Eric Washington is a New York City-based independent historian and author. A Fellow in Columbia University's Community Scholars Program 2014-2017, a Biography Fellow of the CUNY Leon Levy Center for Biography 2015-2016, and a Fellow in Residence of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston/Brown Foundation's Dora Maar House in Ménerbes, France, 2017.
He was awarded the Municipal Art Society's 2010 MASterworks Award for my interpretive signage in West Harlem Piers Park, situated in the central locale of my first book, Manhattanville: Old Heart of West Harlem. His current book project is Boss of the Grips, a biography of James H. Williams (1878-1948)—an influential Harlem Renaissance-era cultural hero who was the Chief “Red Cap” railroad porter at Grand Central Terminal—to be published by Liveright/W.W. Norton in Fall 2019.
He is also the owner of Tagging-the-Past, which endeavors to reconnect forgotten history to present landscapes through articles, talks and tours. His research on Harlem & Manhattanville, Trinity Church Cemetery and Upper Manhattan is featured prominently in Phillip Lopate’s Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan, and in Jonathan R. Wynn’s The Tour Guide: Walking and Talking New York. I am the recipient of Photographer's Forum Best of Photography Awards and iPhone Photography Award.