Author: Join HNBA

  • Salvation Army

    The Salvation Army wanted to let everyone know that it continues to offer its regular feeding program to anyone in need at their 125th Street location. Additionally, they reported to HNBA that their music school for children is running in a virtual format and currently have 35 children registered this semester. Their East View residence…

  • Hotels in 1851

    In 1851 you could go to two hotels in our neighborhood. One would be where the (MTA) train line on Park Ave. meets the Harlem River, and the other would be at 128/3rd, where a public school now exists: Also note that from 125 to 127th, between Park Avenue and 5th Avenue, there was a…

  • CB11 Full Board Meeting

    Tonight CB11 will have a full board meeting and discuss budget priorities.  Harlem Neighborhood Block Association is asking for two things to be highlighted in the budgetary report including: We are requesting a City Council analysis of the distribution of addiction programs throughout the five boroughs, with a mandate to recommend how the rebalancing of…

  • Chester Himes

    After reading a collection of Chester Himes’ short stories and having previously read most of his novels, I was intrigued to watch the film Come Back Charleston Blue. Come Back, Charleston Blue is a 1972 comedy film starring Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques, and is based on Chester Himes’ novel The Heat’s On. It…

  • Up in Harlem Wilds Remote

    When visiting my mother last February (pre-COVID) she mentioned that she had recently reread one of her childhood nursery rhyme books and flagged a poem that happened to mention Harlem (and is clearly a New York-based poem). Aside from the rather casual violence in what was supposed to be children’s literature, it was interesting to…

  • Menus

    Hello Harlem Neighbors, With COVID, many of us have thought about the plight of our neighborhood’s restaurant owners, workers, and delivery people. This is an interesting time to look back into Harlem’s historic places to eat, and The Schomburg is a great place to explore historic menus and other ephemera. Here is the Savoy’s floorplan:…

  • Tourists vs. Locals

    There is often a huge difference between where New Yorkers go when they ‘visit’ the city and where tourists (remember them…?) go (how often do you head to the Empire State Building in a given year). As a result, many guides for New York are skewed by the reviews of millions of tourists. Ilia Blinderman…

  • Cosey Corner

    In 1912 you could stop by Cosey Corner for a “Quick Lunch”: They advertised Coffee, Roll, and Butter for 5 cents, and had a barbershop next door with a Tonsorial Parlor. This intersection: is Lexington and East 129th Street and now looks like this:

  • Triborough

    As a New Yorker who first arrived in 1993, I still think of the bridge (or the bridges) as the Triboro, or Triborough. RFK is in my mind, but Triboro always comes out first. I came across this great image of the Triboro’s span raising (the part that goes over the Harlem river to connect…

  • Census, Racial Types, and Time

    The Pew Trust has a fascinating visualization of the complicated way in which Americans (and the American census in particular) classified people into racial categories: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/25/the-changing-categories-the-u-s-has-used-to-measure-race/ The census years are aligned across the top, and the inclusion and evolution of categories is reflected in the horizontal colored bands.  Note that citizens could only choose their…

  • Parents and Children

    Over the last 5 years, The Harlem Neighborhood Block Association has taken on a number of issues (large and small) to improve the quality of life for residents in the East Harlem Triangle. One small, but significant victory was the result of collaboration with neighborhood parents and schools to persuade the Department of Education to…

  • A New Pitch to Lease The Corn Exchange Building

    For years now the gorgeously renovated Corn Exchange Building at Park/125 has been sitting empty (except, of course, for the amazing Ginjan Cafe! which occupies part of the street-level corner). Recently, a new pitch is being made (presumably to commuters on Metro-North trains coming into the city) as seen in the new ad – high…