The Borough of Upper West Side, NY

The personal injury lawyers in Upper West Side, NY, have kindly sponsored the information in this article on the borough of Upper West Side. We hope you learn something you might not have known before.

History

Early Dutch colonization took the land, including what is known now as the Upper West Side, from the Native American tribe Lenape. However, some resistance from the Indians in the 1650s would halt the expansion, leaving the Dutch with only a section called Bloomingdale. In the eighteenth century Bloomingdale, the current Manhattan Valley, was made up of countryside and farmland and widely known for its tobacco production. Bloomingdale Road, the present-day Broadway, was built in 1703 to adhere to the influx of trade.

Construction of high-rise buildings came as early as 1910, including building the Dakota apartments, where John Lennon would later be murdered. In 1904, the subway was completed, which led to more apartment buildings and a decline in rural housing trends.

Geography

The Upper West Side, located between the Hudson River and Central Park, is one of the five boroughs of New York City. The neighborhood travels from West 59th Street to West 110th Street and consists of mainly brownstone and luxury apartment buildings that face Central Park, such as the mentioned Dakota Apartments. Landmarks one could find in this area include the following:

• American Folk Art Museum
• New-York Historical Society
• American Museum of Natural History
• Columbia University
• The Cathedral of St. John the Divine
• Zabar's

Demographics

The two neighborhoods that make up the Upper West Side, for census classifying purposes, are the Upper West Side and Lincoln Square. 74th Street separates them, and together they take up 1,162.29 acres with a combined population of 193,867 as of 2010.

Income for the median household in the Upper West Side is $123,894 as of 2017. Compared to New York City's poverty rate of 20%, the Upper West Side has less than 10%.
Despite the urban renewal in the 1950s led by Robert Moses, the push to eliminate lower-income property did not eliminate the ethnic diversity as it did in some areas. The ethnographical breakdown, according to the US Census in 2010, is as followed:

• 69.5% White
• 7.6% Asian
• 13.3% Hispanic or Latino
• 7.1% African American
• 0.1% Native American
• 0.3% Other Races
• 2% Two or More Races
• 0.0% Pacific Islander

See related reading in our next blog post: The Upper East Side Borough in New York

Our Local Office

If you have been seriously injured because of another’s carelessness, you may be entitled to compensation. Contact our experienced Upper West Side, NY, personal injury lawyers to schedule your free consultation.

Banville Law
165 West End Ave #1h
New York, NY 10023, USA
(917) 633-4808