 | It has been suggested that this article be merged into Manhattanville, Manhattan . ( Discuss ) Proposed since December 2025. |
West Harlem is an area of Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and the campus of City College on the east; and on the south by 122nd and 125th Streets. The area includes the neighborhoods of Hamilton Heights and Manhattanville. [1]
Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, [2] Harlem is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Its history has been defined by a series of economic boom-and-bust cycles, with significant population shifts accompanying each cycle. [3] Harlem was predominantly occupied by Jewish and Italian Americans in the late 19th century, while African-American residents began to arrive in large numbers during the Great Migration in the early 20th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, Central and West Harlem were the center of the Harlem Renaissance, a major African-American cultural movement. With job losses during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the deindustrialization of New York City after World War II, rates of crime and poverty increased significantly. [4] In the 21st century, crime rates decreased significantly, and Harlem started to gentrify.
Throughout the nineteenth century, West Harlem bustled around a wharf active with ferry and daily river conveyances. It was the first station on the Hudson River Railroad running north from the city, and the hub of daily stage coach, omnibus and streetcar lines. Situated near Bloomingdale Road, its hotels, houses of entertainment and post office made it an alluring destination of suburban retreat from the city, yet its direct proximity to the Hudson River also made it an invaluable industrial entry point for construction materials and other freight bound for Upper Manhattan. With the construction of road and railway viaducts over the valley in which the town sat, Manhattanville, increasingly absorbed into the growing city, became a marginalized industrial area. In the early 2000s, the neighborhood became the site of a major planned expansion of Columbia University, with its Manhattanville campus now located in the neighborhood. [5] The campus consists of the Forum, the Lenfest Center for the Arts (including the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery), and the Jerome L. Greene Science Center. As of 2018, the Henry Kravis Building and the Ronald O. Perelman Center were being built as of 2018 [update] . [6]
The area is served by the New York City Subway and local bus routes. It contains several public elementary, middle, and high schools, and is close to several other colleges, including Manhattan School of Music and the City College of New York. West Harlem is part of Manhattan Community District 9 and 10, and its primary ZIP Codes are 10027 and 10031. [1] It is patrolled by the 26th Precinct of the New York City Police Department.