This map shows land owned by Samson Adolphus Benson, which extends north of Harlem creek, and south of Kingsbridge Road (all of the detailed blocks on the map are part of this Benson portfolio.
In addition to showing the land that Benson owned and was now selling, the map also shows us 3 Dutch colonial-era roads that are no longer in existence (wiped out by the commissioner’s grid of streets and avenues that we all experience today).
Harlem Lane:
Kingsbridge Road:
and Manhattan Road:
And, of course, Harlem Creek is now long buried and built over:
Lastly, the map indicates what may be build on given lots, and where sales of the properties were conducted:
56 years ago today, Mayor John Lindsay vowed to revitalize Mount Morris Park (soon to be renamed Marcus Garvey Park) . The west side of the park looked like this (image looking northbound towards the corner of Mount Morris West and West 124th Street):
Mayor Lindsay vowed to revitalize and announced the project with a billboard:
The result was the amphitheater and the pool. Perhaps most dramatically was Mayor Lindsay arriving at the park by helicopter, and landing on the acropolis:
Some great CONFIRMED news coming up for all of us at Marcus Garvey Park & there is more good stuff brewing.
FUNDING FOR INFRASTRUCTURE
1. $12 million designated by Mayor Adams for stone repair and rat abatement / awaiting information on timeline as this was recently announced.
2. $1.7 million allocated by City Council Member Kristin Richardson Jordan for “Green 2 Greener Initiative”/ sustainable energy solutions (we are working with her office & capital & planning offices at Parks now to finalize this plan)
3. $1.6 million committed by State Sen. Cordell Cleare for NW small playground / awaiting information on timeline as state funding moves more slowly than city funding
4. State of Good Repair Grant for repaving of the entire NW and SW sections of the park which will add new curbing, paver stones and (5) ADA entrances and fix the drainage issues inside the 123rd & MMPW entrance where the “lake” forms (expected to begin in early November 2023)
NEW HARLEM HORT HQ
— $50,000+ pledged by New York Junior League to finish needed work and open this to the public in June 2023
You may have noticed (2) greenhouses set up at the east end of the pool. Mike, Erick & I have been building out our plan to create a horticultural headquarters (HQ) that will do the following:
1. enable us to cultivate our own plants for Marcus Garvey & for the other (3) historic Harlem parks
2. enable us to offer free public horticulture programming (workshops, demonstrations, author talks, arts horticulture events, etc) by our Parks horticulture experts and with interested partners including GreenThumb, Partnerships for Parks, Harlem Grown, City Gardens Club, Horticultural Society & others
3. offer a meetup spot for the uptown gardening/hort community such as GreenThumb gardeners who have never had a central meet up site
4. create a hort volunteering meet up place where schedules can be posted, signup and pickup of tools, gloves, etc, can happen
5. offer a beautiful positive space for the community that can be used for events, meditation, etc.
$1.3 MILLION GRANT FROM MELLON FOUNDATION TO HARLEM GROWN
Harlem Grown submitted a grant to Mellon Foundation to provide support to Marcus Garvey as a cultural heritage site. This grant will provide the following:
1. support / fund new & existing community programming
2. support more public art in the park
3. support the mobile Harlem Grown teaching food kitchen in the park
4. support community engagement for the park
NEW COMMUNITY ROOM BY BALLFIELD TO BE AVAILABLE TO COMMUNITY PARTNERS / HARLEM LITTLE LEAGUE
The new comfort station between the ballfield and amphitheater has a community room inside of it that I can begin scheduling now for use by community partners such as Marcus Garvey Park Alliance, MMPCIA, Harlem Little League and others. Please contact me if your group wants to schedule time in the room for a meeting, community engagement forum, a membership recruitment event, etc. We are very excited to officially open this room with our great park partner — Harlem Little League in April as they kick off another season !
NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES
State NY Parks office has taken the lead working with me and our 2 parks groups to submit nomination paperwork for Marcus Garvey Park to be named to the National Register of Historic Places. We have moved forward to the next nomination round. If selected, this would provide more opportunities for needed funding such as for the acropolis.
ON POINT PARTNERSHIP REDUCES NEEDLES & MORE IN THE PARK
Our partnership with On Point, a drug treatment center on E. 126th, has helped us reduce the following:
1. # of needles in the park
2. the # of drug-addicted people choosing the park to inject/use
3. the # of people our PEP unit (Parks Enforcement Patrol) saves the lives of via NARCAN, which enables PEP to focus on its primary job of public safety
HARLEM EAT UP COMING TO THE PARK IN SEPTEMBER / OTHER KEY PROGRAMMING
I have been working with Harlem Eat Up to move their great food event from Morningside Park to Marcus Garvey Park, which is confirmed. Red Rooster’s own local & global celebrity Marcus Samuelsson created this local focus on great Harlem restaurants. The official event will take place September 9-10. We are finalizing logisitics and working with our Parks special events team. I will keep you informed on this great news.
Other key programming of our April – November schedule includes events being planned / confirmed per below:
MARCH – Bethel Gospel Social Justice & Community Volunteer Event
APRIL – Earth Day Community Volunteer Event
MAY – Mother’s Day Gardening Day
JUNE – Harlem HQ Opening Weekend and later in the month the 3rd Annual Juneteenth Festival
JULY – Classical Theatre of Harlem with annual free Shakespeare in the park & Jazzmobile Fridays
AUGUST – Jazzmobile Fridays continue & Charlie Parker Jazz Festival
SEPTEMBER – 3rd Annual Opening Night of MET Opera
OCTOBER – 2nd Annual Halloween Fright Night
TRAIL BOARDS FOR THE PARK
I have submitted for budgeting approval for (2-3) trail boards — bulletin boards – to be installed in the park to share news from Parks / city agencies and our (2) park groups, Marcus Garvey Park Alliance & MMPCIA with the public.
VOLUNTEERS
Please consider volunteering for the park as we always need interested people from the park community, partner park groups, schools, churches, etc, to help our small staff with the following:
Gothamist and WNYC are reporting on the quiet closing of a disfunctional, dangerous, and troubled shelter on Wards Island.
The shelter which took up a few floors of the NYS psychiatric center (pictured above) was part of former Governor Cuomo’s family legacy – with his sister taking the helm most recently.
Tweet Regarding The 25th Precinct Community Council Meeting Gets Thousands of Views
100+ Harlem residents came out last night to precinct 25 to demand more police presence. We urge officials to set aside personal ideologies & listen to what residents want-safer streets for our children. We want to end mass incarceration but we can’t put the cart before the horse pic.twitter.com/5TzXbhJdjh
— Harlem East Block Association (@harlemeastblock) February 17, 2023
The oldest map that shows habitation in Harlem is the Manatus Map from 1639.
You can see Staten Island, Hell Gate, the Hudson river, etc. It’s unclear who the cartographer was, and the original drawing is lost. As a result, the image above is one of two later 17th-century copies made in the same studio with slight differences.
When zoomed in, note what Harlem ‘looked like’ in the mid 17th century (see the houses marked 18 and 19 as being around 2nd Avenue and 103rd street:
Recently, in Boston, I spotted a Haarlem town hall painting from the Museum of Fine Arts, which depicted Haarlem at almost the exact same time (1630), across the Atlantic:
The work is by Pieter Saenredam and commemorates the entry of the Prince of Orange into Haarlem. Pieter Post painted the figures while Pieter Saenredam painted the townscape.
Free Generational Workshop from the Blacklining Foundation. Learn more about creating generational wealthLife Insurance, Estate Planning, Wills, Trusts, and more!
Perhaps it’s not technically a glacier, and it was spotted earlier, during that cold snap, but the sight of the park weeping water and freezing into an ice waterfall is fascinating.
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.
Natu Camara brings her energetic and very unique blend of West African rock and soul to Marcus Garvey Park on October 16, 3-7pm.
Her blend of rock, soul, and singer-songwriter tunes are infused with rhythms from Guinea, Mali and West Africa more generally. The stories she tells are personal ones that invite listeners into her experiences. The result is Natu builds a unique bond with her audience and transports them into her world. Commentary includes the struggles of personal loss, and the challenge of finding herself alone in a strange city.
Natu Camara will perform several songs from her upcoming album, the most notable transporting listeners back to her youth while spending time with her grandmother in her village. Palatable in the new songs is the sense of longing, distance, and time from this world traveler.
Marcus Garvey’s 135th birthday anniversary will be celebrated today, in Harlem. New York State Senator Cordell Cleare has committed to declaring today “Marcus Garvey Day.” A tribute befitting the Harlem leader will happen at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater (inside Marcus Garvey Park) and include the premiere of “African Redemption: The Life and Legacy of Marcus Garvey.”
Billed a docudrama chronicling Garvey’s journey from lowly immigrant to global personality is detailed, and will be accompanied by a sunset a cultural presentation featuring drumming and a plethora of Pan-African tributes to Marcus Garvey.
Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association caught the imagination of thousands of Harlem residents with his promise of liberation.
Starting Thursday, an amazing line-up of events is happing at Marcus Garvey Park:
Thursday, Aug. 18 7 p.m.: The Last Poets / Impact Repertory Theatre & The Harlem Bomb Shelter / DJ Greg Caz in association with Jazzmobile
Friday, Aug. 19, 6 p.m.: OMAR Edwards | Tap Master / LaTasha Barnes Dance in association with Jazzmobile
Saturday, Aug. 20, 6 p.m.: MAROONS & SUFFRAGETTES: A GREG TATE TRIBUTE CONCERT CELEBRATING THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF BURNT SUGAR/DANZ A Tate Family program featuring Burnt Sugar/Danz, Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber, Harriet Tubman, Resistance Revival Chorus, Bardo Steppers, and DJ Reborn
Sunday, Aug. 21, 4 p.m.: Red Alert & friends feat. Case and Wil Traxx
