Morningside Heights Tour + Optional Live Jazz Outdoors Afterwards

RSVPs begin Sunday, June 29th at 8:00pm. Space is set aside for new members and first and 2nd timers who land on the waiting list Email me at hankorenstein@gmail.com if you would like a spot.

This is the last in a series of three tours to raise awareness and money for a very special non-profit called the Broadway Mall Association (BMA), which helps keeps Broadway beautiful from 72nd Street to 168th Street with plantings, landscaping and art exhibits. Read more about BMA: here: http://broadwaymall.org/

Cost: $10:00 payable in cash at the tour. All proceeds to the BMA.

Schedule:

5pm - 6pm: Optional happy hour at Amity Hall
If you wish to eat, have a drink and/or use the restroom be sure to arrive early!
https://amityhalluptown.com/new-york-amity-hall-uptown-food-menu

6pm - 7:45pm: Guided Walking Tour

7:45pm - 8:30pm: Optional live jazz outdoors at Grant's Tomb (free), courtesy of Harlem's Jazzmobile. Music starts at 7pm. Artist description below.
Note: Limited seating - there are some benches and grassy areas.

Tour ends at Grant's Tomb, 122nd Street & Riverside Drive, convenient to the #1 subway at 125th or 116th Streets and Broadway, M4, M5, M104 buses.

Overview
Morningside Heights is a unique neighborhood due to its co-existence of residential and institutional buildings. In addition to some distinctive pre-war apartment buildings designed by the most prominent architects of that era, the neighborhood boasts seven colleges and universities including Columbia University, Bank Street College of Education, Manhattan School of Music and Barnard College.

Europeans first knew Morningside Heights as Vandewater Heights after 17th century Dutch farmer and landowner, Harmon Vandewater. After several centuries of agriculture in the 1800s as part of the village of Bloomingdale, several institutions were built including the Leak and Watts Orphan Asylum and the Blooming Insane Asylum.

The opening of the subway into Morningside Heights in 1904, coupled with the neighborhood’s magnificent parks and prestigious institutions, led to a building boom of speculative apartment house construction, attracting middle-class residents who could now commute directly downtown to work. In addition, Morningside Heights offers historic and monumental houses of worship – The Cathedral of St. John The Divine (the world’s largest Gothic Cathedral), and The Riverside Church which has the tallest bell tower in North America. Grant’s Tomb National Memorial includes the largest mausoleum in the U.S. and is the only place in NYC of a final resting place of a U.S. President. Some 19th century scholars called Morningside Heights the “Acropolis of the New World.”

(Pictured above: The Peace Fountain, outside of The Cathedral of St. John The Divine).