Harlem - Brief History

Most people think of Harlem, N.Y. as an African-American neighborhood in upper Manhattan. Some call it a ghetto or the hood. Harlem has a rich history and culture. Like most places in America, Harlem belonged to the indigenous people found there by the Dutch. All the area north of what is now 59^th Street was called "Muscoota" by the Manhattan Indians. Muscoota means "flat place" according to "Harlem, The Story of a Changing Community" by Bernice Elizabeth Young. Governor Peter Stuyvesant built a town in Muscoota and named it "Nieuw Haarlem". With the arrival of the English in 1664 Nieuw Haarlem's name was changed to "Harlem". Rich farms were located in the region's flat, eastern portion, which wer mostly tobacco farms. Some of New York's most illustrious early families, such as the Delanceys, Bleekers, Rikers, Beekmans, and Hamiltons maintained large estates in the high, western portion of the area. Many of these families lend their names to New York streets and at least one jail.

Harlem embraces the area of Manhattan north of 96th Street, and joins the narrow northern handle of Manhattan known as Washington Heights. Famous for a lot of things, 125th Street, Harlem is one fault system, the 125th Street Fault Zone that traverses diagonally across Manhattan from Broadway and 125th Street southeastward to the Harlem Meer in Central Park (108th Street), passing through the epicenter across to 96th Street and the east shore of Manhattan. From there the 125th Street fault passes across the East River and onwards to the subsurface of Long Island City reported by people.hofstra.edu/Charles Merguerian/NYC. The indigenous people had to contend with European invaders and earthquakes. leo.lehigh.edu/projects/seismic/nyquakes2 says that since 1730 there were over 400 earthquakes recorded in the state of New York, making it the state third highest in earthquake activity east if the Mississippi River.

Chabad of Harlem, a one-room synagogue and community center on the ground floor of 437 Manhattan Ave. at 118th St. opened in 2007. The center is the latest and most visible sign of a renewal of Jewish life in the neighborhood. After nearly a century, Jewish communal life is quietly returning to West Harlem as a diverse group of Jews move back to a neighborhood once rich with synagogues, Yiddish theaters and kosher butchers. Harlem was once home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. Jews from the overcrowded Lower East Side began relocating Uptown for cheap tenement apartments. At its peak before World War I, there were about 175,000 Jews living in Harlem, noted "When Harlem Was Jewish, 1870-1930."

Expanding transportation systems in the mid 1800's made the area accessible and home to German and Irish immigrant laborers. The city's largest concentration of Scandinavians to date was found there. An eventual labor strike started a downward spiral setting economic trends still manifested today. Italian immigrants readily took jobs their new neighbors were striking against and ethnic feuding began. St. Cecelia's Church, on 106th between Park and Lexington Avenues, was built in the 1870s from imported Italian materials for these people denied entry to established churches according to igougo.com/journal. A dramatic increase in Harlem's African-American community came when hundreds of families living in the Tenderloin were displaced during the construction of Pennsylvania Station in 1906-10.

Migration of African-Americans to Harlem continued during the 1920s as people came to New York in record numbers from the American South and the West Indies. During the "Harlem Renaissance" of the 1920s, Harlem became the urban cultural center of black America, with its center around 135th Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenues. Southern Italians were considered the lowest of European classes, and a mass exodus by previous ethnic groups left space for a wave of immigrants. By 1937 they formed the largest Italian community of the Western world. Puerto Ricans began trickling in during the 1930-40s Their rural island tendencies immediately casted them below Italians. Today there are more Caucasians and Asians, Blacks from America, West Africa and islands are second to Hispanics which come from all 20 Spanish speaking countries.

Harlem was once considered an ideal place to live, with its broad tree-lined streets and new, up-to-date housing stock. Many have blamed both white and black landlords for the distressing scenario in which rents continued to increase while maintenance and services were neglected.

West 138th and 139th Street between Adam Clayton Powell (ACP) & Fredrick Douglas Blvd. became known as "Strivers' Row" became a popular term for the district in the 1920s and 1930s. Many ambitious as well as successful blacks in medicine, dentistry, law and the arts, such as W.C. Handy, Noble Sissle, and Eubie Blakelived in the area. Today, according to nymag.com/, Harlem's new residents are strikingly diverse: straight and gay, black and white, Asian and European. A flood of co-ops and condos is coming onto the market to satisfy the in-between market who can't afford a Strivers Row townhouse. The median sales price for homes in Harlem, New York for January 2009 to March 2009 was $599,000 based on 15 sales by trulia.com/real estate/. The average listing price for homes for sale in Harlem was $919,817 for the week ending April 8, 2009.

The East Harlem/El Barrio (Spanish Harlem) community stretches from First Avenue to Fifth Avenue and from East 96th Street to East 125th Street. Central Harlem stretches from Central Park North to the Harlem River and from Fifth Avenue to St. Nicholas Avenue. West Harlem, including Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill, stretches from 123rd to 155th Streets and from St. Nicholas Avenue to the Hudson River.
Work Cited:

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/HAR/HAR-History.htm

http://people.hofstra.edu/charles_merguerian/NYC%20Quake/NYCQuake.htm

http://www.leo.lehigh.edu/projects/seismic/nyquakes2.html