About Town

The City of Inwood - A Hidden Treasure

Venturing out to Inwood, the vibrant neighborhood located next to Washington Heights, can be an interesting if not enlightening experience. The subway station, where one disembarks from the train, serves as a portal to a different world. Its graffiti-filled walls and urine stained floors reminds one what New York, and especially the once decaying subway system, used to be like before Rudolph Guilliani rode into town sweeping away vagabonds, petty criminals and squeegee men. However, once one is able to get past the subway station, Inwood has much to offer.

Although its streets seem to be rather ordinary -- garbage is strewn haphazardly all over the sidewalk, sirens and car alarms blare harmoniously -- demographically, Inwood is a rarity. The neighborhood is one of the few areas in urban America where people from all walks of life, Hispanics, African Americans, and Jews, interact with each other on a daily basis. Indeed, when walking past the various eateries, "mom-and-pop" shops, hair parlors, and clothes stores, one almost feels that David Dinkin’s "glorious mosaic" has been fulfilled. An immigrant shopkeeper, moving to the sound of the cash register, sells fresh fruit to a cantankerous Jewish Grandmother looking for the best buy possible. A Latino teen-ager fits a "struggling" artist with a second-rate suit at discount store, always remaining courteous to the sometimes difficult customer. A middle-aged man finally attaining his dream of owning his own sportswear line, peddles merchandise to anyone willing to buy. Simply put, it is Capitalism at its rigorous best, a commercial gallery full of business enterprises and ventures of all sorts.

More importantly, Inwood is able to maintain its unique nature because of what it lacks: "chic" coffeehouses and trendy restaurants, where churlish college students and pushy yuppies tend to congregate. Inwood even has the distinction of being one of the few neighborhoods that does not have a Starbucks. While many might see this as a fault, this sentiment could not be further from the truth. Unlike Midtown or the Village, where stores and people tend to be artificial, Inwood has a "genuine" feel to it. When buying food at a grocery, one does not feel that he is on display for other people to make acerbic comments about. Droves of twenty-somethings do not walk the streets as if they own them, laughing and recounting scenes from Quentin Tarentino movies. Hip, young married couples do not saunter about, while letting their snotty children run wild. High-powered businessmen talking on their cellular phones and high-strung professionals do not bump into you when crossing the street. The pedestrians walking the sidewalk seem to walk with less urgency than normal New Yorkers. Although the people of Inwood can be rude, most of them lack the swagger and cockiness one usually associates with Manhattanites. In other words, Inwood can be seen as the Anti-Manhattan - a place where people are crabby, not angry, cranky, not snooty, busy, not self-absorbed.

However, it would be difficult to truly enjoy the Inwood experience without visiting its two most valued treasures: the Dyckman House Museum and Inwood Park. Built originally in 1784, the Dyckman House (located on 204^th street in Broadway) is Manhattan’s last colonial farmhouse. The house was the center to one of the largest estates in Manhattan’s history, some 450 acres of grazing pasture, apple orchards, pear trees and tomato gardens. After being sold by the Dyckman family in 1871, the house, decrepit and in disrepair, was repurchased by Mrs. Mary Alice Dyckman and Mrs. Fanny Dyckman-Welch in 1916. Thankfully, they methodically restored the house to its quaint beauty, furnishing it with works from the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Currently, the Dyckman house contains three bedrooms, each more memorable than the next, a living room and dining room, a kitchen and a relic room. Much like any colonial house, it is the museum’s aerie legends and odd artifacts that leave its imprint on a person. In the relic room, are guns actually used by members of the Dyckman family during the American revolution, uniforms worn by American soldiers, and official city documents that are nearly 220 years old. In the living room, a 300 year old Bible lies innocently on a table, daring observers to look at it, while a portrait of a stern looking man (the original family patriarch, Jan Dyckman) hangs over a fire place, with his leering eyes staring at all who pass by. Pictures of the house taken at the turn of the century line the walls of the hallway, thereby adding to the place’s mystique. These black and white pictures give us glimpses of what northern Manhattan, before the residential apartment buildings and urban development, must have looked like. In these pictures Broadway is merely a dirt road; horse-driven carriages and crude automobiles move along steadily, eventually causing a mild traffic jam; resplendent greenery and large trees surround homes, giving new meaning to the concept of a town house.

Yet, the most peculiar feature about the Dyckman house is the surreal backdrop it provides for the street. With its gambrel roof and impressive garden in the front, the Dyckman house seems out of place when contrasted with the multi-story apartment buildings that surround it. The museum’s exterior lends a serene quality to the street, as cars slow down and pedestrians literally stop in their footsteps to get a sight of this last remnant from Manhattan’s rural past. The plants in the foreground mix with the wooden benches and ruddy sidewalks, forming an image full of contradiction and conflict. The Dyckman House is the only place in Manhattan where modern industrialization and this country’s yeoman heritage converge. It is this convergence that leads one to venture out to Inwood park and see how urban planners have tried to recapture New York’s agrarian tradition.

Beginning on 209^th street, Inwood Park constitutes an urban landscapist’s dream: basketball courts, baseball fields and plain grass are deftly woven together, flowing fluidly from one to the next; concrete walkways traverse the entire park, enabling one to cover as much ground as possible. Nestled next to the Hudson River, the park seems both limitless and confining. The water acts more as an extension than a boundary park. At the heart of the park, one is afforded the opportunity to have an awe-inspiring view of the Manhattan Bridge. On misty, foggy days, the Bridge, as it floats in the air, makes for varnished imagery, an airborne vessel searching for a place to land.

But it is only until playing on the basketball courts with the natives, that one is able to truly glean Inwood Park’s essence. As one plays one intense game after another, fleetingly joining forces with the local businessmen, teachers, school students, shopkeepers and policemen, all of the city’s myriad problems, at least for a moment, are inconsequential. For those few hours, Italians, Dominicans and Jews put aside their petty differences and play on the same team, united under the same mission: defeat the opposition and remain on the court. Indeed, it is the palpable scent of body sweat, not vile hatred, that permeates the air. Complete strangers curse, hiss, yell and pant at each other meaning no harm in the process. Although throughout the afternoon’s duration there are the occasional flare-ups and heated arguments that threaten to become more serious, more often than not they are fanned out. After the sun sets and the people make their way home, one finally realizes what it means to live in New York - to live in a city, where every neighborhood has its own story to tell.