Crossing Broadway: Washington Heights and the Promise of New York City

by Robert W. Snyder

Robert W. Snyder's Crossing Broadway tells how disparate groups overcame their mutual suspicions to rehabilitate housing, build new schools, restore parks, and work with the police to bring safety to streets racked by crime and fear. It shows how a neighborhood once nicknamed "Frankfurt on the Hudson" for its large population of German Jews became "Quisqueya Heights"―the home of the nation's largest Dominican community. The story of Washington Heights illuminates New York City's long passage from the Great Depression and World War II through the urban crisis to the globalization and economic inequality of the twenty-first century. Washington Heights residents played crucial roles in saving their neighborhood, but its future as a home for working-class and middle-class people is by no means assured. The growing gap between rich and poor in contemporary New York puts new pressure on the Heights as more affluent newcomers move into buildings that once sustained generations of wage earners and the owners of small businesses. Crossing Broadway is based on historical research, reporting, and oral histories. Its narrative is powered by the stories of real people whose lives illuminate what was won and lost in northern Manhattan's journey from the past to the present. A tribute to a great American neighborhood, this book shows how residents learned to cross Broadway―over the decades a boundary that has separated black and white, Jews and Irish, Dominican-born and American-born―and make common cause in pursuit of one of the most precious the right to make a home and build a better life in New York City.

Genres: Nonfiction, New York, History

312 pages, Hardcover

First published November 6, 2014

Reviews

[bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really pleasantly surprised by this book. It’s about Washington Heights from basically the 1940s into the early 2000s, though the bulk of it focuses on 1950s-1980s.

What I liked:
-Finding such a detailed book on my neighborhood that contextualizes my family’s experience here and this neighborhood in the City’s larger history. I learned so much about structures I walk past every day, and about people I interact with regularly on my community board. I didn’t know there was a huge community control and integration fight in the Heights, and now I do.
-How honesto the author was about racism in the neighborhood, which groups upheld housing segregation, and who was resistant to integration. I mean, the author is honest about his father making racist comments about safety, and the focus groups he convened still defending their positions on community control. The class analysis in this book (namely how class shaped racial interactions) was crucial, and the author didn’t shy away from it.

What I didn’t like:
-I think the book errs by focusing on individuals as movements. For example, Ellen Lurie becomes the focus of huge chunks of the chapter on school integration. She could not have been the only person involved or leading this but she’s the only one really mentioned. Same with Dave Crenshaw and policing efforts.
-I don’t think enough was done to highlight women’s experiences outside of motherhood. The author mentions very briefly in the epilogue that domestic violence was rampant in the Heights throughout the time period covered and yet provides 0 information about it in any of the chapters. Also, nothing is really said about women’s entrepreneurship during this period or the campaigns led/role played by the Dominican Women Development Center. He mentions Maria Luna playing as much of a role as Dave Crenshaw, but doesn’t give any biographical information about her.
-Nothing is said about the experience of LGBTQ folks in the Heights, and the AIDS crisis happened smack dab in the middle of the time period covered by this book.

In any case, I think the book a good job at covering most bases. I’m excited to have any history of Washington Heights specifically on library shelves and learned a bunch by reading it. I’d recommend to anyone who likes learning about NYC history or is interested in the drug war, community control vs. integration, and stories of immigrants’ adjustments to the US.

[Jim Willse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like Snyder, I lived in Washington Heights as a kid, then moved to New Jersey. My mother moved back when I went off to college, and I slept on her couch during grad school downtown. So I know at least a little about the neighborhood. Crossing Broadway is a thorough review of the demographic and political currents there over the past 50 years, but I found the writing a little flat. The most lively chapter is about the turmoil at George Washington HS, which does indeed say a lot about the city as a whole.

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it many years ago...while the topic was interesting and close-to-home, the research was clearly from a journalistic rather than scholarly angle, and didn't cover topics with as much context or analysis as I was expecting. The material about Jewish opposition to the building of PS 48 (Police Officer Michael J Buczek School) was the only part that stuck with me.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive, highly readable political history of upper Manhattan (including Inwood as well as Washington Heights). Snyder, a professor of journalism, understandably focuses on reporters and newspapers as his central sources, but extensive interviews with both ordinary people and neighborhood leaders help complete the picture. There is ample attention here to structural matters like real estate, schooling, and the impact of racism and immigration on both, but also to the particularity of stories that do not simply exemplify Snyder's structural account. From an academic historian, one might ask a bit more theoretical heft; from a reporter, this is as good as it gets.

[Cat]

I've lived in Washington Heights for 35 years and never once referred to it as Quisqueya Heights, or heard others refer to it as Quisqueya Heights but It sounds interesting either way.

[Ruth Feldstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful story and terrific analysis.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

A nice topic but an overwrought and overly personal book that needed a bit more editing.

[The Jewish Book Council]

Review by Edward Shapiro for the Jewish Book Council.

[Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice idea, very well researched, not much stuck with me 8 months later.