Month: August 2020
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HNBA Tuesday, September 8th, Zoom Meeting with Captain Henning of the 25th Precinct
On Tuesday, September 8th, at 7pm, we’ll be hosting our first HNBA Zoom meeting. Details on the Zoom session will follow, but our meeting will feature Captain Henning – https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/patrol/precincts/25th-precinct.page – and our two Neighborhood Coordination Officers who will answer your questions. In advance of the meeting, HNBA members – join here if you are…
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Harlem Lodge No. 457
The important role of clubs in Black New York in the early 20th century cannot be overstated. While class and color discrimination did impact membership and participation, Black Harlemites relied on clubs for networking – professional and personal. The masons played a significant role in Black Harlem in the 1920’s The New-York Historical Society has…
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The Silent March
In the 1970’s a back-hoe operator noticed scores and scores of film canisters and reels poking out of the soil where he was digging a new septic system: The wet, dirty, and frozen film reels represented a trove of silent era films that the world had not seen for generations. Dawson City in Canada’s far…
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Tiny Gallery Opening – Odetta Gallery
A fascinating gallery has an exhibit on view: Of tiny sculptures in a miniature display – Odetta Petite: ODETTA, in response to the current paradigm, is excited to introduce a new exhibition space, ODETTA Petite. Replicating the gallery’s original Bushwick venue, Ellen Hackl Fagan and Seth Callander have created a scaled-down space to enable its artists to return to gallery exhibitions. The new space…
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Storefront Academy and the 40’s
The Storefront Academy The storied Storefront Academy https://www.storefrontacademycs.org/ has changed to a Charter School and is now struggling to come online in the COVID-19 era. The Children’s Storefront was a tuition-free private school in Harlem, founded in 1966 by the poet Ned O’Gorman. It was the subject of a 1988 documentary film, The Children’s Storefront, nominated for an Academy Award for Best…
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New! Improved! Pins!
Until recently I was extremely frustrated with 311s inability to allow ‘pinning’ – tapping on a digital map to identify a location. Think about reporting something in Marcus Garvey Park and how complex it would be to describe to someone in the 311 call center, or to indicate with a simple street address. Recently when…
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Wish Tree: Imagine Peace
If you had the chance to walk by 5th Avenue at 126th Street, you might have caught this fantastic community art project: The beautifully tended tree pits nearby, and the messages of hope that made up the project were really magical: A few of the wishes, left by our neighbors, are shown below:
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Fred R. Moore
The Fred R. Moore School between 5th and Madison, and 130th and 131st, is restrained mid-century gem of New York City’s public architecture. This school and the associated playground take up a whole city block: https://www.schools.nyc.gov/schools/M133 When you walk on Madison between 131st and 130th, just inside the playground’s gates, you’ll see a wonderful bas…
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The Godfather of Harlem
I confess I’ve never watched The Godfather of Harlem but I’ve been so taken by this dual versions of their ad: And, when Park Avenue was pretty empty on a weekend morning I thought I’d capture the two images.
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COVID Antibodies
As you likely know by now, the presence of COVID antibodies indicates people who have had COVID (knowingly, or completely asymptomatically). The DOHMH for NYC has released a map of COVID antibody testing. Our (East Harlem) data is based on 6,258 tests: The city on Tuesday released the results for roughly 1.5 million coronavirus antibody…
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Howell Binkley
One of our Harlem Neighbors has passed. Howell Binkley died from lung cancer. Howell was a two-time Tony award-winning lighting designer, most notably for his work on Hamilton. From Playbill: Two-time Tony winner Howell Binkley, one of Broadway’s most prominent contemporary lighting designers, passed away August 14, 2020, at the age of 64. The cause was lung…
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Help Our Trees
As the recent hurricane showed, our street trees take a huge beating in extraordinary events like Isaias and in the world of day-to-day life on the streets of New York. You may not know this but the moment a tree is planted in the sidewalk, the open patch of dirt and anything contained in it…