Washington Heights sits on the ridge along the west side of upper Manhattan, between 155th Street and Dyckman Street. The highest ground on the island is in at 183rd Street, an outcrop of schist 265 feet above sea level. Fort Washington stood there. Its eastern section is outlined in the paving at the south end.
That hill is why several streets here turn into flights of stairs. The longest has 130 steps and connects with at 187th Street. Along , apartment buildings stand on stilts where the ground drops beneath them.
The subway went deep for the same reason. The platform at is 173 feet under Saint Nicholas Avenue, the deepest in the system. Elevators are the only way down. A tunnel a thousand feet long runs west from the station to a second entrance on . Because it is mapped as a street, the Department of Transportation looks after it rather than the MTA. In the Heights used that tunnel for Abuela Claudia's song.
Most of the housing is apartment buildings from the first thirty years of the twentieth century, few of them over six stories. The tall buildings around 168th Street are the hospital. The Art Deco entrances are on the blocks west of above 181st Street.
The shops are on and 181st Street, with signs stacked two and three deep over the storefronts. is on the Harlem River side. The pool in it opened in 1936 and is where In the Heights shot the 96,000 number.
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