OUR COMMUNITY 

 Washington Heights - socioeconomic and cultural locus of Dominican Americans    

Washington Heights constitutes one of the largest Dominican settlements in New York and the United States. Washington Heights, the densely developed square mile that extends from 155th Street to roughly Dyckman Street, and from river to river, is to Dominicans what Harlem has been to blacks: a cultural capital with deep symbolic meaning. History  In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Austrian and German Jews flooded Washington Heights. According to New York City figures, more than 20,000 Jewish refugees moved into apartments west of Broadway during that time, forming what would eventually become known as Hudson Heights. After World War II, African Americans started migrating into the area from Southern states and overcrowded sections of Harlem. Puerto Rican, Cuban and Dominican immigrants followed in the years to come, further diversifying the neighborhood and lending it a distinctly Latino-Caribbean flavor. Today the majority of the neighborhood's population is still of Dominican birth or descent (the area is sometimes referred to as "Quisqueya Heights"), and Spanish is frequently heard being spoken on the streets.  Washington Heights has been the most important base for Dominican accomplishment in political, non-profit, cultural, and athletic arenas in the United States since the 1960s. Most of the neighborhood businesses are Dominican owned, driving the local economy. Many Dominican immigrants come to network and live with family members. Bishop Gerard Walsh, former long-time pastor of St. Elizabeth's Roman Catholic Church, located in Washington Heights, said that many residents go to the neighborhood for "cheap housing," obtain jobs "downtown," receive a "good education," and "hopefully" leave the neighborhood.       Dominican Community of  Washington Heights - Vibrant and Sociable Collective warmth manifests itself in the neighborhood showcase that is a feast to foreign senses: brilliant assortments of exotic fruits and vegetables; the toasted, beckoning scent of a golden empanadas, and the lyrical, musical sound of a Spanish dialect easily distinguishable by the over-emphasized roll of the r's.  Traditional group are fiercely loyal to their family, community, and linguistic heritage. Perhaps that is the difficulty in persuading Dominicans to revert to just one language: one would take from him his natural ethnic identity, and the other, the symbol-however broken and accented-of his new home. Languages do sometimes clash, but they do not compete, because they do not have to-the famous schoolteacher. Language grows out of life, out of its needs and experiences. For the Dominicans in Washington Heights, it is the delicate balance of two lives: an English-speaking life within the doors of Intermediate School 90, and a Spanish-speaking life on the asphalt of 163rd Street, and on the sidewalks of busy St. Nicholas Boulevard. Language is, after all, more than just a method of communication, it is life: two flags, one from the Dominican Republic and the other, American red, white, and blue flying from the same fire escape.

 

 

 

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. During the Battle of Fort Washington, on November 16, 1776, the fort was captured by the British at great cost to the American forces; 130 soldiers were killed or wounded, and an additional 2,700 captured and held as prisoners, many of whom died on prison ships anchored in New York Harbor. The British renamed it "Fort Kynphausen" to honor the German general who had led the successful attack, and held it for the remainder of the war.[1] The progress of the battle is marked by a series of bronze plaques along Broadway.            Geography 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. Though the neighborhood was once considered to run as far south as 125th Street, modern usage defines the neighborhood as running north from Harlem (Hamilton Heights) at 155th Street to Inwood, topping out just below Dyckman Street.[2]The wooded slopes of Washington Heights seen from a sandy cove on the Hudson as they were about 1845 are illustrated in a canvas by John James Audubon's son, Victor Clifford Audubon, conserved by the Museum of the History of New York