was one of a series of economic crises in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The others occurred in 1837, 1857, 1884, 1893, 1907, 1919, and 1929.
The end of the Civil War saw a boom in railroad construction, with 35,000 miles of new track being laid across the country between 1866 and 1873. The railroad industry, at the time the nation's largest employer outside of agriculture, involved large amounts of money and risk. A large infusion of cash from speculators caused abnormal growth in the industry. Cooke's firm, like many others, was invested heavily in the railroads.
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
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
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 West Side Story is a musical written by Arthur Laurents (book), Leonard Bernstein (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), and originally produced and directed by Jerome Robbins. West Side Story debuted on Broadway in 1957 and played 732 performances before going on tour - a very successful run for the time. In 1961, it was made into a motion picture, directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, winning ten Motion Picture Academy Awards including Best Picture.
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
American Broadcasting Company - Headquarters located in Lincoln Center area
Time Warner Center - New headquarters located on Columbus Circle, at the site of the old New York Coliseum
Cultural
American Museum of Natural History
Beacon Theater
Children's Museum of Manhattan
Lincoln Center
Metropolitan Opera
Avery Fisher Hall, home of the New York Philharmonic
New York State Theater, home of City Opera
Juilliard School of Music
New-York Historical Society
Symphony Space
Education
Columbia University - in Morningside Heights
Fordham University Lincoln Center campus - Schools of Law, Business, Social Service and Education
Trinity School
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
Grant's Tomb - in Morningside Heights
Religious
Cathedral of Saint John the Divine - in Morningside Heights
Congregation Shearith Israel
Society for Ethical Culture
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
(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.
Keeping the Faith (2000), various church locations http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171433/locations
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 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0259711/locations
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.
ReferencesHopper Striker Mott, The New York of Yesterday: A Descriptive Narrative of Old Bloomingdale, 1908.
Peter Salwen, Upper West Side Story 1989, ISBN 0896598942.
Steven Birmingham, Life at the Dakota: New York's Most Unusual Address, 1996, ISBN 081560338X.
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