Riverside Drive, north from 165th Street, ca. 1915. Washington Heights’ wooded, bucolic character would soon be disrupted by development. In 1921, the Harkness family donated a 22-acre plot between 165th and 168th Streets for what would become the campus of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Today, the Milstein Hospital Building, built in 1988, occupies 165th Street between Riverside Drive and Fort Washington Avenue.

“West 165th Street, north side, west from Fort Washington Ave., across Riverside Drive to the North (Hudson) River and showing across the latter the Jersey highlands and the George Washington Bridge. The property on the right is a part of the Columbia University-Presbyterian Medical Center and partially shown thereon is the Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing. June 15, 1937.”

American League Base Ball Park, ca. 1910. Hilltop Park was the home of the New York Highlanders, as today’s Yankees were then known, between 1903 and 1912. The team moved to the Giants’ Polo Grounds on the Harlem River for the 1913 season and Hilltop Park was demolished in 1914. In 1925, Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital broke ground at this site.

22nd Regiment Armory, date unknown. The massive brick Classical Revival structure with Romanesque Revival elements served as the headquarters for the 22nd Regimental Armory. Completed in 1911 to the designs of the firm of Richard Walker and Charles Morris. The 22nd Regiment was downsized, merged, and moved around in the mid 20th century. The drill hall became for a time a track-and-field venue for the city's schools (having hosted athletic events even while occupied by the national guard). In the 1980s, the huge building served as a city homeless shelter. In the 1990s Dr. Norbert Sanders (the only New Yorker to ever win the city's marathon) raised $25 million to refurbish the building. Today it houses the National Track & Field Hall of Fame, a large after-school program, and the Millrose Games, the country’s best-known indoor track-and-field event.

J. Hood Wright Park, May 18, 1924. Haven Avenue, south from West 176th Street, showing several new apartments under construction. The far two, including the frame residence were removed subsequently and their sites are now a part of J. Hood Wright Park. At the right is W. 177th Street, continuing its winding way downhill to Riverside Drive.

Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Washington Heights; November 16, 1937.

Sobol Gas Station and Fort Washington Presbyterian Church, 1927. Ira and Ida Sobol were Jewish immigrants who arrived in New York in the early 20th century. Working in the new and booming car industry, the family was able to purchase a gas station. The business was a success, and Sobel Brothers became a chain of service stations in the five boroughs, though perhaps most concentrated in Flushing, Corona, and northern Queens. Today this small plot, a triangle between Broadway, Wadsworth Avenue and 174th Street remains a gas station. The steeple seen behind the gas station is the Fort Washington Presbyterian Church. Founded in 1913 through the merger of the West Presbyterian and Park Presbyterian Churches, the new congregation built a fine neo-Georgian edifice on Wadsworth Avenue. The church with the tall bell tower was designed by Thomas Hastings of the venerable firm of Carrère & Hastings. The congregation here has changed with the demographics of the local community. Since 1948 Spanish-language services have been held here and today the church membership is largely Dominicans and Puerto Rican.

This is the northwest corner of West 173rd Street and Broadway. The billboard advertises (and requests funds) for a new church called the Broadway Temple. This massive planned structure was the brainchild of Reverend Christian Reisner, the leader of a Washington Heights Methodist congregation. Upon learning in 1923 that their current place of worship was to be demolished for the planned George Washington Bridge, Rev. Reisner decided their next home would be a ”magnificent advertisement for God’s business.” This proposed church by architect Donn Barber was to include two 12-story apartment buildings flanking a soaring central tower, complete with a 75-foot-high rotating cross at the top. The church was to seat more than 2,000 and have a basement space with a gym, bowling alley, and pool. Needing $4 million for his church, the reverend sought funds from New York's wealthiest (John D. Rockefeller, for one) and its regular folks (the billboard urges passers-by to help out with 5% bonds). By the start of the Depression, the two Deco apartment houses had been completed, but the church itself was far from its planned 725 feet. Stalled until the 1940s because of debt, construction on the much more restrained edifice (only three stories as compared to 40) was begun again in 1947 and the temple was completed in 1952 (with no rotating cross). The final design was completed by Shreve, Harmon and Lamb, the firm that designed the Empire State Building.