Washington Heights is a New York City neighborhood in the
northern reaches of the borough of Manhattan. It is named for
Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest
point on Manhattan island by Continental Army troops during the
American Revolutionary War, to defend the area from the British
forces. Washington Heights borders Harlem to the South, along
155th street, Inwood to the North along Dyckman Street, the
Hudson River to the West and Harlem River to the East.
Washington Heights is on the high ridge in Upper Manhattan that
rises steeply north of the narrow valley that carries 125th
Street to the former ferry landing on the Hudson River that
served the village of Manhattanville. Though the neighborhood
was once considered to run as far south as 125th Street, modern
usage defines the neighborhood as running north from Hamilton
Heights at 155th Street to Inwood, topping out just below
Dyckman Street. The wooded slopes of Washington Heights seen
from a sandy cove on the Hudson as they were abo