Category: Harlemscape
-
Shoe Polish II
Back in April 2021 I posted this: If you’ve walked north on Madison from 125th Street you might have seen the faded ad on the side of an east-side building: Looking carefully, you’ll see it’s an ad for shoe polish. The brand of which I can’t make out: Shoe Polish Improves your Appearance Shoe Polish…
-
Dawoud Bey in Seattle
The photographer Dawoud Bey was recently featured in a photo exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. One of his works on display is likely familiar to most Harlem residents: The work is centered on a vacant lot on 125th Street and 5th Avenue (south-east corner) that has been vacant for decades now. As you can…
-
Randall’s, Ward’s, and Sunken
In 1885, there was Randall’s Island, Ward’s Island, and Sunken Medows, all separated by channels joining the Halrem and East Rivers with Hell Gate and Long Island Sound: The map, for sale on Ebay, shows fascinating details on buildings, orchards, groves, and marshes that are no more: Midnight In Harlem Another white rock group with…
-
Church to Church+Hotel
74 West 126th Street (just behind Red Rooster) has been a Lutheran church since this part of Harlem was Scandinavian. Word is that the property has been reimagined (including the vacant lot), and a hotel will be built above a new church. The church will have a brand-new sanctuary and two floors of space. The…
-
Offices and Hotels
The map of office buildings (3 stories or more, tall) is fairly expected: There is a line up Broadway, an intermittent line along 116th Street, and a denser line along 125th street. (If you know the Bronx, you can likely identify “The Hub”, as well.) Below, zooming into Harlem to look at commercial buildings, you…
-
Lincoln Houses To Be Built Soon After The War
In July 1945, as WWII was ending, The Crisis reported on a new development for the East Harlem Triangle – Lincoln Houses. To orient yourself in the (above) view, the detail below shows the Metro North bridge over the Harlem River. The view, therefore, is north-easterly. You can also note (below) that Lenox Terrace is…
-
Did Your Apartment Grow?
While Manhattan apartments, both old and new, are still smaller than apartments in Queens and Brooklyn (the average size of all apartments in Manhattan is 721 square feet, compared to 737 square feet in Brooklyn and 727 square feet in Queens), the average size of a Manhattan apartment grew 19 square feet: While the size of rental apartments in…
-
When Harlem Was Jewish
The website JewishUnpacked.com has a great article on the history or Jewish Harlem: “Harlem was a microcosm of an entire Jewish community,” Barry Judelman, a Jewish Harlem tour guide and urban historian, explained in an interview.“It was a unique combination of Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and German Jews — by the 1890s, these three groups of Jews were…
-
Comparative Housing Data
If you’ve ever wondered why the price of housing (renting or purchasing) in NYC is so expensive, these two graphs illustrate how supply vs. demand here compares with other cities. 5G Towers Spotted on Amsterdam Avenue
-
Metro North Viaduct Replacement Update
The team is working to minimize impacts to the community and on Metro-North Railroad schedules. Over the next several months, mobilization and some site activity will occur for Phase 1 of the PAV project. Then, beginning this summer, we expect to begin work underneath the Viaduct, constructing new footings and columns (substructure work). In coordination…
-
Eartha Kitt
Austin Hansen photographed Kitt leading a dance group at the Harlem YMCA in the early 1950’s. Eartha had been a professional dancer, dancing and touring with the Katherine Dunham Company between 1943 and 1948 before she became more widely known as a singer. Note the photo below, and the vents under the windows as the…
-
Lost Church – Part 2
A month or two ago I’d mentioned that The Henry J. Carter Specialty Hospital, just east of Marcus Garvey Park (between 122nd and 121st Streets and Madison and Park Avenues) replaced a Harlem church (outlined in green below) The fuzzy photo (below) showed the rock rubble in Marcus Garvey park before the depression era work…
