Our class tour of West Harlem covered ground that I thought I was very familiar with. I live only a few minutes from many of the places we were and travel to 125th street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard regularly, but I was surprised by how many historical sites there are in the neighborhood. I knew about the Apollo Theater but that was it. I didn’t even know about the library where we stated our tour even though I drive past it every day from practice; I had always thought it was an extension of the hospital.

An upsetting fact that I learned on the tour was how many of the historical sites we visited were in ruin or already demolished. Specifically, the decrepit site of the New York Renaissance Basketball team surprised me. After hearing about its history, I thought that there would have been more support to preserve it. Unfortunately, this theme of disappearing landmarks became a theme on the tour. The Tree of Hope, and the Lafayette Theater that the tree was located outside of, are both now gone. Only a few pieces of the tree have been preserved and construction has already begun on the site of the Lafayette Theater. The new metal Tree of Hope placed on the ground where the original tree stood is a nice sentiment, but it lacks prominence of a real tree. Ironically, what appears to have lasted the best are the townhouses that failed to sell when they were originally built.