Terrorist Bombing in Harlem

In 1914, an otherwise non-descript tenement in East Harlem looked like this:

The location is on Lexington Ave. near 103rd Street East, and remarkably, they repaired this damage – rather than tear down the building (admittedly, the building was only 4 years old at the time – it was built in 1910):

At 9:16 a.m. on July 4, 1914, a premature dynamite explosion in an anarchist bomb factory blew the roof off a tenement at 1626 Lexington Avenue, near 103rd Street, wrecking three floors, killing four people, injuring a score of others and spewing debris for blocks.

The police identified the intended target of the homemade bomb as John D. Rockefeller. Protests were staged at their homes, offices in Manhattan and at their estate in Pocantico Hills in Westchester County, where two of the alleged bomb-makers had once wound up on trial.

The police linked the deceased bombers to the Industrial Workers of the World, specifically to Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, radicals who a few years later would be deported to Russia.

The 1914 explosion killed Charles Berg, Arthur Caron and Carl Hanson, all linked to the Rockefeller assassination plot, and Marie Chavez, who rented a room in the sixth floor apartment but was not believed to have been involved in the conspiracy.

A year later, the police found another bomb hidden in the driveway of the Tarrytown home of John D. Archbold, the president of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.

Marcus Garvey Park Tree Lighting

Pathmark

Patch’s Nick Gaber is reporting that Extell (the developer that owns the property at Lex/125 where the former Pathmark used to be), is proposing a mixed commercial and residential building for the 3rd Avenue side of the block.

The west side of the block – the Lexington Avenue side – would be used by the MTA to create a new/larger station to handle the 4/5/6 trains and the Q (2nd Avenue subway).

The new Extell building would include a supermarket below and rental units above.

Trunk or Treat, TODAY

119th And Lexington

There is a wonderful view of Lexington Avenue looking north from 119th Street on sale on Ebay:

Click HERE to see the listing.

The 8″ x 10″ glass negative has a huge amount of detail. Just look at the top image of how the sign for 119th Street wraps around the streetlight so the street name/s would be illuminated at night.

Below, you can see a horse-pulled hearse, stopped outside an undertaker’s. While the closest horse is clear, notice how the further horse’s head is a blur.

More clearly, however, is the blurring of the driver. With the long exposure times, a restless leg (swinging back and forth) would not be captured. Nor would a head that turned back and forth over the course of the exposure. The result is that the driver almost appears to be head and legless as the detail below, shows:

110 years later, the fire hydrant shown below is recognizable, but distinctly differently styled from contemporary models.

The image looking up Lexington (below) can be compared to the Google street view below it.

Harlem 1936 and Harlem Now

Join #HarlemRevisited 
A Convening about the Past and Now

Conditions in Harlem Revisited:
From the 1936 Mayor’s Commission Report to Today
The lessons of the past have much to teach us today. Join this convening if you care about a better future for Harlem and New York City.

Panelists and participants will discuss the 1936 Report on Conditions in Harlem, which was presented to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in the aftermath of civil unrest. The 1936 report was not released by City Government but was published by The New York Amsterdam News.
The convening will also present current-day concerns gathered from 62,000 New Yorkers by the NYC Speaks initiative. The day’s discussion topics will include Crime and the Police, the Economy and Employment, Hospitals, Health and the Environment, Education and Housing. Conveners will consider recommendations from the 1936 report, data from NYC Speaks and implications for the current City government.
Learn more about the conference and the 1936 Mayor’s Commission Report at harlemconditions.cityofnewyork.us.Register to attend the convening, either virtually or in person, at bit.ly/harlem-1936.
Tuesday, September 20, 2022 
9:30 AM – 6:30 PM
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Boulevard 
New York, NY 10037
#HarlemRevisited is presented by The NYC Department of Records and Information Services, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the NYU McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research and Vital City.
Conditions in Harlem Revisited:
From the 1936 Mayor’s Commission Report to Today

RSVP to Attend

The World Beneath Your Feet

311 is an amazing resource. One of the unheralded things it can address is if a manhole isn’t well seated, and makes a characteristic Clang-Clang as cars drive over it. If you live on a block plagued by this sound and want it to stop, 311 is your resource.

Utility companies and government agencies have equipment under the City’s streets. They access their equipment using square or rectangular-shaped metal covers. Companies and agencies must maintain their metal covers and the street surface around the hardware. 

You can report utility access covers that are:

  • Damaged
  • Sunken
  • Noisy

You also can report asphalt or concrete damage around the hardware. The Department of Transportation (DOT) investigates the reports and notifies the responsible agency.

Report a damaged, sunken, or noisy street utility access cover.

Seen On Lex

I noticed this manhole cover – although no person could get down this 14″ hole – on Lexington near East 128th Street:

Looking closely, you likely can see IRT – referring to the 4/5/6 line’s initial parent company, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company which went out of business (folded into a unified transit system in 1940). But PSC? That stands for the city agency that managed engineering projects (like the subways) in a part collaborative, part oversight role. The name was the Public Service Commission.

Jackie Robinson Block Party

The new Jackie Robinson Museum is about to open and is hosting a Block Party. And yes, you’re invited.

https://jackierobinson.org/museum/opening-block-party/

Cocktails (or Mocktails) on Randall’s Island

This FRIDAY, July 22, you are invited to make Cocktails on the Farm with RIPA’s very own Farmer Juan Carlos! Spend time with old friends – or meet new ones – here on the Urban Farm. 

There will be three cocktail/mocktail recipe options for you to choose from, all including ingredients picked the same day from the Farm. Enjoy cucumbers, basil, spilanthese, and more! One drink will be on the house for the first 45 attendees, and then more may be purchased. 

The event will take place from 6:30 PM to 8 PM at the Urban Farm here on the Island. Click here for details.

Our next Cocktails on the Farm event won’t be until Saturday, September 10, so be sure to come out to the Urban Farm this Friday! 

Poop and Harlem’s Hidden COVID Numbers

In September 2020, New York began to sample and test wastewater at New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) wastewater plants for COVID-19.

If you recall an earlier post on wastewater and New York – https://hnba.nyc/where-does-my-sewage-go/ – you may remember that virtually all of Harlem’s wastewater (basically anything that goes down your drain or toilet) ends up at Wards’ Island’s DEP complex. New York Open Data has made the wastewater sampling data available, so I decided to plot COVID-19 as detected in our (Harlem’s) poop.

September 2020 December 2020 December 2021 April 2022

As you likely know, wastewater sampling can only give a community average of sorts, but what it does (that swab sampling of individual New Yorkers can’t do) is integrates information on the people who never or rarely test.

The chart above is amazing and terrifying at the same time. The left-hand side is September 2020, and the right hand side is April 2022.

That crazy spike is from 12/27/2021 – after Thanksgiving 2021, around Christmas – when Omicron converged in the US. Holiday travel, family gatherings, shopping, and the shift to socializing indoors, all combined with a more contagious COVID variant.

Juneteenth Celebration on East 111st Street

(between Lex/3rd)

Subway Stress

Every day that New Yorkers and visitors ride the subway, some of them review their experience. You may have done this, or can imagine doing this – reporting on cleanliness, complaining about a late train, noticing rats, etc.

A company called FleetLogging collated Google reviews of subway stations and used a social media analysis tool called TensiStrength to rank subway lines by the number of stressors and their severity.

Below are their top 10 most stressful lines with the Lex 4/5/6 line being the 6th most stressful:

And here is the full list:

Ballot Initiatives

On November 2nd you will be able to vote for 5 proposals:

HBCU College Fair for Harlem Teens

If you have, or know of a Harlem teenager, make sure to encourage them to attend the upcoming HBCU College Fair on June 5th 2021 12-4 pm in Harlem St. Nicholas Avenue between West 122-West 123 Street! 

Imagine a World without COVID!

If you know an un vaccinated teenager, send them to Marcus Garvey Park tomorrow – Noon to 8 PM!

Press Conference and Protest Regarding Rising Crime

With the rise in both shootings in our streets and rise in crimes within our train systems community advocates and clergy have come together to demand accountability of our elected officials for their failed policies and reckless funding of ineffective programs.

Who: Community Advocate Alpheaus Marcus, Police Clergy Members Pastor Antoinette Glover, Pastor Robert Rice, and Pastor Staci Ramos along with community members who are tired of the violence and rise of homelessness within their communities?

When: Friday June 4th.

Where: At both the hotbed for homelessness and crime 125th Street and Lexington Avenue Train Station.

Time: 12:00 pm.
Cordially
Mr. Alpheaus Marcus
(718) 916-2141

Pastor Staci Ramos

Power Outages

Last month’s power outages in Texas (Thanks deregulation!) led to the exponential use of a previously obscure website that tracks (nationally) power outages. This might be a good site to bookmark, although, the obvious ‘If the power is out, how are you going to look at it?’ question applies: https://poweroutage.us/area/regions

The site shows states with outages and allows you to drill down to look at regional, state, and local level data. Here’s what I found when I checked, 4 customers in Manhattan without power, this evening.

For information about what’s happing right now, see this link: https://poweroutage.us/area/county/2248

I Want Your Vote! (But did they vote?)

City Limits has a fascinating look at who among the mayoral candidates has had a record of voting in New York City elections.

To learn more about the complexity of age, time out of the city, and more, see the full article here:

Lex/125 New Development

GothamToGo has published a report on a new potential development at the corner of Lexington and 125th Street on the south-west corner.

If this project goes forward, it would mark an incredible change for this part of the Lexington and 125th Street corridors.

Drugs and Children

I Walk on Water

Filmmaker Khalik Allah has a new film – IWOW: I Walk On Water – coming in at a massive 200 minutes.

As with earlier work, Allah returns to Lex/125 and films a hallucinatory portrait of the men and women of the M35, K2, mental illness, and homelessness:

Since 2011, filmmaker and photographer Khalik Allah (Black Mother) has attracted global attention for his radiant portraits of the denizens of 125th and Lexington in East Harlem. In IWOW: I Walk On Water, Allah returns to the intersection as the foundation to explore personal narratives of intimacy, voice, memory, identity and personal transformation. 
Allah focuses his attention on longtime muse Frenchie, a 60-something schizophrenic, homeless Haitian man. Over the summer of 2019, Allah and Frenchie’s lives became increasingly intertwined—a relationship that Allah documents with radical, spiritual transparency. In parallel, Allah also turns the camera on himself to document a turbulent romantic relationship and grapple with personal notions of spirituality and mortality – all inquiries about which he gathers advice from charismatic confidants including Fab 5 Freddy, members of the Wu-Tang Clan, and, in deeply moving exchanges, his own mother. 
By questioning universal and personal inward dynamics, IWOW obscures the boundary between conceptual art and memoir. Sometimes painful in its vulnerability, often extremely funny in its candor, and always visually extraordinary, Allah’s one-of-a-kind, intimate epic is a contemporary rethinking of the diary film: Gordon Parks meets Jonas Mekas. 

Ruth

The Smile

New images and marketing material from The Smile. Luxury at Lex/126.

The design of the building slopes inward as it rises upward, providing great views of the Harlem River and Manhattan skyline. The cantilevering footprint over 125th Street allows for a mix of apartment sizes layouts, while the facade’s interlocking checkerboard pattern gives every unit floor-to-ceiling windows.

“The homes rise above and beyond the Gotham Retail Plaza, cantilevering over to 125th street as it captures the views and sunlight from the south,” Ingels said in a statement. “The Smile is designed for the desires of Harlem’s residents of today – joining the diverse Harlem neighborhood, integrating wellness amenities and offering generous roof gardens.”

The Smile will officially launch leasing this summer, led by Brown Harris Stevens Development Marketing. According to a new teaser site, availabilities include $2,299/month studios, $2,795/month one-bedrooms, and $3,814/month two-bedrooms, with concessions of up to 3 months free rent on a 15-month lease.