Hilltop Neighborhood, Tacoma, Washington

The Hilltop Neighborhood is a historically diverse neighborhood in the Tacoma, Washington Central District.

The National Register of Historic Places specifies the geographic area of Hilltop as located within the City of Tacoma and bounded on the east by Tacoma Avenue South, on the north by Division Street, on the west by Sprague Avenue, and on the south by the edge of the bluff, which roughly equates to South 27th Street. Hilltop derives its name from its location on a high bluff overlooking Commencement Bay and the Port of Tacoma.

Hilltop is near the historic Tacoma Public Library main branch, Bates Technical College, the Pierce County Courthouse, and the new Pierce County Correctional Facility, all of which are located on Hilltop's east side. It is adjoined by Tacoma's more affluent Stadium District.

Sound Transit plans to build a light rail line on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, between Division Avenue and South 19th Street, by 2022, connecting to the existing Tacoma Link in Downtown Tacoma.

The Hilltop was once notorious for drug-related gang activity, most notably related to the infamous Hilltop Crips. The word "Hilltop" became synonymous specifically with Tacoma's gang problems, and more generally with urban pathologies associated with the US's crack epidemic.

The Hilltop gained a reputation for drugs and violence with the Mother's Day riots in the 1970s. In the early 1980s Tacoma Civic Leaders sought federal dollars by accepting a large number of Cuban Refugees. Circa 1984, an unknown Los Angeles Crip association began organizing local Hilltop youth to sell primarily powder and crack cocaine. A yearlong violent struggle ensued. Eventually, Cubans involved in the drug trade were murdered or left town. By September 23, 1989, the Hilltop Crips had become powerful, with violence and homicides at a peak, and police departments overwhelmed. The Hilltop made national news in 1989 when several US Army Rangers got into a shootout with gang members in what came to be known as the Ash Street Shootout.

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