In a 1948 subway and bus route guide to New York City, Harlem’s boundaries are given as:
Between 110th and 155th Sts., around Park and Lenox Aves.
However you define Harlem, this piece from Curbed is a great dive into the invariably shifting boundaries of this northern Manhattan community:
https://ny.curbed.com/2015/8/20/9933196/tracing-350-years-of-harlems-ever-shifting-boundaries
Above is an approximate mapping of racial/ethnic groups in Harlem in 1923 according to the Curbed article.
Former Pathmark Site Plans
The former Pathmark site is now planned to be a 415,000-square-foot project with 543 apartments
Gary Barnett’s Extell Development has other plans for an East Harlem site at 180 East 125th Street. Instead of moving ahead on an office project in a troubled commercial office environment, his firm is pivoting to a project that will add 543 apartments to the neighborhood instead.
The 15-story building will span 415,000 square feet, pending the approval of a zoning bonus for locating a grocery store at the building as part of the city’s FRESH foods program. The building would also include 24,500 square feet of commercial space. The building would also include 24,500 square feet of commercial space.
Extell acquired the 42,500-square-foot parcel in 2014, spending $39 million on the land and $21 million to buy out the lease of a supermarket, an act which drew community opposition.
Foundation work on the residential project is estimated to begin in March, with a completion date of April 2025, according to the developer’s zoning application, which indicates 30 percent of apartments would be affordable under the 421a tax abatement.
Extell bought the west side of the block — a 36,000-square-foot parcel that belonged to the Postal Service — in 2014 for $10 million
The residential project would leave the western parcel untouched and Extell would develop the site “in coordination with the MTA” after it acquires the fee title to build a Second Avenue Subway terminal at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue, according to the zoning application.
Extell and the Durst Organization have spent hundreds of millions buying up land near the future terminus of the Q line train.
City Council member Diana Ayala declined to comment on the project. The Department of City Planning has referred Extell’s zoning request to the local community board, which has until March 22 to review the application.