The upper 170’s are dominated by the approach to the George
Washington Bridge and the Port Authority’s George Washington Bridge Bus
Station, where buses to New Jersey terminate. After the bridge was built in
1932, the city planned to destroy the old Jeffery’s Hook Lighthouse,
located beneath the bridge—until Hildegarde Swift wrote the children’s book The
Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge. Thousands of kids wrote
letters and the lighthouse was saved. Today, it’s fully restored, but it’s
hard to get to the waterfront park where it’s located.
North of the bridge, the area from Broadway to the Hudson River
is the most scenic in Washington Heights. It’s home to spacious apartment
buildings that attract professionals, musicians, actors and music students.
"[The influx of performing artists] here has been going on for decades, but
nobody knows about it," says Joe Montagna of Simone Song Realty. The
neighborhood also has a new name—Hudson Heights—coined by a civic
group in the early ’90s. Of course, some old-timers resent the term.
"Many theatrical people have migrated north, and feel that since they live
west of Broadway, they can geographically dissociate themselves from Washington
Heights," wrote Avo on the Manhattan Nostalgia Message Board
