“Are you crazy? Harlem?” This was once the only response to news that someone was planning a trip to uptown Manhattan. Harlem, after all, used to be the embodiment of American urban decay. But public funding and private initiative, as well as ever more unaffordable real estate downtown, have helped jump-start a Harlem renaissance — one that is, moreover, doing more than simply surviving the economic downturn.
Gentrification has been a mixed blessing for locals, less than half of whom are now African American, but a boon for tourists looking for the New York experience on a smaller scale. Harlem is still a place where strangers greet one another on the street, where families share stoops on summer evenings, where B&Bs outnumber hotels. And — for the worriers — Harlem is safer than it has been in half a century, though it’s still advisable to stay out of the parks at night, to keep an eye on your wallet in crowds and to avoid areas that don’t feel safe.
Uptown sightseeing
Change has always been Harlem’s watchword, from its start as a Dutch village to the time, at the beginning of the 20th century, when it was the mecca of the new generation of black artists and politicians, who came here in the years before World War I and called themselves the New Negroes, and the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s, when taxis refused to take passengers uptown. Pricey tours offered by companies such as Harlem Heritage Tours and Big Onion Walking Tours cover it all, but it’s more fun to make like a New Yorker and visit the historic homes and gardens of Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill during an event organised by local homeowners.
Or glimpse the inside of some of the magnificent residences surrounding Marcus Garvey Park in an event hosted by the neighbourhood’s Community Improvement Association.
A good book for visitors who want to take things at their own pace is Touring Historic Harlem: Four Walks in Northern Manhattan (New York Landmarks Conservancy). This and many other guides are available at the Hue-Man Bookstore (2319 Frederick Douglass Blvd).
Get an overview by climbing the steps to the summit of Marcus Garvey Park. From the top all Harlem’s neighbourhoods are on display in what amounts to an introductory course on the history of New York architecture, made possible by decades of benign neglect. The elegant brownstone blocks to the south and west, once Jewish — Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein all lived there — are now dominated by immigrants from West Africa. The tenement neighbourhoods to the east, once Italian, are now “Nuyorican” (New York Puerto Rican).
To the north the public housing projects that went up in the 1950s and 1960s, swallowing up the site of the Prohibition-era Cotton Club and the Polo Grounds baseball stadium, can’t quite obscure the fancy neighbourhoods of Sugar Hill and Hamilton Heights.
You may even catch a glimpse of the oldest house on the island, the Morris-Jumel Mansion, George Washington’s headquarters during the early days of the American Revolution.
Live music
From preachers to hip-hoppers, Harlem musicians have been setting the pace for more than a century. It’s still showtime at the Apollo Theatre, an old vaudeville house that has, since 1934, given over Wednesday nights to amateurs looking for their big break — among them Ella Fitzgerald and James Brown.
Afterwards, drop by at Minton’s (206-210 West 118th Street), where bebop was developed in the 1940s. Other survivors are the Lenox Lounge — the booth on the left as you enter used to be reserved each week for Billie Holiday — and St Nick’s Pub (773 St Nicholas Ave). For a more intimate Harlem jazz experience, catch a jam session at the Col Charles Young American Legion Post, but bear in mind that if you play an instrument, you will be asked to perform.
The spirit of the Harlem Renaissance — the African-American intellectual movement of the 1920s and 1930s — is alive at the Sunday salon hosted by Marjorie Eliot at 555 Edgecombe Ave, a building that was once home to legends including Lena Horne and Paul Robeson. Finally there is the Jazz Mobile, a jazz-club stage mounted on a flatbed truck that comes to Marcus Garvey Park on Friday evenings in summer.
Harlem is synonymous with jazz, but don’t miss the Afro-Cuban sounds of Bobby Sanabria’s big band on Wednesday nights at FB Lounge.
Visitors searching for gospel music are welcomed in Harlem’s churches on Sunday mornings. At the famed Abyssinian Baptist Church, tourists have their own entrance.
Not surprisingly, the music is more authentic at Mount Moriah Baptist Church (2050 Fifth Ave, +1 212 289 9488). Call for service times and dress appropriately (no T-shirts or shorts).
Shopping
The newly opened chain stores along 125th Street don’t offer anything you can’t find downtown. The real action is with the street vendors, who sell everything from the latest street fashion and urban music to self-published, black-oriented books. The best place in the city for African sculpture and textiles is the Malcolm Shabazz Market (52 West 116th St), and dozens of African hair-braiding salons line 125th and 116th streets. Fashion-conscious boys should head for Goliath, which has streetwear by Rosemary Frazier.
Narrow-brimmed porkpie hats are ubiquitous this year, but hand-made headwear that will outlast the fad can be found at Hats by Bunn. For antiques, Michael Henry Adams, the dean of Harlem style, recommends two shops, both on West 145th Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues: Earl’s and Akbar.
Culture
Harlem nurtured talents such as artists Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence, and the Studio Museum in Harlem makes sure art is still thriving. In July visitors can see Expanding the Walls, an exhibition of images by disadvantaged black and Latino teenagers. If you go to the Museo Del Barrio to catch an exhibit by “guerrilla artist” Rafael Ferrer (June 8 to August 22), don’t miss the nearby Raices Museum of Latin Music.
Music and music history can be found at the National Jazz Museum and at the Hip Hop Cultural Centre, which will hold its annual rap-a-thon — “27 continuous hours of rap without any profanity” — on June 26 and 27.
The most cutting-edge art is to be seen at Triple Candie Gallery, notorious for shows that refused to reveal the artists’ identities.
Soul food and beyond
Soul food was invented on Southern slave plantations, but it was in the cities of the north that it became a cuisine. Skip the touristy Sylvia’s and head for Charles’ Country Pan Fried Chicken (2839 Frederick Douglass Blvd) or A Taste of Seafood (59E, 125th Street). For dessert, drop by Lee Lee’s Baked Goods (283 West 118th St), which boasts “rugelach [tiny Jewish pastries] by a brother”.
East of Fifth Avenue you can find the best Mexican food in the city. The trick here is to bring cash, and low expectations when it comes to decor, though Mexican beers such as Modelo Especial and Negra Modelo help it go down easily.
The tacos at El Aguila (137 East 116th St) and the chicken sandwich known as torta milanesa at Mi Mexico Lindo Panaderia (2267 Second Ave) make a perfect light lunch. For the best African food follow the Ivoirean cab drivers to Treichville (339 East 118th St,) or join the Senegalese street vendors at Sokobolie (2529 Eighth Ave). Diners at the more elegant Baobab (120 West 116th St, ) look forward to the vanilla-pineapple couscous desert known as thiakry.
Sleeping
Most visitors stay in midtown, but why not stay uptown and call yourself a Harlemite? The charmless rooms and basic service at the Harlem YMCA (180 West 135th Street) were good enough for jazz poet Langston Hughes, but most tourists will want to stay in one of the cosy B&Bs, many of which are located in 19th-century houses lacking lifts and, in some cases, private bathrooms.
Try the Sugar Hill Harlem Inn, or 102 Brownstone. As always, remember that things can be casual uptown, so confirm and reconfirm: the Harlem L-Hostel (1961 Adam Clayton Powell Blvd, ) was recently closed — only temporarily; it is set to open again this year — by the city for lacking proper permits.
Improvisation may be one of the hallmarks of Harlem style, but some things are better worked out in advance. —