Bloomingdale District

Bloomingdale is a part of Manhattan's Upper West Side between 96th and 110th Streets and bounded on the east by Amsterdam Avenue and on the west by Riverside Drive.

History

In the early days of New York City, the entire area north of 23rd Street and west of what is now Eighth Avenue was known as Bloomingdale and consisted of farms and villages along a road (built in 1703) known as the Bloomingdale Road. Bloomingdale Road was renamed Broadway in 1868, as the farms and villages were absorbed into the city. [ [http://www.columbus-amsterdam-bid.org/history-to.htm Neighborhood History ] ] With the building of the Croton Aqueduct in the area between present day Amsterdam Avenue and Columbus Avenue in 1838-42, the northern reaches of the district became divided into Manhattan Valley to the east of the aqueduct and Bloomingdale to the west. Bloomingdale, in the latter half of the 19th century, was the name of a village that occupied the area just south of 110th street. Morningside Heights by Andrew Dolkart, p. 4]

The arrival of the IRT subway in 1904 spurred the development of the area. The stately tall apartment blocks on West End Avenue and the townhouses on the streets between Amsterdam Avenue and Riverside Drive, which contribute to the character of the area, were all constructed during the pre-depression years of the twentieth century. A revolution in building techniques, the low cost of land relative to lower Manhattan, the arrival of the subway, and the democratization of the elevator (they were no longer expensive) made it possible to construct large apartment buildings for the middle classes and the largeness of these buildings is one reason why the neighborhood has remained largely unchanged into the twenty-first century.

References