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94-702: Nathanael West was born Nathan Weinstein in New York City, the first child of Ashkenazi Jewish parents Max (Morduch) Weinstein (1878–1932) and Anuta (Anna, née Wallenstein, 1878–1935), from Kovno, Russia (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania), who maintained an upper middle class household in a Jewish neighborhood on the Upper West Side . West displayed little ambition in academics, dropping out of high school and only gaining admission into Tufts College by forging his high school transcript. After being expelled from Tufts, West got into Brown University by appropriating

188-480: A plague of locusts to the pharaoh of Egypt as retribution for refusing to free the enslaved Jews. Millions of locusts swarm over the lush fields of Egypt, destroying its food supplies. Destructive locusts also appear in the New Testament in the symbolic and apocalyptic book of Revelation . West's use of "locust" in his title evokes images of destruction and a land stripped bare of anything green and living. The novel

282-498: A college education or higher. The percentage of the Upper West Side students excelling in math rose from 35% in 2000 to 66% in 2011, and reading achievement increased from 43% to 56% during the same time period. The Upper West Side's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is lower than the rest of New York City. In the Upper West Side, 14% of elementary school students missed twenty or more days per school year , less than

376-459: A deal with Trump. The community's links to the events of September 11, 2001 were evinced in Upper West Side resident and Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam 's paean to the men of Ladder Co 40/Engine Co 35, just a few blocks from his home, in his book Firehouse . Today, this area is the site for several long-established charitable institutions; their unbroken parcels of land have provided suitably scaled sites for Columbia University and

470-542: A degree. He then went to Paris for three months, and it was at this time that he changed his name to Nathanael West. His family, who had supported him thus far, ran into financial difficulties during the late 1920s. West returned home and worked sporadically in construction for his father, eventually finding a job as the night manager of the Hotel Kenmore Hall on East 23rd Street in Manhattan. One of West's experiences at

564-417: A farm in eastern Pennsylvania, but he soon got a job as a contract scriptwriter for Columbia Pictures and moved to Hollywood. He published a A Cool Million in 1934. None of West's three works sold well, earning him less than $ 800, so he spent the mid-1930s in financial difficulty, sporadically collaborating on screenplays. Many of the films he worked on were B movies , such as Five Came Back (1939). It

658-479: A low population of residents who are uninsured . In 2018, this population of uninsured residents was estimated to be 5%, less than the citywide rate of 12%, though this was based on a small sample size. The concentration of fine particulate matter , the deadliest type of air pollutant , in the Upper West Side is 0.0083 milligrams per cubic metre (8.3 × 10  oz/cu ft), more than the city average. Ten percent of Upper West Side residents are smokers , which

752-450: A lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 95.5% between 1990 and 2022. The precinct reported 0 murders, 14 rapes, 116 robberies, 102 felony assaults, 136 burglaries, 877 grand larcenies, and 75 grand larcenies auto in 2022. Of the five major violent felonies (murder, rape, felony assault, robbery, and burglary), the 20th Precinct had a rate of 250 crimes per 100,000 residents in 2019, compared to

846-484: A mixture of income levels and occupations patronized the same gay bars in the neighborhood, making it markedly different from most gay enclaves elsewhere in the city. The influx of white gay men in the Fifties and Sixties is often credited with accelerating the gentrification of the Upper West Side. In a subsequent phase of urban renewal, the rail yards which had formed the Upper West Side's southwest corner were replaced by

940-580: A painting titled “The Burning of Los Angeles,” devolves into a nightmare of terror. It depicts angry citizens razing Los Angeles and spreading, uncontrollably, across the American landscape. In the 1930s, theorists, politicians, and military leaders feared large crowds or mass formations would produce unpredictable and dangerous results. Novelists of his era praised Nathanael West's writing, but notoriety and critical acclaim for his works lagged behind those for his peers in terms of readers and book sales. The Day of

1034-471: A part of the Upper West Side – the present-day Manhattan Valley neighborhood – located between 96th and 110th Streets and bounded on the east by Amsterdam Avenue and on the west by Riverside Drive , Riverside Park , and the Hudson River . Its name was a derivation of the description given to the area by Dutch settlers to New Netherland , likely from Bloemendaal , a town in the tulip region . The name

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1128-467: A revival late in the 20th century, largely through the efforts of the Riverside Park Fund, a citizen's group. Largely through their efforts and the support of the city, much of the park has been improved. The Hudson River Greenway along the river-edge of the park is a common route for pedestrians and bicyclists; an extension to the park's greenway runs between 83rd and 91st Streets on a promenade in

1222-454: A summer camp in Adirondack, New York, nicknamed him Pep in ironic reference to his somnolent disposition. West acknowledged and made fun of his lack of physical prowess in recounting the story of a baseball game where he cost his team the game. Wells Root, a close friend of West, remembers hearing this tale half a dozen times, recalling that everyone had placed bets on the game, which came down to

1316-468: Is Columbus Avenue to a slightly lesser extent. The following lists a few prominent ones: The Upper West Side is patrolled by two precincts of the NYPD . The 20th Precinct is located at 120 West 82nd Street and serves the part of the neighborhood south of 86th Street , while the 24th Precinct is located at 151 West 100th Street and serves the part of the neighborhood north of 86th Street. The 20th Precinct has

1410-671: Is bounded on the south by 59th Street , Central Park to the east, the Hudson River to the west, and 110th Street to the north. The area north of West 96th Street and east of Broadway is also identified as Manhattan Valley . The overlapping area west of Amsterdam Avenue to Riverside Park was once known as the Bloomingdale District. From west to east, the avenues of the Upper West Side are Riverside Drive , West End Avenue (11th Avenue), Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue (10th Avenue), Columbus Avenue (9th Avenue), and Central Park West (8th Avenue). The 66-block stretch of Broadway forms

1504-480: Is distracted not only by the crowd but his inability to leave the street despite Tod's help and insistent encouragement. A neighbor's son, the child actor Adore Loomis finds Homer and torments him until Homer violently lashes out against the boy. The novel's climactic riot ensues and the chaos surrounding the latest Hollywood premiere turns violent outside Mr. Khan's Pleasure Dome. Tod vividly revises "The Burning of Los Angeles" in his mind, while being pushed around in

1598-421: Is filled with images of destruction: Tod Hackett's painting entitled "The Burning of Los Angeles," his violent fantasies about Faye and the bloody result of the cockfight. A close examination of West's characters and his selective use of natural images, which include representations of violence and impotence  — and which are therefore contrary to popular images linking nature and fertility  — reveals that

1692-569: Is higher than the city's average of 87%. In 2018, 93% of residents described their health as "good", "very good", or "excellent", the highest rate in the city and more than the city's average of 78%. For every supermarket in the Upper West Side, there are 3 bodegas . Mount Sinai Urgent Care Upper West Side is located in the Upper West Side. Upper West Side is located in three primary ZIP Codes . From south to north, they are 10023 south of 76th Street, 10024 between 76th and 91st Streets, and 10025 north of 91st Street. In addition, Riverside South

1786-475: Is home to the largest community of young Modern Orthodox singles outside of Israel. However, the Upper West Side also features a substantial number of non-Orthodox Jews. A number of major synagogues are located in the neighborhood, including the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States, Shearith Israel ; New York's second-oldest and the third-oldest Ashkenazi synagogue, B'nai Jeshurun ; Rodeph Sholom ;

1880-410: Is less than the city average of 14% of residents being smokers. In the Upper West Side, 10% of residents are obese , 5% are diabetic , and 21% have high blood pressure —compared to the citywide averages of 24%, 11%, and 28% respectively. In addition, 10% of children are obese, compared to the citywide average of 20%. Ninety-two percent of residents eat some fruits and vegetables every day, which

1974-571: Is part of 10069. The United States Postal Service operates five post offices in the Upper West Side: The Upper West Side generally has a higher rate of college-educated residents than the rest of the city as of 2018 . A majority of residents age 25 and older (78%) have a college education or higher, while 6% have less than a high school education and 16% are high school graduates or have some college education. By contrast, 64% of Manhattan residents and 43% of city residents have

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2068-523: Is set in the 1930s during the Great Depression . Most of the characters exist at the fringes of the Hollywood film industry, but Hollywood is merely the backdrop for Tod Hackett's revelation. Tod is employed by a Hollywood studio "to learn set and costume designing." During his spare time, Tod sketches scenes he observes on large production sets and studio back lots. The novel details Tod's observation of

2162-521: Is widely regarded as West's masterpiece. Day of the Locust was made into a film which came out in 1975. Likewise Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) saw production in film (1933, 1958, 1983), stage (1957), and operatic (2006) versions; and the character "Miss Lonelyhearts" in Hitchcock's film Rear Window has parallels to West's work. The obscene, garish landscapes of The Day of the Locust gained force in light of

2256-502: The 79th Street Boat Basin , but also cut pedestrians off from direct access to most of the riverfront by building the Henry Hudson Parkway by the river's edge. According to Robert Caro 's book on Moses, The Power Broker , Riverside Park was designed with most of the amenities located in predominantly white neighborhoods, with the neighborhoods closer to Harlem getting shorter shrift. Riverside Park, like Central Park, underwent

2350-576: The B-grade genre films of the period" (Simon, 523). They are what Light calls "grotesques". In the first chapter of the novel, the narrative voice announces: "Yes, despite his appearance, Tod was really a very complicated young man with a whole set of personalities, one inside the other like a nest of Chinese boxes ." Tod Hackett is the novel's protagonist. He moves from the East coast to Hollywood, California in search of inspiration for his next painting. The novel

2444-702: The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine , as well as for some vanished landmarks, such as the Schwab Mansion on Riverside Drive . The name Bloomingdale is still used in reference to a part of the Upper West Side, essentially the location of old Bloomingdale Village, the area from about 96th Street up to 110th Street and from Riverside Park east to Amsterdam Avenue. The triangular block bound by Broadway, West End Avenue, 106th Street and 107th Street, although generally known as Straus Park (named for Isidor Straus and his wife Ida),

2538-866: The Century and Majestic by Irwin Chanin, the Orwell House by the firm of Mulliken and Moeller, and the San Remo and El Dorado by Emery Roth . Roth also designed the Beresford , the Alden, and the Ardsley on Central Park West. His first major commission, the Belle Époque -style Belleclaire Hotel , is on Broadway, while the moderne -style Normandy stands on Riverside at 86th Street. Along Broadway are several large apartment houses, including

2632-674: The New York Institute of Technology in the Columbus Circle proximity and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School located at the south end. The Upper West Side is part of Manhattan Community District 7 , and its primary ZIP Codes are 10023, 10024, 10025, and 10069. It is patrolled by the 20th and 24th Precincts of the New York City Police Department . The Upper West Side

2726-553: The North River was little used or traversed by the Lenape people. A combination of the stream valleys, such as that in which 96th Street runs, and wetlands to the northeast and east, may have protected a portion of the Upper West Side from the Lenape's controlled burns; lack of periodic ground fires results in a denser understory and more fire-intolerant trees, such as American Beech . In

2820-630: The Riverside South residential project, which included a southward extension of Riverside Park. The evolution of Riverside South had a 40-year history, often extremely bitter, beginning in 1962 when the New York Central Railroad , in partnership with the Amalgamated Lithographers Union , proposed a mixed-use development with 12,000 apartments, Litho City, to be built on platforms over the tracks. The subsequent bankruptcy of

2914-654: The Stephen Wise Free Synagogue ; and numerous others such as the Jewish Center , and West Side Institutional . From the post-WWII years until the AIDS epidemic , the neighborhood, especially below 86th Street, had a substantial gay population. As the neighborhood had deteriorated, it was affordable to working class gay men, and those just arriving in the city and looking for their first white collar jobs. Its ethnically mixed gay population, mostly Hispanic and white, with

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3008-543: The Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, and the Riverside South apartment complex built by Donald Trump , the area from 58th Street to 65th Street is increasingly referred to as Lincoln Square by realtors who acknowledge a different tone and ambiance than that typically associated with the Upper West Side. This is a reversion to the neighborhood's historical name. The long high bluff above useful sandy coves along

3102-524: The borough of Manhattan in New York City . It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West Side is adjacent to the neighborhoods of Hell's Kitchen to the south, Columbus Circle to the southeast, and Morningside Heights to the north. Like the Upper East Side opposite Central Park,

3196-684: The Belnord (1908), the Apthorp (1908), the Ansonia (1902), the Dorilton (1902), and the Manhasset . All are individually designated New York City landmarks. The serpentine Riverside Drive also has many pre-war houses and larger buildings, while West End Avenue is lined with pre-war Beaux-Arts apartment buildings and townhouses dating from the late-19th and early 20th centuries. Columbus Avenue north of 87th Street

3290-511: The Caribbean moved in during the '50s and the '60s. The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts opened in the 1960s. The early 20th century marked the beginning of a significant Jewish presence on the Upper West Side. By 1930, Jewish residents constituted approximately one-third of the population living between West 79th and West 110th Streets, from Broadway to the Hudson River. In the 1900s,

3384-552: The Locust The Day of the Locust is a 1939 novel by American author Nathanael West set in Hollywood, California . The novel follows a young artist from the Yale School of Fine Arts named Tod Hackett, who has been hired by a Hollywood studio to do scene design and painting. While he works, he plans an important painting to be called "The Burning of Los Angeles", a portrayal of the chaotic and fiery holocaust which will destroy

3478-467: The Locust only sold about 1480 copies following its first publishing. Critics began to situate The Day of the Locust within the literary canon in the 1950s, more than a decade after a fatal car crash claimed the author's life. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Day of the Locust seventy-third on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century . Time magazine included

3572-487: The Locust : "I tried to describe a meeting of the anti-Nazi league, but it didn't fit and I had to substitute a whorehouse and a dirty film". West saw the American dream as having been betrayed, both spiritually and materially, and in his writing he presented "a sweeping rejection of political causes, religious faith, artistic redemption and romantic love". This idea of the corrupt American dream endured long after his death, in

3666-440: The New York City government classifies the Upper West Side as part of two neighborhood tabulation areas: Upper West Side (up to 105th Street) and Lincoln Square (down to 58th Street ), divided by 74th Street . Based on data from the 2010 United States Census , the combined population of the Upper West Side was 193,867, a change of 1,674 (0.9%) from the 192,193 counted in 2000 . Covering an area of 1,162.29 acres (470.36 ha),

3760-632: The Upper West Side is an affluent, primarily residential area with many of its residents working in commercial areas of Midtown and Lower Manhattan . Similarly to the Museum Mile district on the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side is considered one of Manhattan's cultural and intellectual hubs, with Columbia University and Barnard College located just to the north of the neighborhood, the American Museum of Natural History located near its center,

3854-802: The Upper West Side is in New York's 12th congressional district . It is in the New York State Senate 's 30th and 47th districts, the New York State Assembly 's 67th, 69th, and 75th districts, and the New York City Council 's 6th and 7th districts. The apartment buildings along Central Park West , facing the park, are some of the city's most opulent. The Dakota at 72nd Street has been home to numerous celebrities including John Lennon , Leonard Bernstein , and Lauren Bacall . Other buildings on CPW include four twin-towered structures:

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3948-459: The White population. The entirety of Community District 7, which comprises the Upper West Side from 59th Street to 110th Street , had 214,744 inhabitants as of NYC Health 's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 84.7 years. This is higher than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most residents are adults: a plurality (34%) are between

4042-563: The ages of 25–44, while 27% are between 45 and 64, and 18% are 65 or older. The ratio of youth and college-aged residents was lower, at 15% and 5% respectively. As of 2017, the median household income in Community District 7 was $ 123,894. In 2018, an estimated 9% of Upper West Side residents lived in poverty, compared to 14% in all of Manhattan and 20% in all of New York City. One in twenty residents (5%) were unemployed, compared to 7% in Manhattan and 9% in New York City. Rent burden, or

4136-481: The area south of 67th Street was heavily populated by African-Americans and supposedly gained its nickname of " San Juan Hill " in commemoration of African-American soldiers who were a major part of Theodore Roosevelt 's assault on Cuba 's San Juan Hill in the Spanish–American War . By 1960, it was a rough neighborhood of tenement housing, the demolition of which was delayed to allow for exterior shots in

4230-414: The area. The stately tall apartment blocks on West End Avenue and the townhouses on the streets between Amsterdam Avenue and Riverside Drive, which contribute to the character of the area, were all constructed during the pre-depression years of the twentieth century. A revolution in building techniques, the low cost of land relative to lower Manhattan, the arrival of the subway, and the popularization of

4324-409: The boroughwide average of 632 crimes per 100,000 and the citywide average of 572 crimes per 100,000. The 24th Precinct also has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 94.1% between 1990 and 2022. The precinct reported 1 murder, 9 rapes, 150 robberies, 188 felony assaults, 180 burglaries, 526 grand larcenies, and 89 grand larcenies auto in 2022. Of

4418-567: The boroughwide rate of 49 per 100,000 and the citywide rate of 59 per 100,000. Its incarceration rate is 211 per 100,000 people, compared to the boroughwide rate of 407 per 100,000 and the citywide rate of 425 per 100,000. In 2019, the highest concentration of felony assaults and robberies in the Upper West Side was on Columbus Avenue between 100th Street and 104th Street (going through the Frederick Douglass Houses ), where there were 24 felony assaults and 15 robberies. The area around

4512-571: The characters they play to who they are. As a result, there is a clear sense of acting and fakery that spills beyond the confines of Hollywood studios and into the streets of Los Angeles. Shortly after moving into a neighborhood in the valley, Tod befriends Homer Simpson, a simple-minded bookkeeper from Iowa who moved to California for health reasons. Homer Simpson's "unruly hands" operate independently from his body, and their movements are often mechanical. "They demanded special attention, had always demanded it." When Homer attempts to escape California he

4606-543: The city began straightening and grading the section of the Bloomingdale Road from Harsenville north, and it became known as "Western Boulevard" or "The Boulevard". It retained that name until the end of the century, when the name Broadway finally supplanted it. Development of the neighborhood lagged even while Central Park was being laid out in the 1860s and '70s, then was stymied by the Panic of 1873 . Things turned around with

4700-589: The city. By the 18th century it contained numerous farms and country residences of many of the city's well-off, a major parcel of which was the Apthorp Farm . The main artery of this area was the Bloomingdale Road, which began north of where Broadway and the Bowery Lane (now Fourth Avenue) join (at modern Union Square ) and wended its way northward up to about modern 116th Street in Morningside Heights, where

4794-436: The city. While the cast of characters Tod befriends are a conglomerate of Hollywood stereotypes, his greater discovery is a part of society whose "eyes filled with hatred", and "had come to California to die". This undercurrent of society captures the despair of Americans who worked and saved their entire lives only to realize, too late, that the American dream was more elusive than they imagine. Their anger boils into rage, and

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4888-527: The citywide average of 20%. Additionally, 83% of high school students in the Upper West Side graduate on time, more than the citywide average of 75%. The New York City Department of Education operates the following public elementary schools in the Upper West Side: The following public middle schools serves grades 6-8 unless otherwise indicated: The following public high schools serve grades 9-12 unless otherwise indicated: The Day of

4982-573: The craze over the latest Hollywood premiere erupts violently into mob rule and absolute chaos. In the introduction to The Day of the Locust , Richard Gehman writes that the novel was "more ambitious" than West's earlier novel Miss Lonelyhearts , and "showed marked progress in West's thinking and in his approach toward maturity as a writer." Gehman calls the novel "episodic in structure, but panoramic in form". West's characters are intentionally shallow, stereotyped stock characters , and "derive from all

5076-427: The east of the aqueduct and Bloomingdale to the west. Bloomingdale, in the latter half of the 19th century, was the name of a village that occupied the area just south of 110th Street. Much of the riverfront of the Upper West Side was a shipping, transportation, and manufacturing corridor. The Hudson River Railroad line right-of-way was granted in the late 1830s to connect New York City to Albany, and soon ran along

5170-472: The eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Upper West Side-to-be contained some of colonial New York's most ambitious houses, spaced along Bloomingdale Road. It became increasingly infilled with smaller, more suburban villas in the first half of the nineteenth century, and in the middle of the century, parts had become decidedly lower class. The name "Bloomingdale District" was used to refer to

5264-502: The end for middle-class Americans in the novel, and the violence that ensues. James F. Light suggests that West's use of mob violence in the novel is an expression of anxiety about the rise of fascism in Europe. Light compares anxiety in the novel to personal anxieties Jews, like Nathanael West, experienced as marginalized individuals living in America. The artist Tod Hackett's vision of art,

5358-419: The enlarged, but short-lived Penn Central Railroad brought other proposals and prospective developers. The one generating the most opposition was Donald Trump 's "Television City" concept of 1985, which would have included a 152-story office tower and six 75-story residential buildings. In 1991, a coalition of civic organizations proposed a purely residential development of about half that size, and then reached

5452-427: The exposure of hopeful narratives in modern American culture as frauds . As some critics point out, West's novel was a radical challenge to modernist literature . Some modernists set themselves up in opposition to mass culture; West depicts it and makes it an integral part of the novel. West's use of grotesque imagery and situations establishes the novel as a work of Juvenalian satire . His critique of Hollywood and

5546-434: The fact that the remainder of the country was living in drab poverty at the time. Though West attended socialist rallies in New York City's Union Square , his novels have no affinity to the novels of his contemporary activist writers such as John Steinbeck and John Dos Passos . West's writing style does not allow the portrayal of positive political causes, as he admitted in a letter to Malcolm Cowley regarding The Day of

5640-495: The film musical West Side Story . Thereafter, urban renewal brought the construction of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Lincoln Towers apartments during 1962–1968. The Upper West Side is a significant Jewish neighborhood, populated with both German Jews who moved in at the turn of last century, and Jewish refugees escaping Hitler's Europe in the 1930s. Today the area between 85th Street and 100th Street

5734-463: The filming of the Battle of Waterloo . His goal is to find inspiration for the painting he is getting ready to begin, a work titled "The Burning of Los Angeles." Tod falls in love with Faye Greener, an aspiring starlet who lives nearby but Faye only loves men who are good looking or wealthy. She is beautiful but lacks the acting talent to progress beyond roles as an extra. Tod is simply a "good-hearted man,"

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5828-575: The final inning with the score tied and the enemy at bat with two outs. At that point the batter hit a long fly towards West; He put his hands up to catch it and for some inexplicable reason didn't hold them close together. The ball tore through, hit him in the forehead, and bounced into some brush. There was a roar from the crowd and [West] took one look and turned tail. To a man, the crowd had risen, gathered bats, sticks, stones, and anything they could lay hands on and were in hot pursuit. He vanished into some woods and didn't emerge until nightfall. In telling

5922-406: The five major violent felonies (murder, rape, felony assault, robbery, and burglary), the 24th Precinct had a rate of 414 crimes per 100,000 residents in 2019, compared to the boroughwide average of 632 crimes per 100,000 and the citywide average of 572 crimes per 100,000. As of 2018 , Manhattan Community District 7 has a non-fatal assault hospitalization rate of 25 per 100,000 people, compared to

6016-416: The form of the term "West's disease", coined by the poet W.H. Auden to refer to poverty that exists in both a spiritual and economic sense. Jay Martin wrote an extensive biography of West in 1970. Another biography, Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney , by Marion Meade was published in 2010. Upper West Side The Upper West Side ( UWS ) is a neighborhood in

6110-556: The formerly expensive elevator made it possible to construct large apartment buildings for the middle classes. The large scale and style of these buildings is one reason why the neighborhood has remained largely unchanged into the twenty-first century. The neighborhood changed from the 1930s to the 1950s. In 1932, the IND Eighth Avenue Line opened under Central Park West. In 1940, the elevated IRT Ninth Avenue Line over Columbus Avenue closed. Immigrants from Eastern Europe and

6204-463: The hotel inspired the incident between Romola Martin and Homer Simpson that appeared in his novel The Day of the Locust (1939). In 1933 he was employed as the manager of the Sutton Hotel in New York City, located at 330 E. 56th Street. Although West had been working on his writing since college, it was not until his quiet night job at the hotel that he found the time to put his novel together. It

6298-414: The human waves of the riot. The final scene plays out, uninterrupted. The conclusion of the novel can be read as a moment of epiphany and mental clarity for the artist, or a complete " mental breakdown " and Tod's "incorporation into the mechanized, modern world of Los Angeles." The characters are outcasts , who have come to Hollywood to fulfill a dream or wish: "The importance of the wish in West's work

6392-647: The inspiration for the title character in the Broadway play My Sister Eileen , and she and West had been scheduled to fly to New York City for the Broadway opening on December 26. West was buried in Mount Zion Cemetery in Queens, New York, with his wife's ashes placed in his coffin. Although West was not widely known during his life, his reputation grew after his death, especially with the publication of his collected novels by New Directions in 1957. Miss Lonelyhearts

6486-530: The intersection of 72nd Street and Broadway also had 14 robberies in 2019. The Upper West Side is served by multiple New York City Fire Department (FDNY) fire stations: As of 2018 , preterm births and births to teenage mothers in the Upper West Side are lower than the city average. In the Upper West Side, there were 78 preterm births per 1,000 live births (compared to 87 per 1,000 citywide), and 7.1 births to teenage mothers per 1,000 live births (compared to 19.3 per 1,000 citywide). The Upper West Side has

6580-564: The introduction of the Ninth Avenue elevated in the 1870s along Ninth Avenue (renamed Columbus Avenue in 1890), and with Columbia University 's relocation to Morningside Heights in the 1890s, using lands once held by the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum . Riverside Park was conceived in 1866 and formally approved by the state legislature through the efforts of city parks commissioner Andrew Haswell Green . The first segment of park

6674-449: The kind Faye likes. He imagines that loving her would compare to jumping from a skyscraper and screaming to the ground. Tod wants to "throw himself [at her], no matter what the cost." Throughout the novel, Tod fantasizes about having a sexual encounter with Faye as an act of rape. Every time he imagines raping her, reality interrupts his fantasy before he can complete the act. Scenes are interrupted prior to their climax frequently throughout

6768-405: The locust in the title is Tod. The novel opens with protagonist Tod Hackett sketching studio back lot scenes from a major Hollywood production. In the scene, a short fat man barks orders through a megaphone to actors playing the role of Napoleon 's elite cavalry at the Battle of Waterloo . Waterloo marked the beginning of the end for Napoleon . The chaos of this scene foreshadows the beginning of

6862-549: The mentality of "the masses" depicts an America sick with vanity and the harbor of a malignant sense of perversity . The original title of the novel was The Cheated . The title of West's work may be a biblical allusion to the Old Testament . Susan Sanderson writes: The most famous literary or historical reference to locusts is in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, in which God sends

6956-416: The neighborhood had a population density of 166.8 inhabitants per acre (106,800/sq mi; 41,200/km ). The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 69.5% (134,735) White , 7.1% (13,856) African American , 0.1% (194) Native American , 7.6% (14,804) Asian , 0% (48) Pacific Islander , 0.3% (620) from other races , and 2% (3,828) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 13.3% (25,782) of

7050-496: The neighborhood ranged from the former village of Harsenville, centered on the old Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) and 65th Street , west to the railroad yards along the Hudson, then north to 110th Street, where the ground rises to Morningside Heights. With the construction of Lincoln Center , its name, though perhaps not the reality, was stretched south to 58th Street. With the arrival of the corporate headquarters and expensive condos of

7144-477: The novel. A patron jokes that it is "the old teaser routine," when a pornographic film viewing at Mrs. Jenning's parlor ends unexpectedly due to technical difficulties. Between his work at the studio and his introduction to Faye's friends, Tod interacts with numerous Hollywood hangers-on. Characters like Abe Kusich, the dwarf; Claude Estee, the successful screenwriter; and Earle Shoop, the fake California cowboy, all of whom have difficulty changing their personas from

7238-507: The percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 40% in the Upper West Side, compared to the boroughwide and citywide rates of 45% and 51% respectively. Based on this calculation, as of 2018 , Community District 7 is not considered to be gentrifying : according to the Community Health Profile, the district was not low-income in 1990. The Upper West Side is part of Manhattan Community District 7 . Politically,

7332-552: The population. The racial composition of the Upper West Side changed moderately from 2000 to 2010, with the greatest changes being the increase in the Asian population by 38% (4,100), the decrease in the Black population by 15% (2,435), and the increase in the Hispanic / Latino population by 8% (2,147). The White population remained the majority, experiencing a slight increase of 2% (2,098), while

7426-740: The river itself. 1868 saw the opening of the now demolished IRT Ninth Avenue Line – the city's first elevated railway – which opened in the decade following the American Civil War . The Upper West Side experienced a building boom from 1885 to 1910, thanks in large part to the 1904 opening of the city's first subway line , which comprised, in part, what is now a portion of the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line , with subway stations at 59th , 66th , 72nd , 79th , 86th , 91st , 96th , 103rd , 110th , 116th , and 125th Streets. This further stimulated residential development of

7520-499: The riverbank. One major non-industrial development, the creation of Central Park in the 1850s and '60s, caused many squatters to move their shacks into the Upper West Side. Parts of the neighborhood became a ragtag collection of squatters' housing, boarding houses, and rowdy taverns. As this development occurred, the old name of Bloomingdale Road was being chopped away and the name Broadway was progressively applied further northward to include what had been lower Bloomingdale Road. In 1868,

7614-542: The road further north was known as the Kingsbridge Road. Within the confines of the modern-day Upper West Side, the road passed through areas known as Harsenville, Strycker's Bay, and Bloomingdale Village. With the building of the Croton Aqueduct passing down the area between present day Amsterdam Avenue and Columbus Avenue in 1838–42, the northern reaches of the district became divided into Manhattan Valley to

7708-465: The screenplay in seven weeks, with West focusing on characterization and dialogue and Ingster focusing on the narrative structure. RKO assigned the film, eventually released as Suspicion (1941), to Alfred Hitchcock ; but Hitchcock already had his own, substantially different, screenplay. Hitchcock's screenplay was written by Samson Raphaelson , Joan Harrison (Hitchcock's secretary), and Alma Reville (Hitchcock's wife). West and Ingster's screenplay

7802-575: The small population of all other races experienced a negligible increase of 1% (58). Taking into account the two census tabulation areas, the overall decreases in the Black and Hispanic / Latino populations were concentrated in the Upper West Side area, with the Hispanic / Latino population actually increasing by a smaller margin in Lincoln Square. On the other hand, the increases in the White and Asian populations were mostly in Lincoln Center, especially

7896-524: The spine of the neighborhood and runs diagonally north–south across the other avenues at the south end of the neighborhood; above 78th Street Broadway runs north parallel to the other avenues. Broadway enters the neighborhood at its juncture with Central Park West at Columbus Circle (59th Street), crosses Columbus Avenue at Lincoln Square (65th Street), Amsterdam Avenue at Verdi Square (71st Street), and then merges with West End Avenue at Straus Park (aka Bloomingdale Square, at 107th Street). Traditionally

7990-401: The story he was convinced that if they had caught him they would have killed him. It is unclear whether this ever happened, but West later re-imagined this in his short story " Western Union Boy ". As Jewish students were not allowed to join most fraternities, his main friend was his future brother-in-law S.J. Perelman . (Perelman married West's sister Laura.) West barely finished at Brown with

8084-583: The transcript of a fellow Tufts student, his cousin, Nathan Weinstein. Although West did little schoolwork at Brown, he read extensively. He ignored the realist fiction of his American contemporaries in favor of French surrealists and British and Irish poets of the 1890s, in particular Oscar Wilde . West's interests emphasized unusual literary style as well as unusual content. He became interested in Christianity and mysticism as experienced or expressed through literature and art. West's friends at Camp Paradox,

8178-457: Was Anglicized to "Bloomingdale" or "the Bloomingdale District", covering the west side of Manhattan from about 23rd Street up to the Hollow Way (modern 125th Street ). It consisted of farms and villages along a road (regularized in 1703) known as the Bloomingdale Road. Bloomingdale Road was renamed The Boulevard in 1868, as the farms and villages were divided into building lots and absorbed into

8272-584: Was abandoned, but the text can be found in the Library of America 's edition of West's collected works. On December 22, 1940, West and his wife Eileen McKenney were returning to Los Angeles from a hunting trip in Mexico. West ran a stop sign in El Centro, California, resulting in a collision in which he and McKenney were killed. (Their deaths occurred the day after that of their friend F. Scott Fitzgerald .) McKenney had been

8366-597: Was acquired through condemnation in 1872, and construction soon began following a design created by the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted , who also designed the adjacent, gracefully curving Riverside Drive . In 1937, under the administration of commissioner Robert Moses , 132 acres (0.53 km ) of land were added to the park, primarily by creating a promenade that covered the tracks of the Hudson River Railroad. Moses, working with landscape architect Gilmore D. Clarke also added playgrounds, and distinctive stonework and

8460-462: Was at this time that he wrote The Day of the Locust . He took many of the settings and minor characters of his novel directly from his experience living in a hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. In November 1939, West was hired as a screenwriter by RKO Radio Pictures , where he collaborated with Boris Ingster on a film adaptation of the novel Before the Fact (1932) by Francis Iles . West and Ingster wrote

8554-468: Was first noted by W. H. Auden , who declared (in one of the interludes in The Dyer's Hand ) that West's novels were essentially "parables about a Kingdom of Hell whose ruler is not so much a Father of Lies as a Father of Wishes". In this respect, James Light, in his book Violence, Dreams, and Dostoevsky: The Art of Nathanael West , suggests that The Day of the Locust falls in with a motif in West's fiction;

8648-644: Was officially designated Bloomingdale Square in 1907. The neighborhood also includes the Bloomingdale School of Music and Bloomingdale neighborhood branch of the New York Public Library . Adjacent to the Bloomingdale neighborhood is a more diverse and less affluent subsection of the Upper West Side called Manhattan Valley , focused on the downslope of Columbus Avenue and Manhattan Avenue from about 96th Street up to 110th Street. For census purposes,

8742-577: Was the spine for major post-World War II urban renewal. Broadway is lined with such architecturally notable apartment buildings as The Ansonia , The Apthorp , The Belnord , the Astor Court Building , and The Cornwall , which features an Art Nouveau cornice. Newly constructed 15 Central Park West and 535 West End Avenue are among some of the prestigious residential addresses in Manhattan. Both Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue from 67th Street up to 110th Street are lined with restaurants and bars, as

8836-439: Was then that he wrote what became Miss Lonelyhearts (1933). Maxim Lieber served as his literary agent in 1933. In 1931, however, two years before he completed Miss Lonelyhearts , West published The Dream Life of Balso Snell , a novel that he started in college. By then, West was within a group of writers working in and around New York City that included William Carlos Williams and Dashiell Hammett . In 1933, West bought

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