I came across a photo of the street scene in front of the Apollo from 1963 – almost 60 years ago:
It was great to see Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and other amazing acts featured, but I was intrigued by the steak house next-door (east) called Harlem Embers.
In the 1940’s the NYC tax photos show this location as housing a very different business:
A Men’s Wear store.
Seawall
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is proposing a seawall along the FDR to protect East Harlem from coastal flooding.
The image below shows a section of the FDR, with one of the towers on the 103rd Street bridge in the distance on the right:
And below, a view looking northward from atop the proposed seawall, with the northbound FDR on the left, and the 145th Street Bridge in the distance:
Borough President Mark Levine highlighted an article in the NY Times that mapped energy usage (carbon footprint) on a district-by-district basis and showed the stark contrast between dense urban areas with many public transit options and car-centric suburbs:
This incredible map illustrates carbon footprint per household.
An amazing film from 1945 promoting the democratic nature of mid-century public education. Students are seen addressing their ‘comrades’, and protest and activism is promoted. The result of the students’ work is shown to be the gleaming new projects in East Harlem.
The film is short, but you can jump to 18:26 to begin to see East Harlem students and street scenes. There are views of East Harlem from the FDR Drive, from above the Park Avenue MTA viaduct, and much more. Note the virtual absence of women, and the focus on the Italian East Harlem community.
The film was produced by the U.S. Office of War information, overseas branch. It is no. 8 in the American scene series. An Italian-language version accompanies the English.
In the photo below, a group of men listen to a radio, mounted on a box. Their semicircular gathering allows the camera to take in a vignette with the central object (the radio) in full view – all of which suggests a staged photograph.
The image was taken in the 1930s during the depression. This location on Lenox Ave. is now the Mother Hale Bus Depot.
PIX11 Report on East Harlem’s Clean Team
The nonprofit group Positive Workforce joined forces with Uptown Grand Central three years ago. It has been a job-training center in the community for 30 years.
The city has recently added funding and resources to bring on 30 workers. It’s part of Mayor Eric Adams’ “Get Stuff Clean” program.
“It’s making a big difference. People take notice and are getting on board. The lighting is up. They see people getting involved and they get involved,” said Ruben Thomas with Positive Workforce.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that the city has received a $7.25 million federal grant to plan for a major expansion of the greenway network across the five boroughs, with a focus on historically underserved, lower-income communities that lack access to affordable transportation and job opportunities. The funding comes from a U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant and will be used to develop a comprehensive vision plan to fill critical gaps in the city’s greenway network, improve cyclist and pedestrian safety with improved infrastructure, and enhance quality of life with green transportation options and greater waterfront access.
“All New Yorkers deserve access to our beautiful greenways, and we’re making that happen thanks to millions in federal funding,” said Mayor Adams. “This grant will help us do the necessary planning to make the city greener and more bike-friendly in the communities that most need that infrastructure. Thank you to USDOT, Senator Schumer, and all our partners in New York and Washington for helping to ‘Get Stuff Done’ for New Yorkers.”
With the new funding, NYCDOT, NYC Parks, and NYCEDC will together create the city’s first comprehensive greenway vision plan in 30 years to guide future projects and track cycling growth and related trends. As part of that vision plan, the city will work to identify approximately five planned “Early Action” corridors across the five boroughs — prioritizing low- and moderate-income communities outside of Manhattan — and conduct robust planning studies for each to prepare the projects for funding and implementation. These new corridors would complement NYCDOT’s network of on-street bike lanes and NYC Parks’ public open spaces by dedicating more space to walking and cycling. The vision plan and corridor studies would include robust public engagement processes and would be developed in close collaboration with communities and key stakeholders, including the NYC Greenways Coalition.
The new greenway vision planning process follows a $47.6 million investment by Mayor Adams to complete six projects that will improve existing greenway routes in central Queens and along Brooklyn’s southwest shoreline through NYC Parks’ “Destination: Greenways!” plan. The city is simultaneously working to fill five key gaps in the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway in Inwood, Harlem, East Harlem, and East Midtown, representing an investment of over $1 billion. The first of these projects — the East Midtown Greenway, from East 53rd Street to East 61st Street — is expected to be completed in 2023.
Congressmember Adriano Espaillat noted: “I have long championed expansion of the New York City Greenway network, and I am delighted to help bring this significant level of federal funding and support through the Department of Transportation to move this project closer to the finish line,” said U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat. “After decades of neglect, communities throughout my district look forward to the development of the Harlem River Greenway to bring new open space, waterfront access, and a renewed seawall to the communities of Upper Manhattan — from East Harlem to Inwood. This grant funding is a win for our community and the families who call New York City home.”
It’s not often you link Harlem and 1970’s heavy metal, but a weird factoid popped up on of those LinkNYC screens the other day that noted that Gene Simmons taught (for six months) grade 6 in East Harlem before his band – KISS – took off in 1973.
From Our Georgia Correspondent
On a (very) different branch of the entertainment tree, Harlem, GA’s most famous son is emblazoned on their municipal water tank.
CUNY has come up with a somewhat pedantic restaurant guide for East Harlem.
They’ve covered most of the bases, but oddly have some restaurants that haven’t been open for 2 years now and others are located firmly in Central Harlem. It seems surprising that they didn’t check whether or not the restaurants were still in business, and you wonder if they really know the geography of East Harlem?
Nevertheless, it’s worth checking out to see if some of your old favorites are there, or if something new worth checking out is listed:
If you haven’t watched this short film (black and white, shot on 16mm film stock in 1948) you should, just to get a sense of East Harlem in the immediate post-war era.
Puerto Ricans and Italians make up the majority of the people (often children) filmed via small, hidden 16 mm film cameras. This unique record of East Harlem street life shows the joy and vibrancy found in one of Manhattan’s poorest neighborhoods.
Redistricting Changes to Harlem
The boundary between KRJ and Diana Ayala as it currently exists:
The proposed boundary for the next election cycle:
And the boundaries superimposed on the same map (note the color purple is the new proposed boundary whereas the blue line is the current boundary):
Here is the interactive map to test out. Move the slider at the top, left and right:
Dan, who presented on Redistricting at one of our spring HNBA meetings, writes:
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a great week so far! As you all have likely seen, the NYC Districting Commission released it’s first draft maps of the proposed Council district lines on Friday. The folks at CUNY have uploaded these draft maps to their website Redistricting and You, to make it easy to compare the new proposed lines with the current districts.
The new maps made changes to districts all over the city. Some of the most impactful decisions the commission made were:
Staten Island – Staten Islanders lobbied hard to keep three full council districts on the island, without having any district cross-over to Brooklyn or Manhattan. The commission abided their requests. Staten Island was under-populated, so to accommodate this request the commission lowered the population maximum for every other council district in the city. This was done to ensure that every district met the legal criteria requiring no more than a five percent population deviation between the smallest and largest districts. The end results were that the three districts in Staten Island are substantially smaller than nearly every other district, and that the commission had much less flexibility with population sizes for the rest of the districts.
South Brooklyn – The commission united the Asian-American communities in Bensonhurst and Sunset Park, to create an Asian majority district. To do this, the map makers redrew several districts in southern Brooklyn, including changing CD 38 to include Bay Ridge, and moving Red Hook into CD 39.
Western Queens and UES – The draft plan creates a new crossover district uniting CD 26 with Roosevelt Island and parts of the Upper East Side.
Keeping neighborhoods intact – The commission united several neighborhoods that had previously been split between multiple council districts – for example Van Nest in the Bronx. Other neighborhoods currently intact in one council district got split, such as Hell’s Kitchen.
Citizens Union will conduct a closer analysis of the proposed map in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we would love to hear your thoughts on the maps. Please feel free to email [email protected] to share any thoughts or comments.
New Yorkers will have 30 days to look through these draft maps before the Commission takes comments. The next round of borough-specific public hearings will be on August 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 22ndfrom 4pm-7pm. This round of hearings will be critical in determining the ultimate council lines. If you are unhappy with the maps, we encourage you to testify; similarly if you like the new lines in your district, that is also very important to tell the commission.
To submit written testimony to the Districting Commission, please contact: [email protected]
If you’d like to read more, here is some recent press about the new maps, with more expected over the coming week:
The Harlem Grown Garden, on West 127th Street is a jewel in the community. It’s got chickens, raised beds, solar power, and a robust community engagement schedule that includes compost drop-offs.
And to top it off, the East side of the garden has a fantastic mural for all to see:
All The East Harlem Block Parties And Events
PS 57 Farmstand – Farmers Market
Wednesdays, July 6 – November 23, 2022 (set up 7:00 a.m. – breakdown 5:30 p.m.)
Location: East 106th Street between Lexington Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Street Closure: Partial Sidewalk Closure
Applicant: Cathy Chambers
Sponsor: Council on the Environment Inc dba GROWNYC
HHFM East Harlem Market – Farmers Market
Thursdays, July 7 – November 17, 2022 (set up 8:00 a.m. – breakdown 4:00 p.m.)
Location: East 104th Street between 2nd Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Street Closure: Full Sidewalk Closure
Applicant: Maritza Owens
Sponsor: Maritza Owens
SB DAY – Block Party
July 9, 2022 (set up 12:00 p.m. – breakdown 9:00 p.m.)
Location: East 122nd Street between Lexington Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Street Closure: Sidewalk and Street Closure
Applicant: Brandy Walker
Sponsor: Reyn or Shyne Inc.
111th Street Old-Timers Day – Street Festival
July 10, 2022 (set up 7:00 a.m. – breakdown 6:00 p.m.)
Location: East 111 Street between 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Wilfred Renta
Sponsor: 111th Street Boys Oldtimers Stickball Inc.
100th Street July Convening- Block Party
July 16, 2022 (set up 11:00 a.m. – breakdown 6:00 p.m.)
Location: East 100th Street between Lexington Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Pablo Guzman
Sponsor: Union Settlement
HHFM Metropolitan Market – Farmers Market
June 17, 2022 (set up 7:00 a.m. – breakdown November 18, 2022 4:00 p.m.)
Location: 2nd Avenue between East 97th Street and East 98th Street
Street Closure: Sidewalk and Curb LaneClosure
Applicant: Maritza Owens
Sponsor: Harvest Home Farmers Market Inc
Uptown Bounce 2022 – Street Event
Thursdays, July 21 – August 4, 2022 (set up 3:00 p.m. – breakdown 9:00 p.m.)
Location: East 104th Street between 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Chelsey Pellot
Sponsor: El Museo del Barrio
JungleGym 2022 – Street Event
July 22, 2022 (set up 9:30 a.m. – breakdown 5:30 p.m.)
Location: East 116th Street between Lexnginton Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Mac Levine
Sponsor: Concrete Safaris Inc.
Community Day – Religious Event
July 23, 2022 (set up 10:30 a.m. – breakdown 4:00 p.m.)
Location: East 100th Street between Lexington Avenue and Park Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Reverend Felipe Ayala
Sponsor: Life Changers Church and Ministries
5th Avenue July Party – Block Party
July 23, 2022 (set up 1:00 p.m. – breakdown 9:00 p.m.)
Location: East 126th Street between 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Megan Moore
Sponsor: 2041 5th HDFC Co-Op/Residents of the Block
Barbecue Block Party
July 23, 2022 (set up 12:00 p.m. – breakdown 9:00 p.m.)
Location: East 129th Street between 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Roshaunda Wickham
Sponsor: Residents of the Block
11th Annual Welcome Home BBQ – Block Party
July 30, 2022 (set up 10:00 a.m. – breakdown 7:00 p.m.)
Location: East 119th Street between 2nd Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Diana Ortiz
Sponsor: Exodus Transitional Community, Inc
1405/107 Family Reunion – Block Party
July 30, 2022 (set up 11:30 a.m. – breakdown 8:00 p.m.)
Location: East 105th Street between Park Avenue Avenue and Lexington Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Vendetta Smith
Sponsor: Residents of the Block
A Healthy You – Block Party
July 30, 2022 (set up 11:00 a.m. – breakdown 8:00 p.m.)
Location: East 123rd Street between 2nd Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Swann Streety
Sponsor: Chambers Memorial Baptist Church
Giglio Feast of Sant Antonio – Street Event
August 3, 2022 (set up 7:00 a.m. – breakdown August 8, 2022, 8:00 a.m.)
Location 1: Pleasant Avenue between East 114th Street and East 116th Street
Location 2: East 114th Street between Pleasant Avenue and 1st Avenue
Location 3: East 115th Street between Pleasant Avenue and 1st Avenue
Street Closure: Sidewalk andCurb LaneClosure
Applicant: Mitchell Farbman
Sponsors: Giglio Society Of East Harlem Our Lady of Mount Carmel Shrine Church; Sons of San Paulino Inc.; Union Settlement; Operation Fightback
Family Day – Block Party
August 5, 2022 (set up 9:00 a.m. – breakdown 5:30 p.m.)
Location: East 127th Street between 3rd Avenue and Lexington Avenue
Street Closure: Full Sidewalk Closure
Applicant: Diane Spann
Sponsor: Addie Mae Collins Community Service
JungleGym 2022 – Street Event
August 12, 2022 (set up 9:30 a.m. – breakdown 5:30 p.m.)
Location: East 106th Street between Lexington Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Mac Levine
Sponsor: Concrete Safaris Inc.
Family Day – Block Party
August 13, 2022 (set up 10:00 a.m. – breakdown 8:00 p.m.)
Location: East 99th Street between Lexington Avenue and Park Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Annique Webster
Sponsor: Lexington Houses Resident Council
Old Timers Block Party
August 20, 2022 (set up 11:00 a.m. – breakdown 8:00 p.m.)
Location: East 100th Street between 1st Avenue and 2nd Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Alan Cox
Sponsor: 342 E 100st Coop. Association
Family Day – Block Party
August 20, 2022 (set up 9:00 a.m. – breakdown 6:00 p.m.)
Location: East 138th Street between Madison Avenue and 5th Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Charlotte Mimiasie
Sponsor: Riverton Tenants Association
Back to School – Block Party
August 20, 2022 (set up 10:00 a.m. – breakdown 6:00 p.m.)
Location: East 117th Street between Madison Avenue and 5th Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Erica Johnson
Sponsor: Residents of the Block
Back To School Education Block Party
August 27, 2022 (set up 10:00 a.m. – breakdown 5:00 p.m.)
Location: East 100th Street between Lexington Avenue and Park Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Reverend Felipe Ayala
Sponsor: Life Changers Church and Ministries of Manhattan Inc
Dewitt Clinton Family Day – Block Party
August 27, 2022 (set up 12:00 p.m. – breakdown 8:00 p.m.)
Location: East 109th Street between Lexington Avenue and Park Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Dewitt Clinton
Sponsor: Dewitt Clinton Houses Tenant Association (NYCHA)
Rehoboth Annual Back to School Festival
August 27, 2022 (set up 9:00 a.m. – breakdown 5:00 p.m.)
Location: East 118th Street between Lexington Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Obed Vazquez
Sponsor: Mision Cristiana Rehoboth Inc.
Community Love – Street Event
August 27, 2022 (set up 10:00 a.m. – breakdown 6:00 p.m.)
Location: East 124th Street between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Michelle Chapman
Sponsor: Joyce Almeida
El Barrio Old Timers – Block Party
September 3, 2022 (set up 12:00 p.m. – breakdown 7:00 p.m.)
Location: East 105th Street between Madison Avenue and 5th Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: William Velazquez
Sponsor: Residents of the block
Back to Beautiful – Street Event
September 3, 2022 (set up 8:00 a.m. – breakdown 6:00 p.m.)
Location: East 128th Street between Lexington Avenue and Park Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Shawnique Woolfalk
Sponsor: Art in the Park
100th Street September Convening – Block Party
September 10, 2022 (set up 11:00 a.m. – breakdown 5:30 p.m.)
Location: East 100th Street between Lexington Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Street Closure: Full Street Closure
Applicant: Pablo Guzman
Sponsor: Union Settlement
Mexican Independence Day 2022 – Single Block Festival
September 18, 2022 (set up 8:00 a.m. – breakdown 8:00 p.m.)
Location: East 116th Street between 3rd Avenue and 2nd Avenue
The current show at MOMA’s PS1 – Greater New York – has a number of Harlem artists/images on display. One particularly great collection is a wall of photos from Hiram Maristany, who filmed the unrest and revolution in East Harlem during the Young Lords Era of 1969-70.
Maristany was born in East Harlem and became the official photographer of the Young Lords Party (founded in 1969). His photos of dental clinics, TB testing trucks, the Garbage Offensive, and the takeover of the United Methodist Church (Lex/111), have become the images of this period that captured the frustration, anger, spirit, and pride of the Puerto Rican residents of East Harlem.
The work will be up (in LIC, Queens) until April.
New Building – Park Avenue between 126/127
If you’ve been on Park Avenue above Metro-North you may have seen excavation underway for a new residential building. The building will be 18 stories, face Park Avenue, and have a couple of floors of commercial space below. Artimus is the general contractor.
Harlem and Sugar Hill as Seen Through Postcards
Join the Municipal Art Society on Thursday for a talk about Harlem and Sugar Hill as seen through the lens of turn of the 20th century postcards:
For years, one of Harlem’s major flashpoints has been, and remains, the sale of Black churches. For many, the decline of a church and its sale, represents a dissolution of the Black presence in Harlem. For others, there is the loss of a cultural as well as religious space. Some focus on the material presence of the church – primarily as manifested in the architecture or interior decoration/design.
The Catholic church has undergone a remarkable shrinkage in the last few years. In 2007 the archdiocese decided to close or merge 21 parishes. Then, in 2014, the archdiocese — which encompasses Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx, and seven other New York State counties — embarked on another deeper series of cuts, including parish closings and mergers. This striking consolidation was driven in part by financial constraints (partly due to the financial challenges of defending and paying out in sexual abuse cases. In other parishes, the changing demographics and dwindling church attendance influenced the archdiocese’s decision to close/or merge.
The consequence of all this is not only a surplus of buildings to be sold – Harlem’s 118th street St.Thomas Church (shown below) was sold and deconsecrated – but also a surplus of religious art and decoration, like the stained glass that once adorned St. Thomas’s facade windows.
In a warehouse on Staten Island, the Archdiocese of New York stores altars, statuary and other relics that can be reused in churches around the world. The 17,000-square-foot storehouse stuffed to the rafters with artifacts salvaged from scores of churches deconsecrated and sold since 2004. Known as the Patrimony Warehouse, the facility was established to preserve the sorts of relics that sometimes wound up in antique stores, the homes of parishioners or the trash.
In addition to storing sacred items like altars and incense censers, which according to canon law are permitted to be only in places of worship, the warehouse is a repository of secular artifacts like stained-glass windows.
The pieta (above) is one example of material rescued from St. Lucy’s Church in East Harlem after the church’s deconsecration in 2017. Laypeople are not permitted to shop at the warehouse, and there are generally no listed prices. When an artifact is transferred to a parish, the archdiocese typically asks for a donation commensurate with that parish’s means.
Since 2007, the number of parishes in the archdiocese has shrunk to 284 from 403. In that time, 30 churches have been deconsecrated for secular use in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, leaving 172 Catholic churches in those boroughs. And the consolidation continues.
Whenever possible, new religious homes are found for salvaged relics. In 2008, some 30 stained-glass windows from the imposing neo-Gothic Church of St. Thomas the Apostle on West 118th Street in Harlem, designed by the Mayer of Munich studio in Germany, were removed and reconditioned after a preservation campaign failed. Those windows were later installed upstate, in the new Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Church, in LaGrangeville. Other windows went to St. Brigid’s Church in the East Village.And last year, 14 smaller windows from St. Thomas depicting angels were shipped to a church in Taiwan. (As for the 1907 church complex of St. Thomas the Apostle, it was sold to Artimus Construction for $6 million in 2012; the church was truncated, and its remaining front portion now serves as a vaulted event space called Harlem Parish.)
A Crucifix from All Saints Chruch in East Harlem.
Two of the most striking items in the warehouse are a pair of white-marble angels that once flanked the high altar at the Church of All Saints, on Madison Avenue and 129th Street. The splendid Italian Gothic Revival-style church, built starting in the 1880s after designs by the architect James Renwick Jr., is sometimes called the St. Patrick’s of Harlem — a reference to St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, which Mr. Renwick also designed. All Saints is a city landmark, a designation that protects its exterior, but not its interior.
In 2015, the parish of All Saints merged with that of the Church of St. Charles Borromeo, on West 141st Street, and in 2017 All Saints was deconsecrated.
That’s when the Patrimony Warehouse came into play. After a church is deconsecrated and made available for secular purposes andpossible sale, canon law holds that all sacred relics and furnishings must be removed for use in other sacred edifices or stored in ecclesiastical custody. If the church’s altars cannot be removed, they must be destroyed.
After the deconsecration of All Saints, a comprehensive inventory of its valuable objects was made. Before disassembly, the component parts of large items like the high altar were carefully labeled, photographed and documented, so each artifact could one day be put back together like a giant, sacred jigsaw puzzle. Photographs and descriptions of each item were compiled in a binder that serves as a shopping catalog for warehouse visitors.
The dismantling of the church’s interior was halted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and finally completed early this year. Workers disassembled the great marble altar with power saws fitted with masonry blades. To reach the clerestory windows high above the pews, somefour stories of scaffolding were erected inside the church, and most of the stained-glass windows were taken out — over the objections of preservationists — and replaced with clear glass. The city Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the removal of stained glass and exterior sculptural masonry associated with religious imagery.
The altar and stained glass now reside in the warehouse. The 16-foot-high gilded crucifix is stored in crated sections, is shown, above.
“The pipe organ” — built by the Roosevelt Organ Works in 1892 — “was the last piece to go out” of the church, Mr. Amatrudo said. “It’s being reconditioned and will go to St. Paul the Apostle,” a church on West 59th Street.
In addition, a small wooden altar of sacrifice was sent to Moore Catholic High School, on Staten Island. The church’s richly carved pews, among the city’s most elaborate, went to a church in Chicago. And marble statues of Joseph and Mary landed in Bridgeport, Conn. (The All Saints complex, which includes an attached parish school and parish house, was sold in March for $10.85 million to the developer CSC Coliving. A modernization of the school and conversion of the church into a school auditorium, designed by Tang Studio Architect, is underway, and the Capital Preparatory Harlem Charter School plans to move into the two buildings next fall on a long-term lease.)
Back in the warehouse, Mr. Amatrudo is eager to use two darkly varnished vestment cabinets from All Saints to enhance his merchandise display. He has arranged the cabinets — neo-Gothic beauties made of quarter-sawn oak — in a felicitous manner in the entry chamber and plans to leave their doors open, filling them with vestments to make a good first impression on shoppers.
“These cabinets have style,” he said proudly. “So when you walk in the front door, this is what greets you.”
