Touring Harlem

Little by little, I have been trying to acquaint myself with the diverse, and often overlooked, culture and history of Harlem. It began with an oily introduction of fried chicken on waffles at Sylvia’s Restaurant on Lenox Ave—whether this really qualifies as the beloved “soul food” of African-American culture I really don’t know—and has continued in our recent tour of Harlem’s historical sites.

Whenever someone from my town asks where I go to school I can almost always anticipate their reaction to my reply, Harlem? Really? It’s undeniable that there’s an inherent assumption amongst certain “Westchesterites” that any thing beyond 125^th street is a danger zone. Sure, I wouldn’t recommend hanging about in St. Nicholas Park after midnight, but I feel there’s so much of the city people are missing out on by skipping Harlem. And after our walking tour on Friday this has become far more apparent. As our guide talked us through several blocks of Harlem, she discussed the Lafayette Theatre, the Tree of Hope, the still-thriving Apollo Theatre, and the various nightclubs and theatres that turned the area into a cultural hub throughout the early 1900s (Harlem Renaissance!) and fed my appreciation for the borough’s history.

Yet perhaps what’s even more unfortunate than the general lack of appreciation for Harlem’s history, is the city’s failure to protect the buildings that comprise its cultural antiquity. When we arrived at the former site of the Lafayette Theatre, I was sad to see it had been replaced with rising condominiums, buildings that the city would profit from at the detriment of destroying an important historical site. The Lafayette Theatre (pictured below) was the first New York theatre to desegregate, and later welcomed an all African-American cast. I fear it’s not an exaggeration to say that the city has begun to financially displace its own culture—a poignant example being the destruction of Five Points in Queens just last year, giving higher priority to luxury apartments over historical sites that could be restored with worthwhile investment.

All in all I really enjoyed our informative tour through Harlem, despite my dismay at the obvious neglect of so many of the buildings we visited—prior to this tour I doubt I would have recognized their historical significance! I truly hope that the gentrification of the borough in the near future doesn’t mean the annihilation of what remains of its former glory.