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new york architecture walks- Harlem
Marcus Garvey (Mount Morris) Park, Harlem
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Harlem is located in the northern portion of
Manhattan and is one of the foremost African-American communities in the
world, but it wasn’t always that way.
Historical Context Settled by the Dutch in 1658 and called Nieuw Haarlem, the area at the northern end of Manhattan featured lush farmland in the flat, eastern section and large estates for well-known families like the Delanceys, Bleekers, Rikers, Beekmans and Hamiltons in the high, western section. Following an economic decline in the 1830s that saw many of the farms abandoned and the estates sold at public auction, Harlem became home to people looking for cheap property and housing, and a refuge for newly-arrived immigrants - including the Irish. New and better forms of transportation, and the increasing population of New York after the Civil War helped transform Harlem into a middle and upper-middle class neighborhood. In 1837, the New York and Harlem Railroad began operating from lower Manhattan to Harlem. The addition of three lines of elevated rail service spurred new residential development in the area. In the 1870s a wave of speculative development hit Harlem and construction began on new single-family row houses, tenements and luxury apartment houses. Commercial businesses, as well as religious, educational and cultural institutions began to spring up around Harlem to serve the growing population. More improvements in the transportation system in the late 1890s led to another wave of real estate speculation. By the time the Lenox Avenue subway opened at 145th street in 1904, nearly all of the vacant land in Harlem was built upon. The increase in residential construction led to extensive vacancies and inflated rents. The
Harlem - then and now - is a city within a city, a neighborhood that has maintained its mystique through cycles of boom and bust. In 1925, James Weldon Johnson described it as a “mecca for the sight seeker, the pleasure seeker, the curious, the adventurous, the enterprising…” But the community of new law apartments and handsome dwellings with well-paved and well-lighted streets that Johnson knew in 1925 had begun to deteriorate by 1939. Abandonment accelerated in the late 1970s with large City tax foreclosure actions that made New York City the owner of more than 1,000 buildings in Central Harlem, most of them vacant. Central Harlem includes an area that is roughly bounded by 8th Avenue to the west, Madison Avenue to the east, 155th Street to the north, and 110th Street to the south.
Today, all but a handful of vacant buildings in the City’s Central Harlem portfolio are scheduled for rehabilitation through various city-sponsored programs. Expanses of vacant lots are being transformed again into blocks of three-family residences and larger mixed-use commercial/residential structures. As you walk about the Harlem community to the west and south of Marcus Garvey Park, you’ll notice how many homeownership opportunities are included in this redevelopment effort. Homeownership is a way for New Yorkers to invest in their communities while they build equity for themselves and their families. Harlem’s Community Boards, along with HPD, are working to increase the homeownership rate in Harlem from the current 10% to be more in line with the rest of the city, where it’s now 32%. Not everyone is in a position to be a homeowner, so HPD has also sponsored projects to provide affordable, quality rental apartments. In both new construction and rehabilitation, HPD has been sensitive to the architectural integrity of a legendary community marked by landmark row houses and grand religious and public buildings. Walking Tour Come along and see what’s happening to housing in Harlem.
Look east along 116th Street toward Madison Avenue and note the building under construction about a block away on the north side of the street. This is a rental building for low-income families known as Tony Mendez Apartments, financed through the State’s Homes for Working Families Program. The site was formerly City-owned land and HPD’s urban planners helped bring the development to fruition. The building combines state funding with tax-exempt bond financing from the New York City Housing Development Corporation. Start walking west along West 116th Street. About two-thirds of the way down the block, the brightly colored onion domes on the south side of the street belong to the Malcolm Shabazz Vendors Market, evocative of the souks of northern Africa and the Middle East. The Malcolm Shabazz Development Corporation, in cooperation with HPD and the NYC Partnership, opened this 25,000 square foot village marketplace in the summer of 1999. The marketplace provides space for 115 local vendors selling food, arts, crafts, sculpture, and ethnic apparel. Directly across the street at the corner of 116th and Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) along the north side of the block is HPD’s newest ANCHOR project, the Renaissance Plaza.
Cross to the west side of Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) and walk north to West 117th Street. Notice the two vacant lots at the northwest and southwest corners of Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) and West 117th. These lots are the future site of Lenox Gardens which will include two six-story buildings with 49 housing units, commercial space and underground parking. This site will be developed in calendar year 2002 through the ANCHOR program. Next to the vacant lot on the north side of West 117th are four brownstone buildings. At the same time the two lots are developed, these brownstones will be rehabilitated. The rehabilitation will return up to 16 units of affordable housing to the community. Head west along West 117th Street and glimpse Malcolm Shabazz Gardens,
In the midst of the new town homes, are two properties 140 and 141. These two buildings are being rehabilitated through the Tenant Interim Lease (TIL) program. The TIL Program enables low-income tenants in City-owned buildings to purchase their apartments. Requirements are stringent. The tenants must be organized and demonstrate both the ability and desire to self-manage. Once accepted into the program, tenants receive extensive training in property management and financial record keeping, and actually operate the property under a lease with HPD. During this period, HPD funds the building rehabilitation. After completion of renovations and all program guidelines are fulfilled, buildings are sold to a cooperative corporation established by the tenants. Individual tenants purchase shares for these apartments for $250. At the end of the block on the north side is number 157, a former city-owned building rehabilitated in 1994 through the Vacant Buildings Program. The 18 apartments here, along with an additional 47 in its companion buildings nearby, were rented to low-income families. On the south side of the street is the service entrance of one of Harlem’s grandest properties, the landmark Graham Court (E), 1923-1937 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard.
Turn the corner and walk south about 100 feet to take a peek through the arched passageway to glimpse its interior courtyard. Constructed in 1901, this building, commissioned by William Waldorf Astor and designed by architects Clinton & Russell, contains eight elevators. Graham Court introduced style to Harlem at the onset of the 20th century; its counterpart in the new millennium is 1400 Fifth Avenue, where we began this tour. Walk north on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, originally Seventh Avenue, and turn east onto West 118th Street. On the north side of the block at 147 is a row house, recently renovated and sold in January 2001 through the HomeWorks Program.
There are 35 houses in this immediate area included in HomeWorks, a rehabilitation program for brownstones. Another example of a building recently renovated through HomeWorks is located further down the block at number 106 West 118th. Across the street from this building is 103 West 118th which will be rehabilitated through the Vacant Building 2000 program. Home buyers in HomeWorks are selected through an HPD-supervised lottery in which 50 percent of the properties are reserved for applicants already residing in the community. Another five percent are set aside for uniformed New York City police officers as part of HPD’s NYPD Home program to encourage police officers to buy homes in New York City. Most of Harlem’s row houses were built at the end of the 19th century when Harlem experienced a wave of speculative development tied to the extension of the elevated rail line to 129th Street. As the community’s fortunes waned, many of these beautiful structures were turned into rooming houses, fell into varying states of disrepair, and were finally abandoned. Unfortunately, not all these glorious row houses could be restored. Fire destroyed or severely damaged many of them. Quite a few were in such terrible shape that they had to be torn down in the 1970s and 80s. Those losses created the large tracts of vacant land where new housing is rising. Walking further east along West 118th between Malcolm X Blvd. (Lenox Ave.) and Fifth Avenue you will notice seven more three family Shabazz Gardens Partnership New Homes such as the ones you originally saw on West 117th. Continue east on West 118th St. to the corner of Fifth Avenue. Look south at the block between East 118th and East 117th Streets.
Notice the stoops, the quintessential characteristic of the New York City row house, introduced by the Dutch. The stoop, a grand exterior staircase, and the height of the houses - four stories instead of the Partnership’s trademark three - are the highlights of a design by an HPD architect determined to respect the integrity of Harlem’s beautiful brownstone blocks. We’ll see the 19th century versions as we approach Marcus Garvey Memorial Park immediately to the north. Walk north on Fifth Avenue to West 119th Street and then start walking west. On the southern side of West 119th Street at numbers 48 and 50 are two examples of buildings already rehabilitated through the Tenant Interim Lease Program.
Each of these buildings contains 10 tenant-owned apartments. They began the path to tenant-ownership in 1997 and were sold to the tenants in 2000 after an extensive rehabilitation. Walking around these few blocks reveals the enormity of the redevelopment and preservation efforts underway in Harlem. Virtually every available resource has been tapped to produce both rental and homeownership opportunities for a broad range of New Yorkers with a variety of needs. Included in the mix are the commercial hubs on the major east-west blocks, where goods and services are available to an expanding population. This transformation is a cooperative venture between government, not-for-profit community-based organizations, neighborhood business people, and financial institutions. Keep walking west along West 119th Street until you get to Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) and then go north to the corner of West 120th Street. At the northeast corner of West 120th and Malcolm X Blvd. (Lenox Avenue) are 200 and 202 Malcolm X Boulevard. These two beautiful buildings are being renovated through HomeWorks. Note the mansard roof. Mansard roofs were usually built on very upscale homes. They were first used in French Renaissance architecture and later were popular in Victorian buildings in Europe and America. These particular buildings were built in 1888. Number 204 is missing and where it used to stand will become open space which will become part of the 202 property.
Keep walking north along Malcolm X Boulevard until you get to West 122nd. Turn east onto West 122nd Street for a look at the heart of the Mt. Morris Historic District. To preserve these exquisite Victorian row houses and maintain the integrity of this historic neighborhood, the five blocks bounded by Mt. Morris Park West on the east, West 125th Street to the north, Lenox Avenue on the west and West 119th Street on the south were given New York City landmark status in November 1971. West 122nd Street ends at the park originally called Mt. Morris Park but re-named in 1973 for the black nationalist Marcus Garvey. The park was recently renovated and given a new baseball field and field house which you can see at the end of block. Inside the park atop “the mount” is a fire tower, an early example of cast iron construction. At one time, there were other towers similar to this one on elevated points throughout Manhattan where people watched for fires and signaled the alarm for the bucket brigades. Along the north end of the park at West 124th Street is the Harlem Branch of the New York Public Library built in 1909 by Andrew Carnegie. But the real interest here is to the south. Walk down Mount Morris Park West to see the row of facades secured by steel beams that line part of the block between West 121st and West 120th Streets. These are known as The Ruins, the future site of a residential development. The deteriorated row houses were acquired by New York State. Through the Empire State Development Corporation a completely new structure containing state of the art apartments will rise behind these “false fronts” that will be restored in accordance with Landmark specifications. Continue walking south to West 120th Street and start walking around the park. Another fine example of historic preservation is the
Continue around and along 120th Street to the southeastern corner of the park. Looking south down Madison Avenue you will notice the start of another major construction project. The three block assemblage includes all of the area between East 117th Street and East 120th Street, and Madison Avenue and Park Avenue. This site is being developed
The Cornerstone Program is HPD's new multi-family new construction housing initiative. This initiative will create over 2,300 new middle-income and market-rate housing units in northern Manhattan over the next three years, financed principally through private sources. Working in tandem with the Housing Development Corporation's New Housing Opportunities Program (New HOP), and other funding sources, HPD is encouraging the development of new homeownership and rental multifamily apartment buildings without direct HPD Capital Budget subsidy. HPD’s Cornerstone Program seeks to spur the creation of new homeownership and rental apartments in areas like Harlem where the city is making substantial housing and commercial investments. The housing, community, and commercial space made available through this first round of the Cornerstone Program will help expand and diversify Harlem’s economic base and allow more families to live, shop, and work in Harlem. Head north along the park (Madison Avenue) to the yellow-colored brick buildings between 122nd and 124th Streets. These buildings are Maple Court and Maple Plaza, a limited equity cooperative complex financed through NYC Housing
HPD and its partners have implemented programs to help return Harlem buildings to their once-majestic splendor and will continue to play a part in Harlem’s renaissance.
Special thanks to www.nyc.gov |
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| history
In 1925, when Alain Locke
edited The New Negro, an anthology of poetry and prose by
up-and-coming black artists, he wrote, "I believe that the Negro's
advantages and opportunities are greater than in in any other place in
the country, and that the Harlem will become the intellectual, cultural,
and the financial center for Negroes peoples. "The Harlem Renaissance of
tje late 1920's proved Locke correct, but Harlem's population in the
early part of that decade was by no means entirely black. The area was
originally settled by the Dutch, who name it Nieuw Haarlem since it was
so far from the settled areas of New York. Many immigrants from Ireland
and Germany settled around 125th Street and would stay until nearly the
end of the decade. As more and more blacks moved into the area, however,
whites began to leave. The combined effect of white flight and black
migration from the south solidified the development of black Harlem in
this era, as documented by Jacob Lawrence's paintings. Abyssinian Baptist
Church
Pastor Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. built this church in 1921 to serve the
needs of the growing numbers of blacks settling on the Upper West Side.
The church is named for its first worshippers, Abyssinian merchants who
wanted to maintain their connection with Africa. The congregation has
grown to over 4,000 to date and is known for its community involvement. Jackie Robinson Park
Oak-lined walkways, an olympic-sized pool, bandshells, and plenty of
pickup make this oasis in Harlem's St. Nicholas district one of the
area's best-equipped parks, especially if the Park's Department ever
gets the water spring running again. Originally known as Colonial Park,
in 1978 it was renamed after the basketball legend Langston Hughes House
Writers have inherited the former home of this Harlem Renaissance poet;
his memory is kept alive through the preservation of manuscripts and
photographs and through regular readings. Tours are by appointment.> Malcolm Shabazz
Masjid (Mosque of Islam) Founded by Malcolm X
in the 1950's, this silverdomed mosque has become the country's most
renowned Black Muslim place of worship. Marcus Garvey Park
The "Back to Africa" spokesman and noted civil rights leader was honored
in the 1973 renaming of Mt. Morris Park. The park boasts an iron frame
belltower built in 1856, as well as a manmade bed of rocks in the center
of the park which offers one of the city's best vistas. St. Nicholas Park
On a rainy day, this lush park seems more like a rainforest than an
urban oasis; well-preserved paths winding through a refreshing landscape
link City College, Suger Hill, Hamilton Place and Convent Ave. Invisible Man,
by Ralph Ellison, 1952 Jungle Fever,
dir. dir. Spike Lee, 1991 Mumbo Jumbo,
by Ishmael Reed, 1972 Lenox Lounge Riverbank State Park The northern edges of Harlem
are abuzz with a sound rarely heard in these parts: the metallic music
of rebuilding . Hamilton Heights, a small but historically significant
area in northwest Harlem surrounding City College is undergoing one of
the city's first resident-funded, resident-operated urban renewals. From
west to 135th Street to West 155th Street, newcomers are hammering away
at decrepit townhouses whose last occupants had been four and five
families at a time, cramped into the ramshackle housing before
abandoning the premises five years ago. |
