The Neighborhood: A Tour of Our Campus

The Columbia University Medical Center Campus is located in Washington Heights, a vibrant neighborhood in the northern part of Manhattan. The area around the Columbia University Medical Center Campus, including adjacent sections of Washington Heights and neighboring Inwood (near the Cloisters museum) are safe and affordable places to live and work. In addition to excellent local businesses that have long been established in the neighborhood, there has been considerable development around the Columbia University Medical Center campus, with subsequent growth in new restaurants, businesses and shops that serve members of Columbia and neighborhood community. Much of the outstanding original architecture in the neighborhood has been preserved as Columbia has built new facilities such as the Audubon Research and Technology Park, which houses businesses and restaurants at street level in order to better serve the community.

It is important to emphasize that safety of the students, faculty and staff is a top priority at the Columbia University Medical Center campus. Strict security measures, combined with a precipitous decline in local crime have enabled Columbia University Medical Center to maintain a safety record that is as good or better than any other top medical research establishment in the Northeast. Security has been further increased with the assigment of permanent area police officers, the installation of new security systems, the building of new public schools nearby and the transformation of an ajacent armory into an indoor athletics facility for high school students and other members of the community. New York is now the safest big city in America (New York Times, 1997), and the area around Columbia University Medical Center is no exception to this trend.

To familiarize you with the neighborhood, we have provided a pictorial tour of the campus. Start the Tour

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