In October General Howe, with the aid of the British fleet, attempted
to attack the rear guard of Washington's army. To thwart the British plans,
Washington led his divisions across King's Bridge and into Westchester,
leaving behind a garrison at Fort Washington under Colonel Robert
Magaw. The fort was a five-bastioned earthwork west of what is now
Fort Washington Avenue and about in the line of 183d Street.

On November 16 a battle took place. The Americans were completely
surrounded: two columns of Hessians under General von Knyphausen
assaulted the outworks on Long Hill, one scaling the hill from the north,
the other from the east. Under a bombardment from the east bank of the
Harlem (Fordham Heights), General Cornwallis crossed the river at 201st
Street. Lower down, the Forty-second Highlanders crossed the river at
about High Bridge. British troops under Lord Percy advanced from the
south, and warships fired from the Hudson.

The defenders of the outworks were killed, captured, or driven within
the untenable fort; and Colonel Magaw surrendered. The defense of Fort
Washington had been a mistake, and the loss of many of Washington's
best-equipped men—54 killed and 2,634 captured—was disastrous. Until
the close of the war British and Hessian troops were encamped within the
repaired fortifications of the heights. The outwork on Long Hill was
renamed Fort Tryon, after William Tryon, last English civil governor of
New York, and the present Fort Tryon Park includes the site.

Central Park West District

Area: 59th St. on the south to 110th St. (Cathedral Parkway) on the north; from
Central Park West to the West Side Highway and Riverside Drive.

This district, encroached upon by two run-down areas—Middle West
Side on the south and Harlem on the northeast—is bordered by three of
Manhattan's aristocratic thoroughfares, West End Avenue, Riverside Drive,
and Central Park West. The last-named street, a continua-
tion of Eighth Avenue, has one of the most distinctive sky lines in the
city, which can be seen to better advantage from various points in Central
Park than from the street itself. Dominating the sky line are the towers of
five apartment buildings, set between Sixty-second and Ninety-second
Streets.

The Century Apartments, designed by the office of Irwin S. Chanin,
architects, and constructed in 1931, fronts Central Park West from Sixty-