MANHATTAN VALLEY

Manhattan Valley is a neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, bounded by 110th Street to the north, Central Park to the east and 96th Street to the south. The area went into decline in the 1960s, as drugs, crime, deterioration and the abandonment of buildings beset the neighborhood. The acute problems in Manhattan Valley began as well, when several blocks were demolished under Robert Moses’ urban renewal programs to construct the Frederick Douglass Houses, a huge housing project completed in 1958. They were a persistent site of crack dealing as the crack epidemic continued in the early 1990s.

Today, the neighborhood is gentrifying, new businesses have moved into the area and some affordable hotels and hostels, such as the Hostelling International, are located there. Riverside Park, which is located in the west of the neighborhood running along the Hudson River, is a very beautiful park, it offers several recreation and sporting facilities.