110th Street (Manhattan) - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

Like 96th Street, 110th is seen to symbolically divide New York City by wealth, class and race, particularly on the East Side. On the West Side, west of Morningside Park especially, 125th Street is a more salient marker.

• The street is also known from the Bobby Womack song "Across 110th Street" and from the 1972 movie of the same title (starring Yaphet Kotto and Anthony Quinn). The song also was used later in the 1997 film Jackie Brown and the 2007 film American Gangster. This song is also featured in the playlist for the game True Crime: New York City. This song is also used for the closing credits of S2 E3 of TV Show How to Make It in America.
• The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band released a highly regarded jazz album in 1969 entitled Central Park North.
• In the film Die Hard with a Vengeance, black character Zeus Carver tells John McClane not to bother him with the antics of terrorist criminal Simon Gruber unless he crosses 110th Street.
• The street, as well as other New York landmarks, is given as one of the boundaries for areas of drug distribution with respect to the rivalry and turf issues of Hollywood Nicky (Sean Combs), the Mafia family run by Artie Bottolota (Burt Young), and Carlito's crew in the 2005 feature Carlito's Way: Rise to Power.
• It was the billed hometown of professional wrestling tag team Harlem Heat.
• George Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue at 501 West 110th Street where he and his brother Ira lived from 1924 to 1929.
• In the short story Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin, Sonny crosses 110th street to get to his neighborhood, suggesting it is just off from 110th street.