This weekends extensive Times real estate article on Hamilton Heights' future growth interestingly enough had a lot of information about Manhattanville. West Harlem's sleepy neighborhood with quite a few landmark townhouses lies north of the new Columbia campus construction site in the mid 130's and the article speculates that the university's presence will help the Heights along. The first Manhattanvile Campus building will not be complete until 2015 and the full project has another 40 years to go to finish so there is still a lot of waiting around to be had for any speculators. Another peculiar point the piece makes is that it mentions that the Manhattanville Studebaker Building would be replaced by glass towers which goes against the original plan of preservation reported earlier on.
In the meantime, Hamilton Heights has had some growth and setbacks regardless of the campus construction. The West Harlem neighborhood's main commercial strip on Broadway consists of mostly thrifty types of retailers so there is a void in better establishments which have struggled to open in the past. One current success story includes the small Italian eatery Trufa which opened up this spring and apparently is doing well as the sister restaurant to Tonalli. Townhouse prices have fluctuated throughout the past years and listing at around $1 million are also mentioned but the one landmark district's home sale at $2 million in October was not discussed:
LINK. Read more in the New York Times:
LINK
Fact check the NY Times article carefully. I have found a few inaccuracies- scattered throughout.
ReplyDeleteMe too ! I don't know about you, but I find this whole "re branding" of Harlem to Hamilton Heights to be a PR attempt to get Harlem to be an "acceptable" place to work and do business!! Every other month there is an article in the Times about Hamilton Heights ! Each time they include more streets ! Edgecombe, Riverbank Park, morningside ! Come On Folk ...THAT IS HARLEM !
ReplyDeleteRead your history. Hamilton Heights is not a Nolita or Dumbo realtor creation.
ReplyDeletegattopardo
ReplyDeleteread YOUR History and Read the Article !
The article does make a couple mistakes. However, I agree with gattopardo, its always been Hamilton something in recent memory. I lived in the area from 1990 to 2007. In my memory, In the early 90s the neighborhood had no official name but everyone always referred to it as or close to Hamilton Grange. Some called it some form of lower Washington Heights. In the early 2000s, the name Harlem or West Harlem was trying to take hold of the neighborhood. Kind of reclaim it in the name of Harlem. It didn't really take hold. Hamilton Heights appeared on Google Maps in like 2007. It stuck. Hamilton Heights was never part of Harlem Village. Harlem were the plains. The area was sometimes called Harlem Heights in historical maps during the Rev war but it also called the Morningside hill by the same name. In the 1800s until the subway appeared the area was split between the villages of Manhattanville and Carmansville. It went by several other nicknames since then depending on the foreign tongue loving there. During the Renaissance, a part of Hamilton Heights became Sugar Hill. It was also differentiated from Harlem... as in loving on Sugar Hill was for wealthier folks. It lost a name and identity til the 90s. Hamilton's name has been the common denominator in the last 2 centuries to describe the hill that slopes up from Manhattanville and in separated ny Washington heights at 158 and by Harlem naturally. Google maps just made it official.
ReplyDeletethanks Guest. Interesting reading.
ReplyDeleteMsCiara, I don't know what you are talking about. I never see ANY articles about Hamilton Heights, and most of the Harlem-based blogs focus on the areas around 125th Street from East to West. It's great that the NYT devoted the whole front page of the Real Estate section to the newspaper, and as a homeowner, I'm looking forward to the continued improvements in the neighborhood.
ReplyDelete