Mendelssohn on the Hudson

Fort Tryon Park, near the Heather Garden, at the upper stone wall overlooking Billings Lawn



We’re in Fort Tryon Park, near the Heather Garden, at the upper stone wall overlooking Billings Lawn, the Hudson River, and the New Jersey Palisades. You can see how panoramas like this one inspired the area’s nickname, “Frankfurt on the Hudson.” John D. Rockefeller Jr. was instrumental in shaping this Park’s history by donating the old...

Margaret Corbin Circle at the south entrance of Fort Tryon Park



We’re at Margaret Corbin Circle, where Fort Washington Avenue meets Cabrini Boulevard, at the southern entrance of Fort Tryon Park. If you sit around the Circle long enough, you might start recognizing the regulars. One particular group of locals - all part of one German Jewish extended family, would meet to catch up on their week.

Martin had been sent with other f...

Southwest corner of Cabrini Boulevard & 190th St. outside 900 West 190th



We’re at the southwest corner of Cabrini Boulevard & 190th, in front of 900 West 190th, or Cabrini Terrace. It’s the neighborhood’s tallest and - built in the mid-1950s - one of its newest structures. Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital of Hungary, which was on the northwest corner, served the uptown population until 1981. If you're curious, here's the Rev...

187th St. where Pinehurst Ave., Cabrini Blvd., and 187th St. meet



We’re standing near the Paterno Trivium, a “vest-pocket” park that commemorates developer Dr. Charles Paterno, whose buildings helped define this residential neighborhood.

For decades, a diner has stood on the northwest side of Fort Washington & 187th Street. Before it was Vicky’s, it was Angela’s Coffee Shop, before Angela’s, Angelo’s...and Mickey’s before that! ...

Southwest corner of Fort Washington and 187th outside the bus shelter



We’re standing to the side of the busy southwest corner of Fort Washington and 187th outside the bus shelter. Behind us stood Brite Glo, a tiny store that sold everything from marzipan - the sweet almond confection so popular in Germany - to knee-high stockings.

When you follow this corner building around to 187th Street you’ll see a series of one-story storefront...

187th Street stairs, just off Fort Washington Avenue



We’re standing near the 187th Street stairs, one of New York’s 102 step streets maintained by the Department of Transportation. Down these steps, west of Broadway, the population was, and still is, largely Orthodox, with several Orthodox synagogues in the area.

The bank next door was the original home of Gideon’s bakery, which became kosher under new ownership by the early 1940s. ...

Northwest corner of 185th St. at 551 Fort Washington Avenue



We are outside the current home of the Hebrew Tabernacle of Washington Heights congregation. It owns a copy of the Gedenkbuch, the Book of Remembrance, which memorializes the 150,000 Jews lost within German borders between 1933 and 1945. For the religious, synagogues remained an important part of their lives here.

Lillian, a member of this congregation, tells a story illust...

East side of Bennett Park near the steps to Fort Washington Avenue at 184th Street



We see the Art Deco A-train subway entrance designed by Squire J. Vickers across the street. Our Austrian neighbor Rivke, whose story this episode follows, lived on Bennett Avenue near this subway entrance’s lower level.

It is also within this episode that the neighborhood’s German Jewish and Dominican immigrant stories intersect. After Kristalln...

Western entrance to Bennett Park, east of Pinehurst Avenue between 183rd and 185th Street



We are at Bennett Park, which was the site of Fort Washington during the Revolutionary War. A plaque on that large rock outcropping also marks the highest point in Manhattan. If you look west on Pinehurst Avenue, you’ll see Hudson View Gardens. Completed in 1925, this lovely Tudor-style complex is on the National Register of Historic Places. F...

183rd St. and Fort Washington Ave, Southwest Corner

Notice the pre-war Art Deco design of this six-story apartment building at 495 Fort Washington Ave. Throughout the 1930s and corresponding with the arrival of the German Jewish refugees, prominent architects designed buildings like this one to accommodate the area’s growing population.

In 1933, the first year of their anti-Jewish decrees, the Nazis banned Mendelssohn...

181st & Fort Washington Ave, Northeast Corner near Fort Washington Collegiate Church

What would you do if your country forced you out, to leave behind everything you loved? Where would you go?

"Mendelssohn on the Hudson" is a historical musical walking tour about the refugees from Nazi Germany, who fled fascism, persecution, and violence in Europe to create new lives in Washington Heights - and transformed a neighborhood.

Our tour...