Living in Hudson Heights: rent, commute and grades

What to know about Hudson Heights

• During the Revolution the ridge here, then called Mount Washington, held a string of forts known together as Fort Washington. It was Manhattan's last American stronghold and fell to the British on November 16, 1776. Source
• Fort Washington Avenue runs along the high ridge above the Hudson, roughly on the line of a wagon road ordered laid out along the ridge in 1711. Source
• Apartment building spread through Washington Heights after the IRT subway arrived in 1906, but north of 181st Street it stalled while the Bennett family held its estate. In 1919 the Bennett executors sold the land in some five hundred building lots. Source
• Hudson View Gardens on Pinehurst Avenue, a Tudor Revival complex of 356 apartments built in 1924 and 1925, is one of the earliest middle-class co-ops in which every apartment is owned by its residents. The streets around it are mostly apartment houses of four to twelve stories. Source
• Bennett Park, the two-block park between West 183rd and 185th streets from Fort Washington Avenue to Pinehurst Avenue, takes in the highest natural point on Manhattan Island. It was once part of James Gordon Bennett's estate, and the city agreed to buy it in 1928. Source
• The Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's building for much of its medieval art collection, was completed in May 1938 on a site John D. Rockefeller Jr. kept at the north end of Fort Tryon Park. It is a city landmark. Source
• The St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine, next to the former Mother Cabrini High School at 701 Fort Washington Avenue, holds the remains of Mother Cabrini, patron saint of immigrants and the first American citizen to be named a saint. The shrine building opened in 1959. Source