hector espinal

Host Oneika Raymond takes the A-line up to Washington Heights, a loud, vibrant Dominican neighborhood in New York City, to join local Hector Espinal for a walking tour of his hometown. Hector is the co-founder of We Run Uptown, the first-ever running group in uptown Manhattan, and the perfect guide to get to know the streets of Washington Heights.     

Oneika joins Hector at Locksmith Bar, a popular local watering hole and the meeting point for We Run Uptown’s weekly Monday runs, before heading out to visit some of Hector’s favorite sights, restaurants and running routes in the area. 

To kick off the tour, Hector shows Oneika a local shortcut to avoid walking some of the steepest hills in all of Manhattan as they make their way to St. Nicholas Ave., a bustling thoroughfare at the heart of Washington Heights. St. Nicholas Ave. They stroll down the busy avenue towards 182nd St. to check out its famed street vendors, including Nidia Rivera, who’s been selling the Dominican dessert habichuelas con dulce for over 30 years. 

Then, Hector and Oneika stop for a traditional Dominican breakfast at La Casa del Mofongo. Over the meal, Hector and Oneika connect over their shared Caribbean roots, as Hector shares what it was like for him growing up in Washington Heights. We learn about la cultura of the neighborhood and its people, and the welcoming running culture that Hector’s helped create here. 

Hector and Oneika end the day at J. Hood Wright Park, a quiet pocket of Washington Heights with one of the best views of the George Washington Bridge, before taking off for a victory run to close out the tour.

To read full episodes of About the Journey and see photos from the day, head to About the Journey on Marriott Bonvoy Traveler. Starting this season, you can also watch videos from a few of these trips on our Marriott Bonvoy Youtube channel.

"Running uptown isn't normal, especially our kind of social running.
You might see one middle-aged white person running along Riverside
Drive on a long run, but you never saw anyone running on Broadway,
Amsterdam, or Washington Avenue. So when people started seeing a big
group of us running, it’s very, very different from what they’re used
to." - Hector Espinal, WRU Crew

Growing up in NYC’s Washington Heights neighborhood, Hector Espinal never imagined he’d one day become a runner. “I've never played any sports. All the men in my family are really into sports but me, so I’ve always kind of been the black sheep,” Hec told us. And looking back, he and his friends felt like their neighborhood discouraged a healthy lifestyle, with fast food joints on every corner and few public spaces to play in.

To motivate himself to get fit five years ago, Hector Espinal would invite everyone he knew to join him on runs. Hec stuck with it week in and week out, and soon he had a group of regulars joining him. Today We Run Uptown, or WRU Crew, the run club Hec started, meets every week, even through the dead of winter. As many as 100 diverse runners gather at the same spot in Washington Heights on Mondays at 7:00 pm then take to the streets to hoots and hollers of support from folks in the neighborhood.

How did Hector build something so special? We sat down with him in Central Park to learn more.

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