One quibble is that the definition of Harlem is given as:
Harlem, a 45-block stretch from Central Park to 155th Street — clipped by Fifth Avenue to the east and the Hudson River to the west — isn’t somewhere many first-time New York City visitors see.
And yet the opening title photo is soundly in the heart of East Harlem – below the top of Central Park, and east of 5th (it looks like it was shot from Saint Cecilia’s Parish, east of Park Avenue and on 106th Street)
Still, the article is worth checking out and comparing to your top list of places you’d recommend a visitor check-out.
Earthquakes? Seriously?
Ready New York Question of the Week
What was the magnitude of New York State’s biggest earthquake? a) 5.8 b) 6.3 c) 7.2 d) 8.7
Some great CONFIRMED news coming up for all of us at Marcus Garvey Park & there is more good stuff brewing.
FUNDING FOR INFRASTRUCTURE
1. $12 million designated by Mayor Adams for stone repair and rat abatement / awaiting information on timeline as this was recently announced.
2. $1.7 million allocated by City Council Member Kristin Richardson Jordan for “Green 2 Greener Initiative”/ sustainable energy solutions (we are working with her office & capital & planning offices at Parks now to finalize this plan)
3. $1.6 million committed by State Sen. Cordell Cleare for NW small playground / awaiting information on timeline as state funding moves more slowly than city funding
4. State of Good Repair Grant for repaving of the entire NW and SW sections of the park which will add new curbing, paver stones and (5) ADA entrances and fix the drainage issues inside the 123rd & MMPW entrance where the “lake” forms (expected to begin in early November 2023)
NEW HARLEM HORT HQ
— $50,000+ pledged by New York Junior League to finish needed work and open this to the public in June 2023
You may have noticed (2) greenhouses set up at the east end of the pool. Mike, Erick & I have been building out our plan to create a horticultural headquarters (HQ) that will do the following:
1. enable us to cultivate our own plants for Marcus Garvey & for the other (3) historic Harlem parks
2. enable us to offer free public horticulture programming (workshops, demonstrations, author talks, arts horticulture events, etc) by our Parks horticulture experts and with interested partners including GreenThumb, Partnerships for Parks, Harlem Grown, City Gardens Club, Horticultural Society & others
3. offer a meetup spot for the uptown gardening/hort community such as GreenThumb gardeners who have never had a central meet up site
4. create a hort volunteering meet up place where schedules can be posted, signup and pickup of tools, gloves, etc, can happen
5. offer a beautiful positive space for the community that can be used for events, meditation, etc.
$1.3 MILLION GRANT FROM MELLON FOUNDATION TO HARLEM GROWN
Harlem Grown submitted a grant to Mellon Foundation to provide support to Marcus Garvey as a cultural heritage site. This grant will provide the following:
1. support / fund new & existing community programming
2. support more public art in the park
3. support the mobile Harlem Grown teaching food kitchen in the park
4. support community engagement for the park
NEW COMMUNITY ROOM BY BALLFIELD TO BE AVAILABLE TO COMMUNITY PARTNERS / HARLEM LITTLE LEAGUE
The new comfort station between the ballfield and amphitheater has a community room inside of it that I can begin scheduling now for use by community partners such as Marcus Garvey Park Alliance, MMPCIA, Harlem Little League and others. Please contact me if your group wants to schedule time in the room for a meeting, community engagement forum, a membership recruitment event, etc. We are very excited to officially open this room with our great park partner — Harlem Little League in April as they kick off another season !
NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES
State NY Parks office has taken the lead working with me and our 2 parks groups to submit nomination paperwork for Marcus Garvey Park to be named to the National Register of Historic Places. We have moved forward to the next nomination round. If selected, this would provide more opportunities for needed funding such as for the acropolis.
ON POINT PARTNERSHIP REDUCES NEEDLES & MORE IN THE PARK
Our partnership with On Point, a drug treatment center on E. 126th, has helped us reduce the following:
1. # of needles in the park
2. the # of drug-addicted people choosing the park to inject/use
3. the # of people our PEP unit (Parks Enforcement Patrol) saves the lives of via NARCAN, which enables PEP to focus on its primary job of public safety
HARLEM EAT UP COMING TO THE PARK IN SEPTEMBER / OTHER KEY PROGRAMMING
I have been working with Harlem Eat Up to move their great food event from Morningside Park to Marcus Garvey Park, which is confirmed. Red Rooster’s own local & global celebrity Marcus Samuelsson created this local focus on great Harlem restaurants. The official event will take place September 9-10. We are finalizing logisitics and working with our Parks special events team. I will keep you informed on this great news.
Other key programming of our April – November schedule includes events being planned / confirmed per below:
MARCH – Bethel Gospel Social Justice & Community Volunteer Event
APRIL – Earth Day Community Volunteer Event
MAY – Mother’s Day Gardening Day
JUNE – Harlem HQ Opening Weekend and later in the month the 3rd Annual Juneteenth Festival
JULY – Classical Theatre of Harlem with annual free Shakespeare in the park & Jazzmobile Fridays
AUGUST – Jazzmobile Fridays continue & Charlie Parker Jazz Festival
SEPTEMBER – 3rd Annual Opening Night of MET Opera
OCTOBER – 2nd Annual Halloween Fright Night
TRAIL BOARDS FOR THE PARK
I have submitted for budgeting approval for (2-3) trail boards — bulletin boards – to be installed in the park to share news from Parks / city agencies and our (2) park groups, Marcus Garvey Park Alliance & MMPCIA with the public.
VOLUNTEERS
Please consider volunteering for the park as we always need interested people from the park community, partner park groups, schools, churches, etc, to help our small staff with the following:
Gothamist and WNYC are reporting on the quiet closing of a disfunctional, dangerous, and troubled shelter on Wards Island.
The shelter which took up a few floors of the NYS psychiatric center (pictured above) was part of former Governor Cuomo’s family legacy – with his sister taking the helm most recently.
Tweet Regarding The 25th Precinct Community Council Meeting Gets Thousands of Views
100+ Harlem residents came out last night to precinct 25 to demand more police presence. We urge officials to set aside personal ideologies & listen to what residents want-safer streets for our children. We want to end mass incarceration but we can’t put the cart before the horse pic.twitter.com/5TzXbhJdjh
— Harlem East Block Association (@harlemeastblock) February 17, 2023
Hello! Please be our very special guest this week for two of “the most anticipated plays of 2023!” (NY Mag, Vulture). Complimentary tickets for WICG friends & family are available for select performances, Tue – Sun, details via the RSVP links below.
Redeem 1-2 tickets for yourself, and please share this link with colleagues. A confirmation email with etickets will arrive the day of your performance. See you soon!
Sarah Ruhl’s Letters from Max: A Ritual, is based on the book by Ruhl and Max Ritvo, directed by Kate Whoriskey, and features Jessica Hecht, Ben Edelman and Zane Pais. In this lyrical play, Ruhl shares a personal correspondence with her former student, the late poet Max Ritvo (Four Reincarnations), who openly discusses his terminal illness and tests poetry’s capacity to put to words what otherwise feels ineffable.
Two of our Harlem neighbors – Eva and Lilian – formed the Upper Manhattan Asian American Alliance to support this growing community and to celebrate its contribution to the beautiful diversity of Harlem.
The oldest map that shows habitation in Harlem is the Manatus Map from 1639.
You can see Staten Island, Hell Gate, the Hudson river, etc. It’s unclear who the cartographer was, and the original drawing is lost. As a result, the image above is one of two later 17th-century copies made in the same studio with slight differences.
When zoomed in, note what Harlem ‘looked like’ in the mid 17th century (see the houses marked 18 and 19 as being around 2nd Avenue and 103rd street:
Recently, in Boston, I spotted a Haarlem town hall painting from the Museum of Fine Arts, which depicted Haarlem at almost the exact same time (1630), across the Atlantic:
The work is by Pieter Saenredam and commemorates the entry of the Prince of Orange into Haarlem. Pieter Post painted the figures while Pieter Saenredam painted the townscape.
The Greater Harlem Coalition’s Response to the Supervised Injection Site’s Partial Data For Their First Year In Harlem
New York’s Nonprofit Media has released some of OnPoint’s data for year one of operation in East Harlem and Washington Heights (November 2021 to 2022):
2,147 people have used the injection sites 48,284 times
Of those 48,284 visits, 633 used either a lethal mixture of, or a sufficient quantity of, illegal drugs to overdose
All 633 overdosing events were reversed by OnPoint staff
The Greater Harlem Coalition firmly supports compassionate intervention and the goal of saving lives. We understand those who use OnPoint’s injection site(s) require complex and thoughtful engagement and we support the overarching goals of harm reduction.
Unfortunately, however, OnPoint’s Harlem site has repeatedly failed to engage in Community Harm Reduction – a model that approaches addiction treatment holistically within a public health model. Community Harm Reduction not only serves and supports the people who use OnPoint’s services, but it also centers a goal of not harming neighboring businesses, neighbors, children, and families.
Community Harm Reduction engages and supports local businesses.
Community Harm Reduction works with local businesses to reduce loitering and theft.
Community Harm Reduction ensures that children who attend local schools do not repeatedly encounter used syringes, or have to cross the street just to avoid open-air drug sales.
Additionally, Community Harm Reduction would engage in approaches that support Harlem residents’ right to be able to get to the train, walk to the park, welcome their family, and enjoy their streets without fear of encountering drug dealers brazenly selling narcotics.
The open-air drug dealing on OnPoint’s doorstep that brings dealers and users to our community is unacceptable. We need OnPoint and New York City’s Department of Health to acknowledge that Harlem’s vibrant and diverse community should be protected, strengthened, and not simply dismissed as their program’s unavoidable collateral damage.
Click HERE to learn more about The Greater Harlem Coalition’s fight for #FairShare4Harlem
Submit Your Ideas On Harlem’s Eastern Waterfront
The city wants your guidance on developing the waterfront next to the FDR, from 96th Street to 125th Street. Please fill out this form to submit your ideas:
The nondescript apartment building on Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. between 131 and 132 Streets (shown above) was (during the Harlem Renaissance) the home of Connie’s Inn, an entertainment hot-spot and comparator with the Cotton Club. As with the Cotton Club, Connie’s Inn featured Black performers but did not allow Black audience members – restricting its audience to whites only.
The food menu is fascinating to peruse, as is the drinks menu:
Connie’s Inn was popular during the 1920s and 1930s and was founded by Connie Immerman – a successful businessman and entrepreneur (a description at the time that often not so subtly meant that he was a bootlegger and gangster).
One of the most famous performers to grace the stage at Connie’s Inn was Duke Ellington, who played there regularly throughout the 1930s. Other notable performers included Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, and Cab Calloway. The club also featured a wide range of entertainment, including jazz bands, comedians, and dance troupes.
In addition to its entertainment, Connie’s Inn was also known for the glamorous nature of its opulent Art Deco decor. Connie’s Inn had plush velvet seating, sparkling chandeliers, and intricate plasterwork.
The covers of its menu (below) however, are a world unto themselves:
Connie’s Inn eventually closed its doors in the 1940s.
New York State’s Teacher of the Year Teaches in Harlem
The 2023 New York State Teacher of the Year, as chosen by the state Board of Regents and Department of Education, Billy Green teaches chemistry and math at A. Philip Randolph High School in Upper Manhattan, making a difference in the lives of young New Yorkers after his own childhood was marked by homelessness and other significant hurdles.
If you’ve ever been headed northbound on Madison Avenue and at 118th Street noticed the Subway and the curious ‘sculpture’ on the wall next to the restaurant, you may have been puzzled as to what’s going on with what looks like a sundial.
You’re right to be confused because something clearly was messed up between the designer and the installer. The sundial is upside down:
The photo (above) was taken around 8 in the morning, yet seems to be indicating that it’s 9 pm at night.
What has happened is the gnomon has been mounted upside down, and as a consequence, the numbers and their position make no sense.
Take a look at the image below, with a gnomon correctly aligned on a downward 45 degree slope:
If you’d like to try making one yourself, here’s a great place to start:
The Caribbean Club sounds (and looks) great at this time of the year. This photo (for sale on Ebay) was taken in June 1945.
Note the wrap-around balcony, and the dance barriers to keep dancers and diners from bumping into one another too much.
The location near 139/ACP is now given over to Harlem Discount, below an apartment building.
Queenie: Godmother of Harlem
A new graphic novel is out on Madame Stephanie St. Clair, a Harlem renaissance era numbers queen.
In stark black and white, the novel traces the rise and fall of Harlem’s most notorious Godmother.
St. Clair was an anomaly in a business clearly dominated by men, but she successfully carved out a position of power. An immigrant from Guadeloupe, in the West Indies, St. Clair was brilliant and nimble, outsmarting the many systems that made her success so implausible. She continuously called out the corrupt police and government and advocated for Harlem’s Black community.
