Hamilton Heights to rise under Columbia ?
In the 1980s she lived on West 103rd Street in a one-bedroom co-op that she sold for $335,000 in 2002. Then, she said, Columbia built off-campus housing on her corner -- and in 2005 an identical apartment then sold for $500,000, which strikes Ms. Cabrera as a steep jump even in a hot housing market. She is now listing a four-bedroom 1901 town house at 470 West 148th Street for $975,000.
When the new Columbia campus is finished in 2050, Manhattanville will have a striking new look. Glass towers housing the business school, labs and classrooms will replace workaday brick structures, meatpacking warehouses and even a Studebaker plant. Sidewalks will be broadened and planted with trees. The $7 billion project -- designed by the architectural heavyweights Renzo Piano; Skidmore, Owings and Merrill; and Diller Scofidio & Renfro -- will create 6,000 permanent jobs, the university says.
The Heights stretches from the Hudson River to Edgecombe Avenue, from West 133rd Street to West 155th. It was named for Alexander Hamilton, whose clapboard-sided country house, Hamilton Grange, was recently moved a short distance to a prominent berth in St. Nicholas Park. The neighborhood's other claim to fame is the presence of City College and its more than 15,000 students, most of them commuters.
In addition to four subway stops, the neighborhood's amenities include two substantial parks. One is St. Nicholas Park, slightly overgrown, with stairs that zigzag through steep outcroppings. The other, Riverbank State Park, is across the Henry Hudson Parkway, and reachable by two footbridges. It takes a kitchen-sink approach to recreation, with a track, a secluded community garden, and a new restaurant with a patio on which to enjoy a beer while taking in views of the Hudson.
The high ground, relatively low density and low-slung housing stock, coupled with angled streets that break up the grid, often give the area a sunnier, airier feel than other parts of Manhattan.
REAL ESTATE
Hamilton Heights: Awaiting a Bounce
By C. J. HUGHES
Published: June 10, 2011
A new Columbia University satellite campus in Manhattanville is giving the neighborhood next door an extended turn in the limelight.