Professor Prabal De, CCNY 2014
Posts tagged harlem
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.
What Once Was
010 years
It has been absolutely thrilling for me to see Harlem from a new perspective; one that I had been oblivious to for quite some time. I have been seemingly unaware of my Harlem surroundings due to my preoccupation with school. I was then given the opportunity to remove myself from the stresses of school and just walk around in the surrounding area, and given the ability to observe the beauty and history of Harlem. I feel somewhat blessed to attend school in an area bound by such a rich culture. One of the most disturbing observations that I made was the fact that the city is not preserving the historic monuments of Harlem. As the city paves the way for the future, they are not hesitant in tearing down the structures representing the past, which is ironic because it is the richness of Harlem’s past which has made the future of the area possible. A very interesting fact that I learned during the walking tour was that there was initially an immense amounts of discrimination exercised in the foundation of Harlem. When Harlem was first established it would not allow minorities, specifically African-Americans, from moving into the neighborhood. Eventually, the landlords allowed minorities to move in, but they had to be affluent in order to do so, which for many was a very steep requirement. This is so ironical now, due to the fact that Harlem is now predominately inhabited by minorities. With the current gentrification of Harlem, the ethnic diversity is changing, and the story of Harlem is once again coming full circle. It may occur again that Harlem is an area in which only the very affluent can live. Harlem should be gentrified in a way in which there exists a balance between preserving the past while making room for the future, as well as affording an equality in who could afford to live in the area.
Here we see the Harlem 5 Basketball Stadium in ruins, and soon to be demolished, despite the fact that it was an integral part of the community and the foundation of Harlem.
Here we see remnants of the original buildings of Harlem, still beautifully preserved.
Here we see what once was immense, beautiful and the embodiment of Harlem is now being demolished for the future. However, is this the future that we want, one that is ignorant and not respectful to the past?
Touring Harlem
010 years
It’s pretty amazing how little I knew about the rich history of Harlem, especially since I’ve spent months living here. I enjoyed the entire tour, but two moments stood out most to me.
The first was when our group stood before a seemingly uninteresting Popeye’s. This Popeye’s used to be the Big Apple Nightclub — the place to party roughly fifty years ago. I could just imagine the fabulously dressed people walking in and out of an old-timey club. It’s pretty crazy how quickly neighborhoods change and evolve. Plus, I’m sure a tour group standing in front of a Popeye’s was a bizarre sight for any pedestrians walking past.
The second moment was when we visited Strivers’ Row, or two blocks of gorgeous Brownstones. I thought it was unbelievable that when they were first put on the market, in the early 20th century, out of 140 homes that were built less than twenty sold. However, even then these homes were for the wealthier New Yorkers, hence the name Strivers’ Row. It seemed out of place in the relatively lower-middle class neighborhood. And as my fellow classmate said, quite dreamily, “Imagine if these were CCNY’s frat houses.”
Bird Poop and Harlem
010 years
Sometime yesterday. Probably around 9 am.
Who is this extremely happy tour guide? Is she actually… passionate about this? Oh my goodness, she actually loves what she’s doing. This is weird. I was expecting a malnourished Dominican man with a patchy beard in an over-worn, stained sweatshirt to lead me around for two hours telling me about the significance of the buildings I would never have noticed and the road signs that I would never have read and the change in the landscape I would never have thought of. But instead we have been thrown into a page of a Wes Anderson movie script. What are those shoes and coat doing on the same body anyway? I was digressing. I tried to pay attention to her but the bustling Friday morning crowd on 135th and Lenox held too many distractions.
Suddenly I felt something on my shoulder. Did something just? HOLY. The audacity of pigeons these days.
An unimaginably brainless, probably blank faced, insolent, unmannered, uncivilized, uneducated pigeon had hit its target dead OFF. My shoulder was decorated with a line of green and white poop, lying there in all its glory, boasting its feats of accuracy. I saw wings flapping away and I wished for a bow and arrow and accuracy that beat the one the bird’s butt had just practiced. But I didn’t have a bow, or a quiver of arrows. I had my drawstring bag and a lonely dollar that was now going to be spent on a self-consolatory doughnut and the extra wet napkins that the street vendor was kind enough to give me. But the stain disgraced my shoulder until I saw a desolate Popeye’s (an unusual sight for the place) and as I rushed in and encountered an Indian accent behind the counter, I ushered myself into the bathroom to change while the class stared at my supposed insolence in abandoning the tour in order to get fried chicken. As if I would have betrayed the doughnut I had eaten earlier and introduce it to the company of fried chicken, what a preposterous notion.
The tour was fascinating in some ways, especially when I realized there were million dollar properties right behind the hellhole I thought I resided in. That this place used to be the Czech republic of the early and mid twentieth century, just my luck to develop the ability to even think by the time it had ended. The thought of visiting the Harlem YMCA as I came to New York for the first time in my wool trousers and blazer with a crisp cotton shirt, lugging baggage out of the subway on 135th and Lenox was a page out of a novel written in the back of my mind. The two-story penthouse at the top of the Theresa hotel left a myriad of stories to be concocted and the dinners to be had with world dignitaries left me in a delirium as we crossed the street to the Apollo theatre where the crowd was giving standing ovations to the Jackson five as I bustled my way through the crowd.
But all of this was only a figment of my imagination. Harlem had passed its heyday and it was now a cog in the capitalist machine of advertisements and cheap stores that yelled and screeched their sales pitches through the avenues and streets of Harlem. The ongoing and obvious gentrification of the place was a sign of ‘better’ things to come but better for who, we would only know in the aftermath. It was a chapter in the life of this ever breathing, living city that millions commuted to and resided in. But only a handful had any idea of what was happening as their walked in their bubbles to their office buildings and walked right back to their homes and television shows to keep their minds entertained in short bursts and spurts like a car in disrepair.
Suddenly I turned around to see the tour guide had vanished. Who was she, did anyone catch her name? And on that note of suspicion, my tour of Harlem had come to an abrupt end.
