The U.S. Census Bureau began releasing results from the 2010 census earlier this year. Hudson Heights is not an official neighborhood, so nobody has crunched the numbers on who lives here...until now.
Here is the Gazette's unofficial analysis of our neighborhood, which we have liberally defined as the area bounded by the Hudson River, Fort Tryon Park, Broadway and Interstate 95. Population: 22,355; Demographics: 54% Caucasian Non-Hispanic; 35% Hispanic; 7% African American; 4% Asian.
This information is interesting but not particularly useful in deciding what kinds of improvements Hudson Heights might need--which is an important purpose of the census.
The more interesting figure from the census is the age of residents. While I did not crunch those numbers in detail, I did some random comparisons between Hudson Heights and other middle- and upper-middle income neighborhoods in New York City. The trend is clear; this neighborhood has a much higher percentage of residents under eighteen than other areas of Manhattan. For example, on one block on Overlook Terrace, the percentage of young people is 20%. On a few randomly selected blocks on the Upper West Side, that percentage is 9%. Anyone who has walked through a local park recently will intuitively know this is true; there are lots of kids here.
These figures explain the extraordinary competition in Hudson Heights for family-sized apartments. And they suggest that developers brave enough to build a new co-op or condo building with family-sized units will do quite well.
Thanks for this post! Just this week a new hair salon opened on 181st between Broadway and Col. Magraw called "The Kids Parlor" - with kid-sized chairs and a friendly crayon-inspired design. It will be interesting to see how well they do and if the kid-centric trend picks up, uptown. Wiggles & Giggles seems to be going strong down on 181st & Riverside, though I never seem to be going by there when it's open.
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