Editing Washington Heights, Manhattan (section)

====Segregation and racism====
[[File:555 Edgecombe Avenue from south.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1|[[555 Edgecombe Avenue]]]]
[[File:St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church 124 Wadsworth Avenue.jpg|thumb|upright=1|[[St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church]]]]
Despite the growth of the black population, racial segregation remained very rigid. While in the vast majority of blocks less than 2% of housing units were occupied by non-white residents, nearly every block east of Amsterdam Avenue and south of 165th Street was over 90% non-white by 1950.<ref name=1950manhattanblockstats>{{cite book|title=1950 United States Census of Housing: Manhattan Borough Block Statistics|author=[[United States Census Bureau]]|publisher=[[United States Government Publishing Office]]|access-date=August 29, 2020|year=1952|url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1950/housing-volume-5/15870149v5p6ch03.pdf}}</ref>{{Rp|38}}

The process underlying this segregation is exemplified in the history of one of Washington Heights' most famous apartment buildings: [[555 Edgecombe Avenue]]. Built in 1914, the 14-story building rented to various relatively affluent white people until 1939, when the owner cancelled all the tenants' leases and began renting exclusively to black people.<ref name=555edgecombe>{{cite web|url=http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1862.pdf|title=555 Edgecombe Avenue Apartments|access-date=August 30, 2020|publisher=[[New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission]]|date=June 15, 1993}}</ref>{{Rp|5}} While organizations like the Neighborhood Protective Association of Washington Heights had kept the neighborhood virtually all-white throughout much of the 20th century,<ref>{{cite book|title=Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto|first=Gilbert|last=Osofsky|publisher=[[HarperCollins]]|url=https://archive.org/stream/harlemmakingofgh00osof?ref=ol0|year=1971|isbn=9781566631044}}</ref>{{Rp|248}} the overcrowded conditions of Harlem led to growth in demand for apartments outside the neighborhood.<ref name="Schneider">{{cite book|first=Eric C.|last=Schneider|title=Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar New York|year=1999|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|access-date=August 20, 2020|isbn=9780691074542|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1NhTzoKrUVkC}}</ref>{{Rp|35}}

Throughout the 1940s, the building had a number of notable black residents, such as [[Paul Robeson]], [[Kenneth Clark (psychologist)|Kenneth Clark]], and [[Count Basie]].<ref name=555edgecombe/>{{Rp|6}} The presence of middle-class black people in 555 Edgecombe and other higher-class buildings in southeast Washington Heights led many to associate it with [[Sugar Hill, Manhattan|Sugar Hill]], the Harlem sub-neighborhood spanning between Edgecombe Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue to its south.<ref name=555edgecombe/>{{Rp|4}}

In addition to segregation, racism also manifested itself in gang culture, where youth often defined themselves by race or ethnicity and violently defended their respective territories. These tensions were brought to a climax in 1957, with the assault of two teenagers of European ancestry, Michael Farmer and Roger McShane, members of the majority-Irish "Jesters" gang.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vsSiXoVuKTIC|year=1970|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|first=Robert|last=Hamlett Bremner|author-link=Robert H. Bremner|isbn=9780674116139|title=Children and Youth in America: A Documentary History, Volumes 2-3}}</ref>{{Rp|1043}}<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/vics-early-gang-violence-beaten-clash-nyc-pool-article-1.3312175|access-date=February 23, 2021|first=Mara|last=Bovsun|title=Two victims of early gang violence pummeled, stabbed by warring factions at NYC pool|date=July 9, 2017|work=[[New York Daily News]]}}</ref> The incident took place in the [[Highbridge Pool]], a [[Works Progress Administration]]-funded pool built in 1936 which had no racial restrictions but was nonetheless an environment of racial hostility in the changing landscape of the neighborhood.<ref name=CB/>{{Rp|48}}

The assault, which ended in Michael Farmer's death, was perpetrated by an alliance of the African-American Egyptian Kings and the Puerto Rican Dragons, both based in West Harlem just south of the Heights. The supposed motive for the attack was to counter the perception that Highbridge Pool was "owned" by the Jesters, and black and Latino youths were often called racial slurs and chased away from the surrounding blocks.<ref name="Schneider"/>{{Rp|79}} As Eric Schneider analyzes in ''Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar New York,'' the incident illustrated the effects of the neighborhood's demographic shift: The Jesters defined themselves as fighting against black and Latino occupancy of the neighborhood even as they included newly arrived black people in their ranks (similar diversity was seen in the membership of the Dragons and Egyptian Kings).<ref name="Schneider"/>{{Rp|88}}