Mary Sargent © 2007 …………………………………….. click to enlarge
If you will remember, I am walking downhill, while Wadsworth Terrace where these buildings face is going up. Thus the wall at the base is necessary. This is simple, right? Now look what happens:
Mary Sargent © 2007 …………………………………….. click to enlarge
As the roads continued to diverge and the distance between the bottom of the building and the road increased, they put the buildings on stilts! Must've run out of concrete and stones. Below are two more photos. 
Mary Sargent © 2007 …………………………………….. click to enlarge
I just stood there photographing in amazement; meanwhile plenty of local citizens passed by without a glance. One does get used to things.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Washington Heights, Fairview Avenue between Fort George Hill and Broadway
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8 comments:
Wow! Wonderful photographs. This is just astounding. I really want to go there.
That was me, by the way. Flying lady. I don't really want to be anonymous.
This is amazing!
I think I'd feel funny being inside those buildings - and walking near those stilts - just watching for the buildings to sway. I love the photos - thanks for showing an amazing site.
I agree with Barbara. These buildings - and the photos of them - scare me. They are way too uncertain to me; they seem to be inviting trouble. It's good to see the photos, though, and be reminded how original and odd New York can be.
ha ha, I live in that neighborhood, there's buildings like that all over--it's very hilly on either side of Broadway and that's how they squeezed in buildings up there. It's also why there's not a lot of new development in the neighborhood--it takes way too many resources to break into the rock to establish foundations. Look around, there's empty lots but no one building on them. Just because you don't see any neighborhood people looking at these stilts with their mouths agape like you, doesn't mean they don't notice them or don't worry about their security.
Don't forget--people in Hawaii built homes on the side of a volcano, but it's not like you go out every day saying whoa, a volcano, that could erupt any moment! It didn't stop them building there.
All that said, there's a very fancy co-op development on the west side of the neighborhood, Castle Village--just a couple of hundred yards as the crow flies from where these pictures were taken. The co-op is located on top of a cliff. They have a high retaining wall at the edge of the property overlooking the West Side Highway. That wall gave way a few years ago and blocked the highway. The co-op owners had to cough up the money to pay for the repairs.
I lived in one of those building while life it’s perfectly fine
I lived in 57 wads worth terrace my whole life and it was never an issue. The building doesn’t sway due to winds ..
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