Category: Culture
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Africa Center
YIMBY is reporting that: The Africa Center has commissioned Caples Jefferson Architects to complete new spaces within the property to support a lush calendar of exhibitions, performances, and educational events. Located at 1280 Fifth Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, The Africa Center occupies 70,000 square feet of the building and is spread across three floors.…
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Sol Cinema Cafe – Our Right to Gaze
BLACK FILM IDENTITIES Harlem’s own Sol Cinema Cafe has a fantastic collection of six shorts under the title “Our Right to Gaze“. The filmmakers gaze at themselves and their world, attempting to make sense of what they see reflected back. From gripping drama to heart-warming comedy, Our Right to Gaze: Black Film Identities features…
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Drugs and Children
I Walk on Water Filmmaker Khalik Allah has a new film – IWOW: I Walk On Water – coming in at a massive 200 minutes. As with earlier work, Allah returns to Lex/125 and films a hallucinatory portrait of the men and women of the M35, K2, mental illness, and homelessness: Since 2011, filmmaker and…
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Bob Dylan
Many Harlemites don’t know that Bob Dylan lived in Harlem, on Strivers Row, for many years. Bob Dylan owned the home for 14 years before selling it to its current owners in 2000. They purchased the house from the folk icon for just $560,000. The four-story townhouse at 265 West 139th Street Richard Avedon took…
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Shakespeare in The Park. About Harlem, but somehow not in Harlem…
Post pandemic theater is coming. Shakespeare in the Park will present the Merry Wives this summer. The production will be a “fresh and joyous adaptation by Jocelyn Bioh… set in South Harlem amidst a vibrant and eclectic community of West African immigrants, Merry Wives will be a celebration of Black joy, laughter, and vitality. A New York…
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Harlem Youth Unlimited
A very rare comic is on the market for $500. This report on Youth in the Ghetto and The Blueprint for Change came out of the organization Harlem Youth Unlimited. The cover art, in particular, became an iconic image of the 1960s with fingers morphing into a loan shark, a threatening police officer, a pawnbroker,…
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409 and 555
The Maysles Cinema has a showcase of Harlem-centric films on right now, streaming for free. The film, In The Face of What We Remember: Oral Histories of 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue, had personal reminiscences of the activists, musicians, doctors, lawyers, and leaders who lived in the two storied buildings on Edgecombe Avenue. To watch…
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HNBA March Meeting, Tomorrow at 7 PM
Join HNBA in order to get the meeting’s Zoom link: https://hnba.nyc/join-hnba/ 7:00 – kristinforharlem@gmail.com – Join to learn how Kristin Jordan – a candidate for City Council district 9 – will address the burden that our part of the district bears with 2 sanitation garages, the M35 Bus, numerous homeless shelters, and the Lee Building’s…
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1939 Madison Ave. Used As Gambling House
100 years ago the New York Times reported breathlessly on an illegal gambling house at 1939 Madison Avenue (between 124/125). The charges leveled in court and in the newspaper allege that not only was gambling occurring, but debts were not paid, and the local police were on the take. For the full article, see: Claire…
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March 9th, HNBA Meeting
Mark your calendars. On Tuesday, March 9th we’ll have 3 amazing presentations. 7:00 PM – We will have a Q+A with Kristin R. Jordan, who is a candidate for Council District 9 – kristinforharlem@gmail.com. In addition to giving us a sense of who she is and what her key platforms are, Kristin will address the…
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Mount Sinai and Methadone in Our Community
With new data from a FOIL request to OASAS, we are able to contextualize the size/impact that Mount Sinai has on our community with their two major methadone hubs – West 124th Street, and East 125th Street (The Lee Building at Park Avenue). Looking at the screenshot below, you can see how large Mount Sinai’s…
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Roy DeCarava – Photographer
Roy DeCarava was an African American artist who received early critical acclaim for his black and white photography. Initially engaging and imaging the lives of African Americans and jazz musicians in the communities where he lived and worked, DeCarava was a regular presence in Harlem and documented a number of local scenes and people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_DeCarava…
