HOMETOWN NEIGHBORHOODS

Morningside Heights New York’s College Town

New York City is full of educational institutions, from preschool to postsecondary; however, nowhere is this more apparent than in Morningside Heights. The concentration of colleges and universities in the north-west Manhattan neighborhood has earned it the nickname: New York’s college town. Columbia University, Teachers College, Barnard College, the Manhattan School of Music, New York Theological Seminary, Jew ish Theological Seminary of America and Bank Street College of Education all lie within the neighborhood, which encompasses the area between 110th and 125th streets and Riverside and Morningside drives.

In addition to its institutions of higher education, Morningside Heights also houses two public elementary schools — P.S. 125 and P.S. 36 — as well as private the elementary-middle schools Corpus Christi School, St. Hilda & St. Hugh’s School and Cathedral School.

Morningside Heights is one the the highest natural points i n New York City. It’s skirted by parks on its east and west sides, with Central Park stopping just short of its southeastern tip. Riverside Park runs between Morningside Heights and the Hudson River, offer- ing trails to bike or walk with views of the water, as well as access to Grant’s Tomb, where U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant was laid to rest. Morningside Park borders the neighborhood to the east. Both parks were co-designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect renowned for his co-designing of Central Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

The majority of Morningside Heights’ land is owned by Columbia University. Young families have started to impregnate the neighborhood now as well, making homesteads out of the prewar co-ops along Riverside Drive, as well as the few new condo developments cropping up in the neighborhood.

Morningside Heights main thoroughfares are Broadway and, to a lesser extent, Amsterdam Avenue, which cut parallel paths through the heart of the neighborhood and house Morningside Heights’ shops, restaurants and most famous attractions, like Tom’s Restaurant, located on Broadway at W. 112th St. below NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Exterior shots of the restaurant’s iconic neon sign were used in the television series “Seinfeld,” to depict the outside of the main characters favorite hangout spot. Other neighborhood attractions include the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, Grant’s Tomb, Riverside Church, Interchurch Center, New York’s Corpus Christi Church, International House and St. Luke’s Hospital.

Morningside Heights’ is served by the No. 1 train and the A,B,C and D trains.