Washington Heights

Washington Heights sits at the top of Manhattan, where the island narrows and rises into actual hills. It is the heart of Dominican New York, and it sounds and eats like it: bachata out of open windows, mangú for breakfast, and the best fried chicken and rice for under fifteen dollars anywhere on the island.

The parks are the reason to make the trip. Fort Tryon Park is one of the great pieces of landscape design in the city, a steep terraced park over the Hudson with the Heather Garden, long stone overlooks and the Palisades cliffs across the water. Inside it, the Met Cloisters assembles pieces of medieval European monasteries into one building, with the Unicorn Tapestries and gardens planted from medieval sources.

North of that, Inwood Hill Park holds the last old-growth forest in Manhattan, with caves once used by the Lenape and paths where you cannot hear a car. Highbridge Park runs along the other side, with the High Bridge, the oldest bridge in New York, reopened as a walkway to the Bronx.

The neighborhood has its own quiet landmarks too: the 190th Street station carved 140 feet into the rock with a tunnel that opens onto the park, and the 187th Street steps, a street that gave up and became a staircase.