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.

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, 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.

With the arrival of the corporate headquarters and expensive condos of 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.

[5] 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;[6] lack of periodic ground fires results in a denser understory and more fire-intolerant trees, such as American Beech.

In 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.

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.

Bloomingdale Road was renamed The Boulevard in 1868, as the farms and villages were divided into building lots and absorbed into the city.

Within the confines of the modern-day Upper West Side, the road passed through areas known as Harsenville,[10] Strycker's Bay, and Bloomingdale Village.

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 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.

In 1937, under the administration of commissioner Robert Moses, 132 acres (0.53 km2) 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 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.

By 1960, it was a rough neighborhood of tenement housing, the demolition of which was delayed to allow for exterior shots in the film musical West Side Story.

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.

The influx of white gay men in the Fifties and Sixties is often credited with accelerating the gentrification of the Upper West Side.

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 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 a deal with Trump.

[22] 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.

[24] 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.

[30] 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.

The Dakota at 72nd Street has been home to numerous celebrities including John Lennon, Leonard Bernstein, and Lauren Bacall.

[48] Other buildings on CPW include four twin-towered structures: 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.

[50] His first major commission, the Belle Époque-style Belleclaire Hotel, is on Broadway,[51] while the moderne-style Normandy stands on Riverside at 86th Street.

Columbus Avenue north of 87th Street was the spine for major post-World War II urban renewal.

[28]: 14 The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in the Upper West Side is 0.0083 milligrams per cubic metre (8.3×10−9 oz/cu ft), more than the city average.

[28]: 6  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.

[85] The Upper West Side's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is lower than the rest of New York City.

[29]: 24 (PDF p. 55) [28]: 6  Additionally, 83% of high school students in the Upper West Side graduate on time, more than the citywide average of 75%.