Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Historic District

Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Historic District. New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation. , The Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Historic District is one of the city's most architecturally distinguished and culturally significant neighborhoods. Built for middle and upper middle-class white residents between the mid-1800s and the first World War, the neighborhood achieved its greatest fame during the 1930s and 1940s when a large number of Black professionals moved to the area. The historic district consists of well-preserved rows of townhouses and finely detailed apartment buildings designed in a variety of revival styles, giving the area its special architectural character. In the 1880s, a cable car railway built along Amsterdam Avenue spurred the growth in the area - first with single-family houses, followed by long rows of rowhouses built on speculation., After civic improvements were made in the early twentieth-century, apartment buildings were erected along the avenues. During the mid-1920s, when Blacks first began moving to the area, the neighborhood became known as Sugar Hill and was perceived as a place where life was 'Sweet', where residents enjoyed prosperous and comfortable lives. The neighborhood was home to successful Blacks including such notable figures as the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell and author Ralph Ellison,. Virtually unchanged since this era, these blocks of well-preserved rowhouses and apartment buildings recall not only the neighborhood's architecture and physical origins, but also its vibrant social and cultural heyday