Why the Hell Did MTV Make a Show About Washington Heights?

By Amos Barshad on January 16, 2013 12:37 PM ET

Jamel Toppin/MTV

Washington Heights, the working-class Dominican neighborhood in the upper reaches of Manhattan, is the kind of place where dudes sell gym whistles on the street. During a walk down St. Nicholas Avenue on a recent unseasonably warm winter weekday, the sidewalks were choked with street-business scratch: buckets of fruit and vegetables, stands of carnes fritas, combo perfume/leopard-print-lingerie/toothbrush spots. One woman was serving up fresh-squeezed orange juice out of a makeshift supermarket cart; one guy was bumping finger-picked guitar tunes while pushing books on meditation. And then there was my dude with the whistles: He just had himself a little coat-rack thing, and a whole bunch of whistles.

That concept of "hustle" has long been ingrained in Washington Heights. In the mid-'80s, this neighborhood was the largest wholesale drug market in the country. The crack boom, a shared language with Colombian suppliers, plus the optimized geography of their neighborhood ? equally accessible to New Jersey and downtown Manhattan ? meant that a lucrative life as a middleman was readily accessible for those in the Heights. "Operating independently," the New York Times reported of the era, "four or five drug crews might share a single block, their street peddlers swarming over cars with out-of-state plates, vying for market share literally side by side." By the end of the '90s, though, NYPD and community action (some residents banded together to buy their apartment buildings, then booted out known dealers) had transformed the neighborhood into the boisterous, multigenerational scene it is today.

Unlike Queens's Flushing or Jackson Heights, Washington Heights isn't fetishized and proudly trekked to for its ethnically authentic cuisine. Post-grads seek it out for cheaper rents, but not at the same rate as they do Brooklyn's Bushwick or Crown Heights. Most New Yorkers probably haven't been, and certainly couldn?t tell you much about it. It?s its own entity, isolated and preserved. Which makes the existence of Washington Heights ? MTV's cinematically lush new docu-drama, which follows a crew of photogenic, preternaturally hip young strivers as they go about, you know, making it ? all the more curious.

The show arrives in the post?Jersey Shore vacuum, and it's clear what MTV's motivation is: It's looking to package and polish another American subculture for consumption. The idea isn't to re-create the antics of Jersey Shore; that'd be more the job of Buckwild, which premiered a week before Washington Heights and rotates around a crew of proudly hick West Virginians, who live every week like it?s "Surge commercial week." What Washington Heights offers is a particularly MTV-ified filtration of the neighborhood's natural ethos ? now, instead of lifers humping out a few extra bucks on chilly street corners, it's artsy cool kids blitzing their way through fashion shows, art galleries, recording booths. So is MTV just presenting a subculture? Or are they, with heavy consideration for the demands of their demographics, defining one?

Meanwhile, you can imagine the people of Washington Heights checking out the pop-soundtracked trailer and seeing the hashtag-riddled posters and wondering when, exactly, their neighborhood got so hip.

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"We gotta be the guardians," says JP, who's not only the de facto leader of the crew, but also a producer on Washington Heights. "We gotta let whoever the hell moves up here know: You better have a fucking cross, adobo, loud music in your house. You better have some kind of culture or you can't live here. Just get on your motherfucking train and go downtown ? I'm sorry, I keep cursing."

It's the day before last week's premiere, and we're uptown having lunch at La Casa De Mofongo, a neighborhood staple (it boasts the requisites for big restaurants up here: a space large enough to accommodate an impromptu bachata dance floor; also, despite overtures toward fanciness, a separate, bustling takeout counter slapped with, like, Wisin Y Yandel flyers). Spread around a long table covered with Ensalada de Pulpo and Camarones Al Ajillo is the cast, who've known each other since they were kids. They landed Washington Heights when JP hatched the concept, shot a sizzle reel, and pitched it to MTV. That was two years ago. Now, considering how the show'll land, they're fidgety and demure. On the topic of the Heights itself, though, they can't cut each other off fast enough.

JP: "I swear to God downtown at like a high-rise, that person's out of sugar, that person will go to the store before he goes next door and ? "

Ludwin: "I have friends that come up and they're really jealous. 'Dude you come outside you say wassup to everyone, and where I live I don?t do that at all ? '"

Fred: "We have a neighbor that comes in through our window. He puts a light through the window so we see the flashing light then we pull up the sheet and he comes in."

"People of Washington Heights are really proud of our town," JP says. "They don?t wanna be misrepresented, or represented at all. It?s like, ?this the last bit that we have ? damn, y?all exposing it?' But it has to be exposed. 'Cause the world is dying. There?s no culture no more. Everywhere you go there?s just big-ass buildings.?

It's not hard to believe that the cast is earnest and true in wanting to put their neighborhood on. They?re also quick to point out that, whatever the hell Washington Heights is, it?s not an all-inclusive representation; they talk about how, while most people their age are out clubbing, they're home having painting parties. And more or less, the idea of Washington Heights as a modern cauldron of creativity and art is one part aspiration, one part camera-friendly invention.

Ludwin's an aspiring artist, Reyna's an aspiring pop singer, Frankie's an aspiring spoken-word poet, JP's an aspiring rapper (his stage name is Audubon, not so much for the famed 19th-century ornithologist as for the street JP was raised on). Are any of these people actually talented? I cannot, with clear conscience, say conclusively that they are. In the first two episodes, we hear Frankie recite a short poem; we hear Ludwin talk about art school. JP's grind is most central: He makes cornball Drake-lite sunglasses-at-night jams, and both episodes revolve around whether shows he's organized will go over well. SPOILER: They do.