Washington Heights , often shortened in “The Heights”, is a district of the north of the island of Manhattan to New York.

Its name comes from Fort-Washington, a fortification held by the American troops during the Guerre of independence, which was taken by the Britannique S the November 16th 1776 and the domination ensured them on New York.

Washington Heights extends from the 155e street until Dyckman Street. In the south one finds the district of Harlem, in north that of Inwood.

The painter and naturalist John James Audubon - with whom one owes a description of the birds of North America - there lived at the 19th century. It is buried in the church of the Intercession, a major realization of the architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, located at the limit of Harlem. One also finds there an important hospital, the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center , with the old site of the stage of Hilltop Park. The tourist destination of the district is The Cloisters (cloisters) in Fort Tryon Park. This museum, depend on the Metropolitan Museum off Art, is devoted to art and the medieval culture , with in particular of the tapestries and paintings Dutch. The buildings which shelter the collections are built around authentic medieval cloisters, coming from five sites French (the Abbaye Saint-Michel of Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem-the-Desert, Bonnefont-in-Comminges, Sort-in-Bigorre, Froville), are dismounted, transported and D assembled in this park.

The population of the district is mainly of Dominican origin , from where its nickname, “Quisqueya Heights”. One often intends there to speak Spanish in the street. One finds there also a community of confession judaïque, originating in a preceding wave of immigration Germanic, and related to the presence of the Yeshiva University . This establishment exempts a general higher education (with a strong religious component) and also forms Rabbin S.

External bonds

• Washington Heights and Inwood Online