Quote:
Originally Posted by pizarrony
Hi all. What are your opinions of southern Washington Heights west of Broadway (around 158th street and Riverside Dr)? Does this neighborhood resemble Hamilton Heights at all? I'm familiar with Washington Heights north of 181st street, but I'm guessing this area is completely different.
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@Pizarrony Post #141 above, Check out the two coffeeshops right at the 1 station, where Riverside Drive comes near Broadway at 157th. Tazio is the older one, meanig within the past 5 years, and was there first with occasional classical music and best macaroons ever.
Then along came a more corporate chain, cheesily locating itself right next door, I suppose to siphon off their customers. I had heard, though, that Tazio survived anyway. The mere fact that two coffeeshops are competing there means something for gentrification, I guess?
The pharmacies - a challenge! There's no corporate chains there yet (no CVS or Duane Reed) so you end up using small independents that close on Sundays, or early in weekday evenings, some at 5 or 6p.m. Just be aware that it feels like the 1960's to get a prescription filled in that neighborhood.
Those streets are characterized by lots of beautiful exterior architecture on the pre-war elevator apartment buildings. The walkway overlooking the Hudson is very refreshing. There's a pocket park at Riverside and 162nd that's fine by daytime, popular with children in a gated inner park, and leashwalked dogs for the rest of it. People mostly walk through it, though; it's not a picnic spot really. Families sometimes picnic or barbecue on the sidewalks, which is noisy and sociable unless you're incredibly uptight about seeing people outside being loud, playing music and laughing it up a lot.
If you live there you'll end up deciding between using the Local 1 train station at 157th or walking l0 minutes uphill to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, to get the Express A or a C from there, instead. Or you can take just the C by walking to 162nd St. at Amsterdam, east of Broadway, which is a shade closer but doesn't feel as nice as heading up Broadway to get the same C. And by the time you're there, you'll likely end up taking the Express A which is a great train to Midtown. When you come home, you'll often transfer at the 96th St. station from a 2 or 3 express, onto a local 1, IIRC.
The M-4 and M-5 bus are helpful sometimes if you want a change from using the subways, but sometimes erratic service so just use them if you're not in a big hurry.
If you have to park a car there, it's a challenge; move it on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the exact side street. It's hard to find any spots left by late night, but if you're around during the daytime you'll learn all the moves to make it work. They ticket and tow.
You have to accept some summertime street noise in that neighborhood, as it's mostly Dominican. I found it family-friendly and liked my year renting there, last year. There's some drug dealing going on in the streets that I ignored, and it caused me no problems. On rare occasion I heard gunshots (maybe three times in that year) on my block which was 160th between B'way and Riverside. Sometimes people were drunk in the streets, walking around talking nonsense, but nobody was harmful.
If you don't speak any Spanish, after awhile you'll realize you're missing a lot of the street conversations in stores and such. So it's a little hard to fully understand what's happennig in the neighborhood without any Spanish. If you learn a few social greetings in Spanish, that's good for being friendly but it's very much a Spanish language neighborhood, heavily Dominican but also new immigrants from Central and South America, plus a smaller number of Mexicans. Not so much Puerto Rican.
Another thing I liked a lot up there was the fresh vegetables, fish and meat. It wasn't as expensive as Midtown Manhattan, and was generally in good shape if you go to the small Mom-and-Pop immigrant run stores. The new-ish Associated Supermarket, a chain, opened last year on aroud 162 at B'way, and sometimes had wilted or dirty looking products. It's okay for buying staples, though, but I didn't like their fresh produce much.
If you like art, even just a little bit, don;t miss a visit to the Hispanic Museum on campus of Boricua College (Bway around 155 St or so). It's a gem, and very accessible; donate as you wish IIRC, or mayube it was just $10 but well worth it.
More and more places were opening up last year to serve up Dominican, Ecuadorean and other dinner fare. There's a new Texas-style barbecue place almost across from the hospital on Broadway that's really good for takeout or sitdown. A Cuban bakery at Bway and 162 has some good items, and a new Mexican bakery opened around 164th named Maria's that was delicious.
When you need medical care, you're in an amazing place to be able to walk over to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. That's a world-class research hospital with some fine specialist doctors. It's sophisticated, not your usual community hospital. Some pieces of history: across from that hospital on Bway was where Malcolm X was assasinated; and inside that hospital last year Pete Seeger passed away with his folksinging friends singing him out.
It's especially nice to be able to take walks and look up, down and across the Hudson River, seeing the GWBridge lit up at night. If you ride a bike, there's a lot of good bikeroutes along the river, which you can reach by going down a huge flight of steps from the neighborhood right to the river's edge. Also people bicycle on city street alongside that elevated walkway. The walkway's a very popular walking spot in the evenings.
For noise, the common suggestion is to find a place facing the back of the building or courtyard, not the street itself. But it's still pretty noisy, because people play all different Spanish radio stations and keep windows open in summer. The apartment above me ran a daycare (grandfatheredd in from another era) so even though the building didn't allow businesses, that one survived. There were jumping sounds all day from the ceiling, but those folks were exhausted from doing that work, so it was super quiet after 8 p.m. I'm just saying that neighborhood is full of surprises, noise and has its own quirks -- like my resident super who raised doves in the basement. Whatever.
Tucked into the same buildings, along with families who've been renting there since the l960's for a few generations, are groups of what look like graduate students or young post-college working people who just come-and-go, probably sharing the 2 and 3 br places.
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