Harlem Streets

I arrived at the Schomburg Center, a library dedicated to Afro-American texts to meet Alicia Butler, who would be our tour guide for the day.  The weather was pretty gray and rainy, which did nothing to add to my excitement of the experience.

It was interesting that I remembered this tour to be marketed as a food tour, yet we started at a library.  This center, however, is a very iconic part of Harlem.  At the same time, the Harlem Renaissance, arguably the period that frames Harlem as a cultural enclave, was not so much about academic records but on dance, dynamic literature and neighborhood vibes.

The tour was quite long for such a rainy day, and we covered many blocks in around two hours.  We went to many historical sites, including the Abyssinian Baptist Church.  This church was formed in protest of segregation over two hundred years ago.  It seems like many structures in Harlem (at least on this tour) were created in reaction to discriminatory exclusion from the state or other organized groups/institutions.

I did not have any soul food at Sylvia’s Soul Food Restaurant because the prices were above my preferred range of food.  I was actually pretty surprised because the raw cost of frying a chicken and putting it on a waffle (in my opinion) is much lower than what it was priced to be.  Thinking back to the mindset I had about expensive soul food reminds me of a certain bias in food pricing and expectations.  Italian food, which is just as cheap to produce, can cost a lot of money.  Some might argue that it is because of the care and expertise put into arranging and preparing the food, but then why did I think twice about eating fried chicken for ten bucks?

I had always thought Apollo Theater was a movie theater, but it is actually a stage space, existing for over a hundred years. They even have “Amateur Night,” to engage their community.  The idea that so many of these Harlem landmarks had been around for hundreds of years complicates the idea of gentrification.  When we walk down to 120th ST, where there are new houses and expensive neighborhoods, we should really think about who these new structures will benefit the most.  How “worth it” is to preserve all of these buildings with history and value for the current community?