Category: Harlemscape
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Open Plans
OpenPlans.org wanted to thank all the HNBA members for the opportunity to present at the HNBA April meeting! Everyone is urged to reach out with any follow up questions and feel free to share the presentation (below) with anyone who might be interested. Emily also wanted to share their white paper on parking mandates in case folks…
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1st Avenue 1910 – Little Italy
Back at the turn of the 20th Century, the eastern part of East Harlem was a sizable Italian enclave. This photo intrigued me with the location, 1st Avenue: In addition, one of the pushcarts – selling food, wares, clothing, etct. – had this address on it: And indeed, the photo was taken close to 1st…
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Karma
On April 30th, 1989, Donald Trump famously took out this ad in the New York Times that called for the Exonerated 5 (including Yusef Saalam) to be executed. Now, in 2023, Yusef Salaam is running for City Council, and has published his own ad, explaining how Trump and the criminal justice system took years away…
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Harlem’s City Council Candidates’ Forum
Make sure to register HERE for Harlem’s 2023 City Council Candidates’ Forum. The forum will be held on Thursday, April 27th at 7:00 PM and feature Assemblymember Inez Dickens, candidate Yusef Saalam, and Assemblymember Al Taylor. Our current councilmember chose not to attend the forum. All registrants have the option to send questions for the…
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129th Street Ferry
A 1908 postcard on Ebay of the Harlem ferry at 129th Street (on the Hudson or North River) that would take commuters and travelers to/from New Jersey. Note the paddlewheels still in use. View From the Water Another Ebay item, with a view from the water, looking inland at West 129th Street’s docks. Note the…
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My Dog Rinty
In 1946, a children’s book came out titled My Dog Rinty. The setting was post-war Harlem, and the plot centers around a mischievous dog whose frequent disturbances throughout the neighborhood are mistaken as bad behavior. As the book reveals, Rinty was simply alerting the neighbors to the presence of rats, and Rinty’s willingness to dispatch…
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Where Life Begins At Midnight
Ebay has a rare photo souvenir from The Palm Club at 209 West 125th Street. The tagline is ‘Where life begins at midnight’: Note that in addition to “Our Own Evelyn Robinson” – the club’s house singer, a photographer is also mentioned (as is his studio at 10 Lenox Ave). 10 Lenox Ave. today is…
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The Fires
Most Harlem residents know about (or lived through) the era of disinvestment, redlining, and white-flight that disfigured Harlem in the second half of the 20th century. Many also know that this time was a time of countless fires that started from squalid living conditions, unmaintained building systems, apathy, simple arson, and calculated insurance fraud. The…
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Sign The Petition!
The Greater Harlem Coalition has just launched a petition on Change.org: New York State’s Assembly and Senate Members should reject The Safer Consumption Act, bill s399/a338, unless the following 6 Safety Guardrails are added to the bill. Harlem’s supervised injection site is located two blocks away from 9 schools with +4250 students and nearly 4000…
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125th Street Viaduct
The Manhattan Valley Viaduct was built for the IRT subway line (now the 1 Train) and is actually a landmarked structure. The Landmarks Preservation Commission reports that it “is the most imposing and visually impressive aboveground engineering structure of the IRT subway system” and an “excellent example of a double-hinged parabolic braced arch structure. Supporting both the…
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Lenox and 116th Street
A few images from the intersection of Lenox and 116th Street. The first (above) shows the south facing view today. Below shows the same view from 1901 and the construction of what is now the 2/3 subway line: Looking northward, today’s view shows a building the is now a charter school on the north-west corner:…
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Top 10 Lists From ChatGPT
We’ve all seen those annoying websites with pop-up ads as we travel around the web that feature “Top 7 ways to…” Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being employed by these click-bait sites in order to create ‘content’ and drive up their ad revenue. Here is an example of the content that was generated titled: And…
