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Manhattan Valley
Manhattan Valley is a neighborhood in the northern part of the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by West 110th Street to the north, Central Park West to the east, West 96th Street to the south, and Broadway to the west.
Manhattan Valley occupies a natural depression running east–west across Manhattan, declining rapidly from high rocky bluffs at the western border of Central Park, and following west the valley created by what was once a minor stream draining from roughly the area of the Harlem Meer into the Hudson River. The area is located on a gentle slope between West 96th Street, a major thoroughfare that runs in its own natural valley and stretches across town through Central Park, and W. 110th Street.
From west to east, Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue, Columbus Avenue, Manhattan Avenue, and Central Park West are north–south thoroughfares through the neighborhood. Amsterdam Avenue, Broadway, and Central Park West proceed in an uninterrupted grid; Columbus Avenue becomes Morningside Drive north of W. 110th Street. Manhattan Avenue originates at 100th Street and proceeds north into Harlem. Several large swaths of Manhattan Valley are made up of residential developments that break the regular city street grid. The area from W. 100th to W. 97th Streets between Central Park West and Amsterdam Avenue consists of Park West Village, a "towers in a park" housing development. Another superblock, occupied by the Frederick Douglass Houses, lies just to the north, bordered by Amsterdam Avenue, W. 100th Street, Manhattan Avenue, and West 104th Street. Columbus Avenue also passes through both of these developments.
Manhattan Valley was part of the Bloomingdale District, the name given to the farms and houses along the Bloomingdale Road along Manhattan's Upper West Side. The Dutch Bloemendaal was Anglicized to "Bloomingdale" or "the Bloomingdale District", for the west side of Manhattan from about 23rd Street up to the Hollow Way (modern 125th Street). It originally consisted of farms and villages along a road (regularized in 1703) known as the Bloomingdale Road. Bloomingdale Road was renamed The Boulevard in 1868, as the farms and villages were divided into building lots and absorbed into the city.
By the 18th century it contained numerous farms and country residences of many of the city's well-off, a major parcel of which was the Apthorp Farm. The main artery was the Bloomingdale Road, which began north of where Broadway and the Bowery Lane (now Fourth Avenue) join (at modern Union Square) and wended its way northward to about modern 116th Street in Morningside Heights, where the road farther north was known as the Kingsbridge Road. Within the confines of the modern-day Upper West Side, the road passed through the hamlets of Harsenville, bounded by 68th Street, 81st Street, Central Park West, and the Hudson River; Strycker's Bay, located on a now-infilled inlet between 86th and 96th Streets; and Bloomingdale Village, a place near the current Columbia University campus.
In the early 1800s, John Clendening owned a farm that covered much of the valley, roughly from the Bloomingdale Road to 8th Avenue between 99th and 105th Streets, with a large mansion near Amsterdam and 104th Streets. The area was known as the "Clendening Valley". Although the Clendening estate was divided and sold in 1845, the Clendening Valley name persisted until the 1880s, and a Clendening Hotel existed into the early 20th century.
The construction of an elevated aqueduct to carry the Croton Aqueduct over the valley in 1838–1842 separated the eastern side of the valley from the village of Bloomingdale, which had emerged around the Bloomingdale Road until the 1870s, when it was replaced with an underground inverted siphon, and the old aqueduct was torn down. Early development in the 1870s and 1880s focused on institutional care for the sick or aged, and included the Hebrew Home for the Aged, the Catholic Old Age Home, the Home for Respectable Aged Indigent Females, and the Towers Nursing Home constructed as a cancer ward by John Jacob Astor III in 1884. Also located in Manhattan Valley at the time was the New York Cancer Hospital, which was built in 1887 at 455 Central Park West. These, together with the Lion Brewery, gave the area its earliest landmarks. The neighborhood began to fill out residentially at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, when the New York City Subway's IRT Ninth Avenue Line in 1870 and the IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line in 1904 allowed the public ready access to uptown Manhattan. Columbia's purchase of the Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum at around the same time as the subway's arrival naturally made the neighborhood more attractive as well.
The area was populated mostly by Irish and German immigrants through the 1950s. Young boys and girls took advantage of Central Park and Riverside Drive or played stickball and roller hockey in the streets. The 1950s saw many migrants from Puerto Rico take up residence on the Upper West Side, and a proposed project to eliminate the older brownstone apartments began to drive earlier residents to the suburbs.
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Manhattan Valley
Manhattan Valley is a neighborhood in the northern part of the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by West 110th Street to the north, Central Park West to the east, West 96th Street to the south, and Broadway to the west.
Manhattan Valley occupies a natural depression running east–west across Manhattan, declining rapidly from high rocky bluffs at the western border of Central Park, and following west the valley created by what was once a minor stream draining from roughly the area of the Harlem Meer into the Hudson River. The area is located on a gentle slope between West 96th Street, a major thoroughfare that runs in its own natural valley and stretches across town through Central Park, and W. 110th Street.
From west to east, Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue, Columbus Avenue, Manhattan Avenue, and Central Park West are north–south thoroughfares through the neighborhood. Amsterdam Avenue, Broadway, and Central Park West proceed in an uninterrupted grid; Columbus Avenue becomes Morningside Drive north of W. 110th Street. Manhattan Avenue originates at 100th Street and proceeds north into Harlem. Several large swaths of Manhattan Valley are made up of residential developments that break the regular city street grid. The area from W. 100th to W. 97th Streets between Central Park West and Amsterdam Avenue consists of Park West Village, a "towers in a park" housing development. Another superblock, occupied by the Frederick Douglass Houses, lies just to the north, bordered by Amsterdam Avenue, W. 100th Street, Manhattan Avenue, and West 104th Street. Columbus Avenue also passes through both of these developments.
Manhattan Valley was part of the Bloomingdale District, the name given to the farms and houses along the Bloomingdale Road along Manhattan's Upper West Side. The Dutch Bloemendaal was Anglicized to "Bloomingdale" or "the Bloomingdale District", for the west side of Manhattan from about 23rd Street up to the Hollow Way (modern 125th Street). It originally consisted of farms and villages along a road (regularized in 1703) known as the Bloomingdale Road. Bloomingdale Road was renamed The Boulevard in 1868, as the farms and villages were divided into building lots and absorbed into the city.
By the 18th century it contained numerous farms and country residences of many of the city's well-off, a major parcel of which was the Apthorp Farm. The main artery was the Bloomingdale Road, which began north of where Broadway and the Bowery Lane (now Fourth Avenue) join (at modern Union Square) and wended its way northward to about modern 116th Street in Morningside Heights, where the road farther north was known as the Kingsbridge Road. Within the confines of the modern-day Upper West Side, the road passed through the hamlets of Harsenville, bounded by 68th Street, 81st Street, Central Park West, and the Hudson River; Strycker's Bay, located on a now-infilled inlet between 86th and 96th Streets; and Bloomingdale Village, a place near the current Columbia University campus.
In the early 1800s, John Clendening owned a farm that covered much of the valley, roughly from the Bloomingdale Road to 8th Avenue between 99th and 105th Streets, with a large mansion near Amsterdam and 104th Streets. The area was known as the "Clendening Valley". Although the Clendening estate was divided and sold in 1845, the Clendening Valley name persisted until the 1880s, and a Clendening Hotel existed into the early 20th century.
The construction of an elevated aqueduct to carry the Croton Aqueduct over the valley in 1838–1842 separated the eastern side of the valley from the village of Bloomingdale, which had emerged around the Bloomingdale Road until the 1870s, when it was replaced with an underground inverted siphon, and the old aqueduct was torn down. Early development in the 1870s and 1880s focused on institutional care for the sick or aged, and included the Hebrew Home for the Aged, the Catholic Old Age Home, the Home for Respectable Aged Indigent Females, and the Towers Nursing Home constructed as a cancer ward by John Jacob Astor III in 1884. Also located in Manhattan Valley at the time was the New York Cancer Hospital, which was built in 1887 at 455 Central Park West. These, together with the Lion Brewery, gave the area its earliest landmarks. The neighborhood began to fill out residentially at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, when the New York City Subway's IRT Ninth Avenue Line in 1870 and the IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line in 1904 allowed the public ready access to uptown Manhattan. Columbia's purchase of the Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum at around the same time as the subway's arrival naturally made the neighborhood more attractive as well.
The area was populated mostly by Irish and German immigrants through the 1950s. Young boys and girls took advantage of Central Park and Riverside Drive or played stickball and roller hockey in the streets. The 1950s saw many migrants from Puerto Rico take up residence on the Upper West Side, and a proposed project to eliminate the older brownstone apartments began to drive earlier residents to the suburbs.
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