Washington Heights, Manhattan - in Film and Literature

In Film and Literature

• In the film Citizen Kane, Jedidiah Leland is spending the remainder of his life in the fictitious "Huntington Memorial Hospital" on 180th Street.
• Parts of the film Salt were filmed here, in particular at the 12-story Riviera, a 1910 Beaux-Arts style co-op on 157th Street and Riverside.
• The final scene from the film Force of Evil, where Joe Morse discovers the body of his brother near the Hudson River, was filmed on location in the park several yards south of the George Washington Bridge.
• The Broadway musical In the Heights is set in Washington Heights.
• CSI: NY Season 2 Episode 16 ("Cool Hunter") features a man found dead in a playground in Washington Heights.Many CSI: NY episodes were filmed in the neighborhood, but located in other neighborhoods in the episodes.
• The film Pride and Glory takes place in the yet-to-be gentrified streets of Washington Heights.
• The film Mad Hot Ballroom features students from a school in Washington Heights.
• The film Die Hard with a Vengeance features the same school as one where a bomb is located.
• The film The Saint of Fort Washington is not entirely geographically accurate, but is set in the neighborhood, particularly the Fort Washington Avenue Armory and J. Hood Wright park.
• The song "Halloween Parade" by Lou Reed mentions "a crack team from Washington Heights"
• The film Coogan's Bluff features a scene where Clint Eastwood chases the criminal he is to bring back to Arizona through the Cloisters.
• The film How to Marry a Millionaire features the George Washington Bridge entering into Washington Heights when J.D. Hanley (William Powell) and Loco Dempsey (Betty Grable), driving back into Manhattan from the "Elks Lodge", are pulled over by motorcycle cops so the bridge commission can recognize "the lucky couple" as the occupants of the bridge's 50th million vehicle.
• The 2002 movie Washington Heights starring Manny Perez is the story of a young illustrator trying to escape to the cultural barriers of the Latino neighborhood of Washington heights.
• The film The Brave One, with Jodie Foster, was filmed in some sections of Washington Heights; she and her boyfriend are attacked in a scene filmed in Fort Tryon Park, and the final scene with Terrence Howard was filmed on Elwood Street between Broadway and Nagle Avenue.
• The film Get Rich or Die Tryin', with rapper/actor Curtis Jackson, includes scenes filmed in Inwood/Washington Heights, including the scenes that featured "young 50 Cent" filmed in and around 207th street as well as 159th and Riverside.
• In the song "Broadway Baby" from the musical Follies, aging chorus girl Hattie wishes she could be a star all over Manhattan, "from Battery Park to Washington Heights!"
• In the song "Shiksa Goddess" from the musical The Last Five Years, Jewish romantic lead Jamie Wellerstein states that he had "Shabbas dinners on Friday nights with every Shapiro in Washington Heights!"
• The song "This Is Why I'm Hot" by MIMS has the line "I hit Wash Heights with the money in the bag".
• The song "A-Punk" by the band Vampire Weekend mentions Washington Heights.
• The Showtime series Weeds features Washington Heights as the location of Nancy Botwin's halfway house in Season 7.
• The film American Gangster, was filmed in some sections of Washington Heights.