Category: Culture

  • Hotels

    Hotels

    Given that the Victoria project is wrapping up and about to bring a new hotel to Harlem, I thought I’d present a map of hotels in New York City. As you can imagine, Midtown is insanely dense: And while zooming into our neighborhood appears to indicate that we have a handful of hotels in our…

  • The Fire Factory

    The Fire Factory

    In New York, sidewalks and roads are constantly being torn up for subsurface repairs. The eventual patches are notoriously uneven in quality, and some (especially if wet concrete) are susceptible to the lure of graffiti and the chance for a name, drawing, or slogan to be there, on the ground, possibly for decades. While walking…

  • Harlem Tax Protest

    Harlem Tax Protest

    Oversaturation Tax ProtestJoin us on Wednesday, February 23, 2022 at 6:00pm for a 1-hour information session. Hello Harlem NeighborsHarlem has over 20% of NYC drug treatment and homeless shelters, the majority of which are concentrated within .4 miles on 125th street. This hyper-concentration of social services is having a deleterious effect on all who live, work, worship, and…

  • James Baldwin debates William Buckley Jr.

    James Baldwin debates William Buckley Jr.

    On this day, in 1965, James Baldwin debated William F. Buckley at Cambridge University. After a brilliant take-down of white supremacy, Baldwin receives a standing ovation (38:20) and this debate (and much of what Baldwin says here) becomes a major milestone in the intellectual response to the horrors of Jim Crow America. Frederick Douglass in…

  • The Spirit of Harlem

    The Spirit of Harlem

    A 2005 mosaic that was on the North Fork Bank on West 125th Street was restored a couple of years ago after pubic outcry that it might be destroyed/hidden from view. You can see the mural on the north-west corner of 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Blvd. Become a Peer Advocate or Recovery Coach Here…

  • The Road to Manhattanville, From Central Park

    The Road to Manhattanville, From Central Park

    Ephemeral New York has a great piece on the history and charm of Manhattanville: The print of activity along the road from Central Park to Manhattanville is great – if for no other reason than it depicts goats hanging out in Harlem: 127th Street Contstruction Artimus, the developers who are building the new commercial+residential on…

  • Harlem YMCA

    Harlem YMCA

    In the 1940s the Harlem YMCA on 135th Street was eager to produce a film that highlighted how the ‘Y’ offered job training, healthy recreation, and cultural development. With a tight budget, producing a sound film would have been costly, so the clever use of handwritten intertitles suggested a letter written home about the YMCA…

  • Join MMPCIA

    Join MMPCIA

    Join MMPCIA for a conversation with the commander of the 28th Precinct (the southern half of central Harlem) to learn more about what the NYPD intends to do to address the increase in crime in our community. General Membership Meeting: Tuesday, February 15th, 6:30PMZOOM LINKMeeting ID: 868 4723 49171 646 558 8656 (New York)ZOOM: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86847234917Meeting ID:…

  • Harlem Wednesday – Animation

    Harlem Wednesday – Animation

    An animated film titled “Harlem Wednesday”: Listen: Questlove Details the Recovery and Birth of Summer of Soul Until about a year ago, if you mentioned the cultural impact of the Harlem Cultural Festival, most people wouldn’t know what you were talking about. Taking place over several weekends in the summer of 1969, and featuring artists…

  • Roy DeCarava

    Roy DeCarava

    Born in Harlem in 1919, Roy DeCarava spent over six decades creating a rich body of work exploring the world around him – the everyday life of his beloved community in New York as well as the famous (and infamous) jazz musicians of the day. DeCarava took pains to place Black lives in the forefront…

  • Winter Scenes of Upper Manhattan

    Winter Scenes of Upper Manhattan

    Ernest Lawson, a Canadian artist who came to New York at the turn of the 20th century to take classes at the Art Students League, was a beautiful painter of the Harlem River. In the painting above, you might be able to make out what is now Bronx Community College, but at the time, was…

  • East Harlem Was Harlem

    East Harlem Was Harlem

    In 1880, Central Harlem was just starting to be filled in with residences and people. West Harlem, and the Upper West Side, for that matter, was nothing but farmland. In the map (above) of populated blocks, note how much of Manhattan’s development was east-side based. The East River, not the Hudson, was the waterway of…