San Juan Hill (Manhattan)
San Juan Hill was a neighborhood in the Upper West Side of the New York borough of Manhattan .
location
Where exactly the San Juan Hill boundaries were is somewhat controversial, but in general, Amsterdam Avenue to the east, West End Avenue to the west, 59th Street to the south, and 65th Street to the north are defined as boundaries.
history
This area is believed to have been named after the 10th Cavalry , which was made up entirely of African Americans and fought with Teddy Roosevelt in the Battle of San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War (April 25 to August 12, 1898), but this is is not properly proven.
San Juan Hill was possibly Manhattan's most densely populated African American neighborhood in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of the working class and poor people lived here in tenement houses.
San Juan Hill's decline began after World War II . It was now considered a slum , so initially a few blocks were demolished to make way for the Amsterdam Houses - a high-floor social housing estate made of red bricks.
Soon after, much of San Juan Hill was demolished in the 1950s to make way for Lincoln Center as part of an urban renewal . The foundation stone for this was laid in 1959. This was also the end of the San Juan Hill district.