Category: History

  • Elizabeth Jennings

    Elizabeth Jennings

    On July 16th, 1854 – a young black schoolteacher named Elizabeth Jennings was on her way to the First Colored American Congregational Church. Elizabeth was the church organist, and needed to catch the Third Avenue streetcar. Although slavery had been abolished in New York in 1827, New York City was heavily formally and informally segregated.…

  • East 129th Street Renamed: Ann Petry Place

    East 129th Street Renamed: Ann Petry Place

    After years of work, petitioning, and navigating bureaucratic morass, the renaming of East 129th Street has finally been approved. East 129th Street (at 5th Avenue) will be renamed Ann Petry Place. Ann Petry was a celebrated Black author whose novel, The Street, became the first novel by a Black woman to sell over a million…

  • High School Graduates

    High School Graduates

    How Calculated:  Estimated number of people 25 years and over who have completed High School (Includes Equivalency), divided by the total number of people 25 years and over; expressed as percent. Source: American Community Survey Koch and Co Ephemeral New York has a great article on the stately building, and former department store on 125th street…

  • Passing

    Passing

    If you haven’t read Nella Larson’s novel Passing, it is highly recommended. If you’re not likely to read the novel, make sure to check out the new Netflix iteration of Passing, streamed in gorgeous, retro, black and white. Passing takes place in the 1920s and the director wanted to make the history of the Harlem Renaissance…

  • Why Can’t We Have Nice Things?

    Why Can’t We Have Nice Things?

    Flushing has found a way to honor our forefathers and mothers who were buried in an African American and First Peoples cemetery – now a park. This location was used as a public burial ground starting as early as 1840, with over 1,000 individuals buried there until 1898. The new memorial wall includes the name…

  • 155th Street Bridge

    155th Street Bridge

    In the image below it’s hard to imagine that this bucolic scene is looking at what will become the 155th Street bridge between Harlem and Yankee’s Stadium. Note that the bridge in the background is the Croton aqueduct bridge – High Bridge – with it’s full complement of masonry arches (the central core of which,…

  • ACP

    ACP

    Today is Adam Clayton Powell Jr.’s birthday and I wanted to share two of my favorite photos of him: This first one is from the 1930’s at Colby where he studied. The contrast between the sharp image on the right, and the ‘brushed’ image on the left is fascinating. This second image comes from 1968…

  • Astor Row Building, Gone

    Astor Row Building, Gone

    Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) responded to concerns that a long abandoned building on Astor Row was about to collapse and knocked the building down. Future owners will be forced by landmarking to restore the front facade. Sadly, now, it’s a gaping hole in the streetscape. Untapped New York’s Secrets of Harlem

  • Harlem Hospital Nursing Yearbook 1959

    Harlem Hospital Nursing Yearbook 1959

    The Harlem Hospital School of Nursing closed in 1977 and the site is about to become a new public health lab: https://patch.com/new-york/harlem/harlem-gets-first-look-new-400m-public-health-lab A 1959 yearbook of the nursing school is currently for sale: https://www.williamreesecompany.com/pages/books/WRCAM55457/african-american-nursing/city-of-new-york-harlem-hospital-h-h-s-n-1959-cover-title and is described as: Yearbook commemorating the graduation year for the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing’s Class of 1959. This copy…

  • Waiting to Open

    Waiting to Open

    A photograph from October 1977 recently came on Ebay. The scene is a corner of Lenox Avenue and 124th Street, where a line of men awaits entry into a liquor store. Here is the back of the print. The location is now the home of Harlem Shake. Note how the liquors sign on the corner…

  • A Letter to the NYPD and the Mayor

    A Letter to the NYPD and the Mayor

    Barbara Askins, the indefatigable head of the 125th Street BID, has written a powerful letter to NYC Police Commissioner Shea and Mayor De Blasio regarding the increasingly intolerable quality of life issues in Harlem. If you would like to tweet the Mayor: https://twitter.com/NYCMayor If you would like to tweet the NYPD Commissioner: Boot Scraper A…

  • Congressional Gold Medal Awarded to Harlem Hellfighters

    Congressional Gold Medal Awarded to Harlem Hellfighters

    In mid-August, the Senate passed the Harlem Hellfighters Congressional Gold Medal Act to award a Congressional Gold Medal to a Black infantry regiment known as the Harlem Hellfighters. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-117hr3642enr The Harlem Hellfighters, the 369th Infantry Regiment, are regarded as the most celebrated African American regiment in World War I, having fought against Germany’s forces longer than almost any other American…