The Harlem Neighborhood Block Association

Neighbors united to improve the quality of life in Harlem

Tag: Harlem Rose Garden

Preservation in Harlem Conference

Posted on by Harlem Shill


Register here to Save YOUR Spot.  Seating is Limited. FREE

2023 Harlem Historic Preservation Conference: Harlem and the Future 22023 Historic Preservation Conference -Harlem and the Future 2: Preserving Culture & Sustaining Historic Character in a Changing Environmentwww.eventbrite.com

“Harlem and the Future 2: Preserving Culture & Sustaining Historic Character in a Changing Environment” will discuss the current state of housing, neighborhood character, cultural identity, and houses of worship in a changing environment of city policies, development pressures, and displacement at the intersection of historic preservation.

Harlem One Stop and the West Harlem Community Preservation Organization, with CB9 Manhattan and community partners will host a day-long conference bringing together legislators, housing, community planning, and preservation experts to discuss available resources and tools for community empowerment and creating a sustainable and livable environment for all.

This conference targets affordable housing issues, the preservation and rehabilitation of HDFCs, co-ops and homeownership, and the importance of the creative arts as a neighborhood stabilizer and economic driver.

A breakout session on Financing Historic Preservation Properties is scheduled for those seeking answers to specific questions or guidance. To attend the break-out session, on-site sign-up is required at the first panel session. Space is limited.

Learn from experts about the potential financial resources available to property-owners to restore, rehabilitate and renovate historic buildings. 

Participants will be given opportunities to discuss specific projects.

AIA credits available for conference.

Lite Breakfast and Lunch will be served.

Suggested donation $10

Seniors and Students Free. ID Required at Check-in.

Panels:

Title: Historic Neighborhoods in the Path of “Get Stuff Built” – Can both co-exist?

New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams is an unapologetic cheerleader for “Getting Stuff Done”, which is greatly needed in our city today. From the economic effects of COVID to the lack of affordable housing, it’s obvious that only direct action from City Hall will enable New York to continue to thrive. As America’s largest city and one of its oldest, managing change which is equitable to all community stakeholders is a complex undertaking. We look forward to engaging experts on these public initiatives and learning more about how the “City of Yes” impacts New York’s historic neighborhoods and cultural communities.

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Title: Housing Harlem: Strategies for the Preservation and Rehabilitation of Affordable Housing Stock

Topics: affordable and subsidized housing, adaptive reuse, Historic Tax Credits, State and Federal Housing Programs, State and City Designation, Management, AIA credits LU|Elective

New York City has long suffered from a lack of affordable housing. Creating new housing is one solution but the areas of the city most suited to affordable housing development are often among the most historic. What are the available tools to reconcile New York’s need for affordable housing with the city’s existing historic building stock? This panel will discuss both public and privately funded strategies in which historic preservation efforts can aid the development and retention of affordable housing while maintaining neighborhood character and avoiding community displacement.

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Title: Defining & Retaining Neighborhood Identity/Planning for Growth

Topics: Defining Neighborhood identity, Community development, Place Making and urban planning, public space and design, urban challenges, local business and neighborhood economy, cultural identity, cultural and heritage tourism, creative culture (food, art, music), building as-of-right. AIA credits LU|HSW

Neighborhood identity is determined by many elements; historic buildings, local businesses, gathering places, public spaces, cultural communities, urban design and heritage tourism. So much of what helps define a neighborhood and makes it valuable are intangible elements: such as creative culture, local economies, and community identity. These factors are both critical to a community’s character and susceptible to pressure brought on by larger economic trends. This panel will ask what measures can be taken to ensure that economic development benefits the existing community. How can a community build on its existing cultural and historical character to encourage investment to create a unique place which is accessible, inclusive and sustainable? Who are the stakeholders and decision-makers who help shape this growth?

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Title: Financing Historic Preservation Projects

Learn from experts about the potential financial resources available to property-owners to restore, rehabilitate and renovate historic buildings. Participants will be given opportunities to discuss specific projects.

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Title: Advocacy – Building Community Voice for a Livable Neighborhood

Topics: community engagement and planning, activism, political agency in the built environment

Preservation brings people together by connecting them through their passion for places and sense of community. By providing opportunities to affirm and empower communities, alliances are created to galvanize solutions for shared concerns for the city’s future. When communities are empowered through historic places, New Yorkers throughout the city can come together to share different perspectives on a common goal. Connections are made and voices are lifted together. Local preservation leaders will lead an action-oriented discussion with the goal of establishing a shared policy agenda for reform.

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Title: Congregations and Communities: Preserving Sacred Architecture for Community Benefit

Topic: historic church design, preservation, religion and community, AIA credits LU|Elective

Churches function as community anchors and gathering points even for non-congregants. How can the community help in sustaining and enhancing these important places? What are the opportunities and challenges of houses of worship today? This program will discuss the role of historic churches in Harlem and the community’s involvement in reimagining the adaptive reuse of their social and architectural features, so that they might continue to thrive and serve their greater community for generations to come.

Register. Suggested donation $10. Conference fee. Light breakfast and lunch included. Limited Seating.

Questions? email [email protected] or call 212-939-9201

For more information visit www.westharlemcpo.org or www.harlemonestop.org

This day-long conference is made possible with the generous support of the West Harlem Development Corporation, Harlem Community Development Corporation, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation Saving Places.

This Sunday! Harlem Rose Garden Tree Tour

Join the New York Botanical Garden’s Levi on an extensive  tour of the Harlem Rose Garden identifying trees, noting their diversity, and diving into a range of topics from ecology, plant diversity.

Harlem Rose Garden Tree Tour

Posted on by Harlem Shill

Join the New York Botanical Garden’s Levi on an extensive  tour of the Harlem Rose Garden identifying trees, noting their diversity, and diving into a range of topics from ecology, plant diversity.

Harlem’s Julia De Burgos At Lincoln Center

East Harlem’s poet – Julia De Burgos – is currently being celebrated with massive murals and a quote on the wall of Lincoln Center:

Free Concert in the Harlem Rose Garden

Posted on by Harlem Shill

Harlem Rose Garden Opening of the Season Concert

Sunday, May 21, 2023 at 3PM

Please join us at the Harlem Rose Garden for a very special performance by the members of the Harlem Chamber Players.  

Violinists Ashley Horne and Claire Chan, violist William Frampton, and cellist Wayne Smith will perform selections from Haydn’s String Quartet No. 1 in G Major, Tania León’s Esencia, Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 12, Op. 127, and Frederick Tillis’s Spiritual Fantasy No. 12.

Founded in 2008, The Harlem Chamber Players is dedicated to bringing accessible and affordable live classical music to Harlem and beyond while promoting diversity in classical music, providing opportunities for professional musicians of color, and featuring works by composers of color and women composers.  We are thrilled to invite the ensemble for the first time to our garden and look forward to seeing you there!

* rain date Sunday, June 11th

They’re Back!

Councilmember Jordan Is A No-Show, Again

May Membership Meeting: City Council District 9 Candidates Forum

The New York Primary Election is June 27 and one of the most hotly contested seats this year is in Harlem. The District 9 race for New York City Council is heating up, and for our May Membership Meeting, we are hosting a forum to hear from three of the candidates in this race (Inez Dickens, Yusef Salaam, and Al Taylor) on what they plan to do for Harlem and for environmental justice. Join us at Twenty-first Century Academy for Community Leadership at 501 West 152nd Street on Saturday, May 13 from 10 am – 1 pm. 
RSVP

The Safe Injection Site To Speak In A Public Forum

Posted on by Harlem Shill

The Greater Harlem Coalition is hosting a public forum with OnPoint – the organization that runs the safe injection site on East 126th Street – on Tuesday, October 25th, at 7:00 PM. And yes, you are invited to join.

To learn more and offer your thoughts/opinions, please register here:

https://fordham.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LHPGorq_RhumQX6E380BBQ

Please spread the word! Forward this to your neighbors, block association, friends, relatives, colleagues, and anyone else you know who would like to hear from and ask questions about the injection site.  This meeting is a rare opportunity for you to learn more and express your thoughts on the injection site and their plans to open 24/7.

Nightmare on 129th Street

The Harlem Rose Garden is hosting Nightmare on 129th Street again this year. Make sure to stop by with any ghosts or goblins that you reside with on Saturday, October 29th.

Inside All Saints

Posted on by Harlem Shill

As the Catholic church and school, All Saints is transformed into the home of Capital Prep, we took a peek in and got a few photos of the work in progress.

The original wood doors and vestibule remains – if coated in plaster dust.

Further inside the vastness of the nave is emphasized by the relative size of the scaffolding in the background.

24 Hours in Harlem

Travel Noire has recommendations for spending 24 hours sampling the food, drink, culture, and vibes of Harlem:

https://travelnoire.com/heres-how-to-spend-24-hours-in-black-owned-harlem

Is anything here on your shortlist for a staycation?

Little Pumpkin Today!

Wheelie Life

Posted on by Harlem Shill

If you’ve ever seen a wave of young people doing wheelies down a Harlem street on bicycles, this documentary explores the culture, the comradery, and the thrills inherent in this urban subculture.

Featuring a number of shots and interviews under the Harlem Viaduct (125th Street and the Harlem River), the documentary follows the athleticism and passion of the young men and women who find freedom on one wheel.

Philadelphia Artist Walks From Harlem to Canada

The Philadelphia Inquirer has an article on Ken Johnston, the Philadelphia “walking artist” who set out from Harlem, N.Y., in July, walked across the Rainbow Bridge into Niagara Falls, Ontario to honor and follow the route of American hero, Harriet Tubman.

Johnston reached St. Catharines, Ontario, the city where Harriet Tubman, perhaps America’s most famous Underground Railroad leader, lived between 1851 and 1861, before the start of the Civil War in early September

Johnston, 61, of Cobbs Creek in Philadelphia, ended his approximately 450-mile walk at Salem Chapel British Methodist Episcopal Church, where Tubman once worshiped.

Johnston said he was both excited to have arrived in Tubman’s former (Canadian) city — and exhausted.

Read the full article, here:

https://www.inquirer.com/news/ken-johnston-walk-freedom-harriet-tubman-new-york-canada-200-birthday-20220910.html

Free Concert in Harlem Rose Garden, Saturday

For Boarding of Horses

Posted on by Harlem Shill

Ebay has a great receipt for the boarding of horses in East Harlem in 1898.

Note that there were less than 100 telephones in Harlem at the time (the number to call in this case was “74”).

The rate was $22.50/month ($18.72 of which had been paid by The Department of Bridges) which was certainly not cheap at the time but would have included food for the horse as well as a stall.

To see the listing, click here.

Free Concert in The Harlem Rose Garden

Famoro Dioubate is an esteemed griot, an oral historian-musician from Guinea, West Africa. He is a master of the balafon (xylophone), a court instrument dating to the founding of the Mande Empire in the year 1235. In 1998, he moved to New York City, where he has been active as a bandleader, music arranger, composer, teacher, and featured artist at traditional West African events. He founded his band Kakande in 2002. When he released his first CD in 2008 he received the support of the iconic Mory Kanté, who joined Kakande on their East Coast release tour. Kakande is an 8-piece band featuring some of the most talented musicians of New York City,

Wednesday, July 20th. 6:00 PM

Go To Marcus Garvey Park to See: Twelfth Night!

For an amazing, world-class theatrical (and dance and musical…) experience, you’ve got to make sure to check out the Classical Theater of Harlem’s Twelfth Night.

The staging is incredible, and its Afro-Futurist aesthetic is spell-binding.

Performances end on July 29th.

BIG TRUCKS (on Randall’s Island)

Join RIPA for Big Truck Day this Saturday, July 16 from 12 – 3 PM and get an up-close look at the incredible vehicles that you see every day all over New York City! Trucks of all sizes will be on site including: a TBTA tunnel brush truck, FDNY fire trucks and ambulance, a DSNY garbage truck, a NYPD bomb defusal truck with the robot, and more! You might even get a chance to sit behind the wheel of a fire truck! This is a free event.

There will also be a free tour of the New York City Fire Department Training Academy at Randall’s Island Park at 1 PM! Registration is required.

Location: Lot A by Icahn Stadium

Metro-North Bridge Over The Harlem River

Posted on by Harlem Shill

For an olde timey image of crossing from Harlem to The Bronx in 1870, this image from the Museum of the City of New York, can’t be beat. And, remember, at the time, that bridge, and especially that train, were state of the art – precisely why the photo was taken.

Performance at Harlem Rose Garden: Bird Language

Wednesday, June 29 for the following event at 6 PM.

Simona Smirnova is a Lithuanian-born jazz vocalist, composer and folk zither – kanklės player based in New York City. By press described as “Eastern European-tinged jazz/exotica”, she is a fixture in the New York live scene when she’s not touring the world, including Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

Smirnova’s genre-bending style has a unique theatrical flavor and uncanny vocal improvisation techniques. She deftly implements folkloric chants and Lithuanian zither – kanklės into foundations of jazz and rock. Smirnova’s new album “Bird Language” — channels groundbreaking artists like Björk and Joanna Newsom while exploring the ways that humans are connected to nature. “Bird Language” album is dedicated to the awareness of climate change.

The Harlem Rose Garden is on East 129th Street, just east of 5th Avenue.

Harlem Rents Near Subways

Posted on by Harlem Shill

Renthop has an analysis of rent price increases for apartments close to subways. Looking at the 2/3 Lenox/125 station, the nearby rent increased by 18.4%:

The 4/5/6 transit area increased by 17.8%:

But the largest increase was near the A/B/C/D 125th Street station. Rents there increased by 20.3%:

If you’re wondering, the Harlem rents near subways above 125th Street all seemed to hover around 10% increase. So proximity to 125th Street increased rents by nearly twice as much as Sugar Hill, Hamilton Heights, and (interestingly, given the juggernaut of Columbia elbowing its way into Manhattanville) stops on the 1 line.

To see the full map, and look at other parts of New York, see

https://www.renthop.com/studies/nyc/nyc-mta-subway-rent-map

Harlem Authors Talk

The Harlem Rose Garden at 6 E. 129th St. is hosting a literary event on Saturday, June 11, 2022, at 1 p.m.

Price is a Bronx native, Harlem resident, author of The Wanderers, Clockers, Freedomland, Lush Life and The Whites; writer for HBO series The Wire, The Night Of, The Deuce and The Outsider.

Adams’ novels have been praised in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Guardian and the Times of London. A former Washington Post writer, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a series on police brutality.

Support NYC Parks

Please see below that New Yorkers for Parks is advocating to send to our  email to the Council Members on the Budget and Negotiating Team (BNT). These are the officials who represent your interests directly during budget negotiations with the Adams Administration  to advocate for getting the 1% city budget to be dedicated to parks.

PLease share with others as well.  Parks are essential

Here are the email addresses

[email protected]

CC: [email protected]

BCC: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]  

And here’s the letter to make it easy: Also feel free to add a personal note for more impact

Dear Council Member:

I’m writing to you on behalf of Play Fair, a coalition co-founded by New Yorkers for Parks. We are a parks and open space coalition of more than 400 advocacy organizations dedicated to building a better-funded, more equitable and resilient parks system in New York City.

Throughout this budget session, we fought alongside Parks Committee Chair Shekar Krishnan to demand an increase of NYC Parks funding to 1% of the city’s budget, something both Mayor Adams and Council Speaker Adams have committed to. This funding is needed for critical maintenance and operations, and to realize a comprehensive policy approach ensuring all New Yorkers have access to safe, equitable, and vibrant parks and open spaces.

There is momentum to make this happen in 2022. We urge the BNT to implement these transformative funding priorities:

Increase parks funding to 1 percent of the city’s budget: Every world-class park system in the US receives at least 1-2 percent of annual city funding. New York has underinvested in parks for over 50 years, allocating only about 0.5 percent for parks, despite parks and natural areas covering 14% of our city and more than 30,000 acres.

Save critical parks maintenance workers: NYC Parks will suffer a net loss of 1800 Cleaning Corps workers, leaving a gap in the workforce which will disproportionately impact communities of color. Last July, the Bronx had 1,047 maintenance workers. The Executive Budget proposes 822; a loss of 255 maintenance workers. The city must invest in funding these essential positions.

Protect the Play Fair positions at NYC Parks: Last year, we fought for Council-funded positions to accommodate increased park usage during the pandemic. With Covid cases and temperatures rising, New Yorkers are again relying on these spaces for mental and physical health. The Play Fair positions are vital for enforcement, maintenance, and operations.

Additionally, ensuring continued funding for the Parks Equity Initiative is critical to supporting community programs. These are critical investments that the City Council needs to remain committed to.

(I spend every day in my park, walking my dog and not only volunteering with our Park non-profit but also with our dog run.  There is not enough staff to keep the park clean let alone take care of needed repairs. That is why I’m writing.)

suzan marciona, RLA, MLA, ISA, GRPverdantvis |design • inspire • manage | 

Concert – Harlem Rose Garden – June 4th at 4:00 PM

On Saturday, June 4th at 4:00 PM, come to hear a garden concert in the Harlem Rose Garden (East 129th Street, just east of 5th) with the Dorothy Maynor Singers:

All welcome.