19th Century: The Working West Side

In the 1800s, the area that would become Lincoln Square was a patchwork of farms, small industries, and residential enclaves. As the city expanded northward, rail lines and factories filled the western edge near the Hudson River. The neighborhood’s population swelled with immigrants — Irish, German, and later African-American and Caribbean families — who found employment in the riverfront piers, factories, and service trades.

By the late 19th century, the district’s tenements teemed with life. Street vendors, churches, and saloons animated every corner. Though often stigmatized as overcrowded and poor, communities here developed deep bonds of kinship and creativity. The West End Collegiate Church, built in 1892 on West End Avenue, and nearby public schools provided stability amid hardship.

Early 20th Century: San Juan Hill and Cultural Roots

By the early 1900s, the area between 59th and 65th Streets had become known as San Juan Hill — likely named by African-American veterans of the Spanish-American War or by journalists romanticizing its rowdy energy. It was one of Manhattan’s earliest and largest Black neighborhoods, preceding Harlem’s rise as the city’s Black cultural capital.

San Juan Hill was both poor and proud — a place of resilience and rhythm. It fostered an early jazz and blues culture that would later echo in the Harlem Renaissance. Churches, fraternal lodges, and social clubs nurtured a strong sense of community, while nearby venues like the Lincoln Theatre and small dance halls gave emerging musicians a platform. Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk both had ties to the area in their youth.

The neighborhood also housed a significant Puerto Rican population by mid-century, whose music, cuisine, and street culture contributed to the area’s vitality. Yet poverty and neglect persisted, and by the 1950s, city planners labeled San Juan Hill a “slum” ripe for redevelopment — a term that would soon change the course of its history.

Mid-20th Century: Urban Renewal and Lincoln Center

The defining transformation of Lincoln Square came under the banner of urban renewal. In 1955, the Lincoln Square Urban Renewal Project, part of Robert Moses’ citywide redevelopment agenda, designated 18 blocks for clearance to make way for a grand cultural complex and new housing. Thousands of residents — predominantly Black and Puerto Rican — were displaced in one of the largest forced relocations in New York’s history.

Construction of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts began in 1959. Designed by a consortium of architects including Wallace Harrison, Philip Johnson, and Eero Saarinen, it comprised a constellation of buildings arranged around a monumental plaza and fountain. The Metropolitan Opera House, David Geffen Hall (formerly Philharmonic Hall), David H. Koch Theater (formerly New York State Theater), and the Juilliard School formed the nucleus of this new cultural district.

Lincoln Center opened gradually through the 1960s, symbolizing postwar optimism and civic ambition. Its marble façades, fountains, and broad stairways redefined the area’s visual and social identity. To its west, the Amsterdam Houses, completed in 1948, provided public housing that maintained a measure of continuity for displaced residents.

The transformation was both visionary and controversial — an achievement of architectural grandeur built upon loss. Yet its impact on New York’s global image was indelible: a city that saw art as infrastructure, culture as a civic cornerstone.