Professor Prabal De, CCNY 2014
Neighborhood Visits
Harlem Tour
010 years
While the tour we took last Friday was extremely informative, it was almost as equally disheartening. Many of the stops we made on the tour of what should have been historic landmarks were no longer the buildings and the places they once were, save for the Apollo theater. We were met with run down buildings, chain restaurants, and hair salons.
The Tree of Hope was one site of particular interest for me. After we visited it during the tour, I couldn’t help but wonder why the tree had been cut, and twice, no less. I researched a bit and found that the first Tree of Hope had been cut down to be used as firewood and material for souvenirs, which was somewhat appalling, although I suppose there may have a been a lack of resources in that time period. The reason why the second tree was also cut down is unclear. Again, it’s saddening to see some of the culturally significant objects being made to seem like they were of no real significance.
Despite my disappointment at the lack of preservation of the historical sites in Harlem, it was, at the very least, interesting and somewhat astonishing to see how much these places and the culture in Harlem have changed within the past one hundred years. It also makes me wonder what these places will look like after another hundred years, and if tours like the one we took will still be going to these same places in the future.
Harlem Tour
010 years
by Lisa Wong
in Neighborhood Visits
Last Friday, I was far from excited about going on a tour around Harlem that did not involve food. Although the tour was certainly not delicious, it was filling in other ways. When I got off at the 135th street station for the 3 train, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Harlem was not such a “shady” neighborhood. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture that the tour began at looked to be in pretty good shape and so did the other buildings in the area.
Our extremely enthusiastic tour guide gave us an in-depth look at the history of Harlem. In particular, I remember the site of what used to be the Lafayette Theater. It opened in November 1912 and was one of Harlemn’s best known buildings. However, it is sadly soon to be the site of rental apartments.This reminded me of Spike Lee’s rant against gentrification in New York City. I generally like the idea of new and pristine buildings, but is it really worth it if these signs of wealth are knocking down our history?
The pricey townhouses with the roads in between them were definitely objects of envy. This tour helped me rediscover my appreciation for beautiful architecture. The previously dreary look of the Gothic architecture of City College actually looked quite beautiful in light of the history behind it (and the sun). The Manhattan schist that is seen on the streets of the city is the same schist that builds up our buildings.
Undoubtably, Harlem is a neighborhood that is filled with culture, but I also came across many pleasant sights that one can appreciate on a light stroll.
Tour of Harlem
010 years
After our tour on Friday, I realized that Harlem had much more history than I had ever imagined. As a person who has absolutely no connection to New York City, I always had the impression that going to Harlem would almost guarantee harm. However, the tour really opened my eyes. There were many places that I had overlooked even though school is just a few blocks away. Initially, I thought that the touring would be boring since it was around school, and that couldn’t be interesting.
The townhouses were probably my favorite part of the tour. I loved the picture of the African- American couple in fur coats and driving a Cadillac. In a time when racism was extreme, they had proven their worth and become success. Living a life of luxury was no easy feat for them, yet they were living the dream.
I’ll never look at Harlem the same. However much I do prefer home to here, the tour was enjoyable and I learned a lot. Perhaps, I’ll go around and tour places myself.
Touring Harlem
010 years
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 125th 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.
Harlem tour
010 years
I haven’t really explored the area around City College too well, so the tour took me to both familiar places and ones I hadn’t been to. One of the more interesting landmarks to me was the replacement Tree of Hope. I like that people create their own kind of mythology: that rubbing a certain tree before a performance would help them get a job.There was neither evidence nor basis for this belief, but people were so invested in it that after the removal of the tree, they tried to preserve it by replacing it and relocating an original branch to the Apollo theatre. This sort of behavior seems unique because other areas shaped by a large influx of (im)migrants lack this kind of innovation. I haven’t seen evidence of other ‘popup’ migrant culture.
It struck me as odd that there were expensive townhouses and ruined buildings in such proximity to each other. The townhouses were well-maintained and still inhabited. Like Max pointed out, a lot of the historical sites were in various states of decay. This suggests a kind of disconnect between the people and their community, or at least their surroundings.
From Nightlife to Popeyes
010 years
What was Harlem to me? Before college, it was a neighborhood in which I thought I’d surely get robbed or kidnapped if I were to ever step foot in it. As I started attending CCNY, it became that dreaded place I had to commute to every day with the gothic buildings that were just as shabby on the inside as they were beautiful on the outside. That place that had nothing exciting around it whatsoever, just some fast food chains I wouldn’t eat at and random businesses that were of no interest to me. That place with the really shady park people were known to get assaulted at. Having the Hudson River nearby and easy access to the subway made it better, but even then Harlem was only that place and nothing more to me. I’d hear about 125th street here and there and how it was a good place to hang out, but honestly I thought my fellow colleagues were just glorifying the area because there was nothing better in Harlem. However, what I didn’t know until our tour of Harlem was that I was too quick to judge the neighborhood based on the few blocks I’ve seen that didn’t do it justice.
The truth about Harlem is that it’s a neighborhood rooted with rich culture and fascinating history. As our bubbly tour guide took us through it’s streets and retraced the footsteps of some of the most influential artists during the Harlem Renaissance, I couldn’t help but reevaluate my perspective. At one point, we were standing in front of a building that was once the show ground of the country’s best basketball team: The Harlem Globetrotters. As Alicia detailed their background, I stared up at the boarded windows and couldn’t help but feel disheartened. I realized I was not only witnessing a major culture-based neighborhood, but that I was also witnessing the culture’s slow death. As the tour went on, we continued to stop at landmarks that were closed up and ready to be demolished or have already been. Another example is an area that was once the center for nightlife in Harlem that had been replaced by beauty salons, shops, and a Popeyes. As if America needed more deep-fried shrimp and chicken. The gentrification of Harlem is great in the sense that it led to a major decrease in crime rate. However, when will NYC realize that it is one of the most culturally enhanced cities in the country but that it’s starting to lose the culture to the greed of wealth and status? Perhaps never.
The tour of Harlem opened my eyes to a culture I never knew existed beyond the boundaries of my campus. From the artists during the Harlem Renaissance to the musicians making their debut in the Apollo Theater, the neighborhood has been a harbor for a variety of the arts and the integration of the African American experience.
Harlem Streets
010 years
by alinashen
in Neighborhood Visits
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?
Visiting Harlem
010 years
Last Friday’s visit through the streets of Harlem was quite enjoyable. As a student that goes to college in the city, especially a college that is situated right in Harlem, I didn’t expect to learn or see much during the tour. After all, we would only be walking through the ordinary streets of everyday Harlem. Of course, the tour guide surprised me with lots of information about the history of the neighborhood and how Harlem really flourished as a cultural center for African Americans. She talked about the Harlem Renaissance, the struggle between white landowners and incoming African Americans that wanted to live there, historical figures, people, and landmarks, among other things. Of course, I didn’t find the history too interesting and much rather preferred the actual sight-seeing as the tour guide pointed out things of interest.
One important landmark that I was fascinated by was the Tree of Hope. Today, it stands as an abstract piece of work in the middle of the road, on a narrow pathway. Back then, it was a busy spot for artists looking for “hope” to get a job in the industry, and it apparently worked, since people looking to hire artists and actors would come to this very spot to recruit hidden and fresh talent. Unfortunately, the original tree of hope was demolished, and the one standing today is the third rendition, since the previous two had been demolished by the city. This of course brings me to the next point about how the city plans of demolishing historical points of significance is a bad idea, especially for the culture of New York. The Harlem 5 basketball stadium nearby is also set to be demolished soon, and the area directly across from the Tree of Hope that is now being turned into some sort of condominium used to be some sort of performance hall. We should be working to preserve and showcase our hyper-diversified culture, but contemporary plans seem to be doing just the opposite.
The system won
010 years
I was not excited about going on the two-hour tour around Harlem because by Friday I always too exhausted to do anything productive. However, I tried to be positive about it.
In overall the tour-guide was amazing. She was passionate, interesting and funny. I was very surprised to see white young woman as a guide. I don’t know why but in my head I had a picture of an old guy who was suppose to tell us something. Unfortunately, no matter how good tour-guide was I did not find topic very interesting. Yes, her narrative was very interesting but when she spoke about condominiums or small houses that are built all over the place I was looking at those building and was furious about idiotic use of space. When we walked around I did not see a single space where kids or elderly people can play or walk during their free time or where they can spend hot summer days. I was looking at the neighborhood and saw that it was not build for the people who have free time. It was a neighborhood for adults who work all the time and only go home to sleep. This problem exists not only in the Harlem but also in all New York City. This city is built for people who work all day. There is no place for children or elderly people.
So when I saw those three-four store building I remembered how my teacher in American high school explained it to me in oversimplified manner: to build an elevator in the building is too expansive, and idea to live in separate house is the American dream. So when we walked around the neighborhood I thought that this so called American dream does not allow people to see rational way of living. It forced people to surrender their freethinking for elusive dream that controls them. It reminds me the comparison that Hugo did in “The Man Who Laughs.” He compared people with a donkey and government with a rider. So one-day donkey will get tired from being controlled and it will become a furious lion that will eat its rider. However, then the lion will again become a donkey and a new rider will control it. American people once were a glorious lion but now they turned into a donkey again.
Conclusion that I made from the tour is that the system won and I can’t see a way to change it. The system won.
Interesting Inwood
010 years
The most interesting I found about Inwood is how much of Manhattan it does NOT represent.
When you think of Manhattan, you think of skyscrapers. You think of business men in expensive suits traveling into the financial center of the United States. You think of thousands of tourists hustling and bustling their way through Times Square. You think of thousands of cars, if not the dozens of train lines that encompass the world under Manhattan. You think of the capital of the world.
The closest you may come to thinking about nature is Central Park. Yet, not many people think of Inwood. I have lived in New York my entire life and not even heard of this northern tip of Manhattan. That is why visiting this neighborhood was such a fulfilling and engaging experience.
The first thing I noticed was how ‘natural’ the community was. Being right next to the Hudson River, and encompassing so much forestry such as Ft. Tyron Park, Inwood Hill really gives off the vibe of being one with nature. Of course, my thoughts might be biased because our class strolled by the Cloisters in Ft. Tyron Park, but it should be noted that there are other parks in the neighborhood, such as the much bigger Inwood Hill Park. All in all, Inwood presents itself as green, which you really wouldn’t find in most other parts of Manhattan.
As for the Cloisters, I felt like the museum fit perfectly into the neighborhood. From what I understand, the Cloisters offers art and artifacts from the Medieval era of Western civilization, and it fits quite well with the antiquity that Inwood presents.
Speaking more on this ‘antiquity’, Inwood really does not seem to represent so much change as the rest of Manhattan does. Rather, it seems to represent the preservation of how Manhattan looked in the olden days. These ‘olden days’ could mean just a few decades ago, as some pubs that made their names in the 20th century are still functioning today. Or, antiquity could date back to as far as the 18th century, as farmhouses like the Dychman Farmhouse is still standing today.
What amazes me the most is how such a glance into Manhattan’s, and New York’s, past is so close by. Just a few extra stops on the A train seems to take someone through a time machine into the past. Really, Inwood should be commended for preserving history, as other neighborhoods of New York fail to do so.
