They call it Spanish Harlem or sometimes just El Barrio. But for over a century, East Harlem has been a melting pot of many ethnic groups, including Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, and Mexican immigrants, as well as Italian, Jewish, and African American communities. Though gentrification is rapidly changing the face of this section of upper Manhattan, it is still full of sites that attest to its rich cultural heritage. Now East Harlem native Christopher Bell takes you on a tour of his beloved neighborhood. He takes you on three separate walking tours, each visiting a different part of East Harlem and each full of stories about its theaters, museums, art spaces, schools, community centers, churches, mosques, and synagogues. You’ll also learn about the famous people who lived in El Barrio, such as actress Cecily Tyson, opera singer Marian Anderson, portrait artist Alice Neel, incomparable poet Julia De Burgos, and King of Latin Music Tito Puente. Lavishly illustrated with over fifty photos, Walking East Harlem points out not only the many architectural and cultural landmarks in the neighborhood but also the historical buildings that have since been demolished. Whether you are a tourist or a resident, this guide will give you a new appreciation for El Barrio’s exciting history, cultural diversity, and continued artistic vibrancy.

With its rich cultural history and many landmark buildings, Harlem is not just one of New York’s most distinctive neighborhoods; it’s also one of the most walkable. This illustrated guide takes readers on five separate walking tours of Harlem, covering ninety-one different historical sites. Alongside major tourist destinations like the Apollo Theater and the Abyssinian Baptist Church, longtime Harlem resident Karen Taborn includes little-known local secrets like Jazz Age speakeasies, literati, political and arts community locales. Drawing from rare historical archives, she also provides plenty of interesting background information on each location. This guide was designed with the needs of walkers in mind. Each tour consists of eight to twenty-nine nearby sites, and at the start of each section, readers will find detailed maps of the tour sites, as well as an estimated time for each walk. In case individuals would like to take a more leisurely tour, it provides recommendations for restaurants and cafes where they can stop along the way. Walking Harlem gives readers all the tools they need to thoroughly explore over a century’s worth of this vital neighborhood’s cultural, political, religious, and artistic heritage. With its informative text and nearly seventy stunning photographs, this is the most comprehensive, engaging, and educational walking tour guidebook on one of New York’s historic neighborhoods.

Overshadowed by the fame of Harlem and the wealth of the Upper East Side, East Harlem is rarely noted as a historical enclave. However, from the early 1800s through today, East Harlem has welcomed wave after wave of immigrants struggling for a place in the nation's most famous city. African Americans, Irish, Germans, European Jews, Italians, Scandinavians, Puerto Ricans, and Latinos are among the ethnic groups who have shaped this neighborhood, bringing with them their religious, social, and culinary traditions. East Harlem is the first volume to tell this neighborhood's history through images. Photographs of the iron, stone, and rubber factories, the tenements, the 100th Street community, famous politicians such as Fiorella LaGuardia, the Second and Third Avenue elevated subways, St. Cecilia's, and many other subjects capture East Harlem's past in one memorable collection.

With its rich cultural history and many landmark buildings, Harlem is not just one of New York’s most distinctive neighborhoods; it’s also one of the most walkable. This illustrated guide takes readers on five separate walking tours of Harlem, covering ninety-one different historical sites. Alongside major tourist destinations like the Apollo Theater and the Abyssinian Baptist Church, longtime Harlem resident Karen Taborn includes little-known local secrets like Jazz Age speakeasies, literati, political and arts community locales. Drawing from rare historical archives, she also provides plenty of interesting background information on each location. This guide was designed with the needs of walkers in mind. Each tour consists of eight to twenty-nine nearby sites, and at the start of each section, readers will find detailed maps of the tour sites, as well as an estimated time for each walk. In case individuals would like to take a more leisurely tour, it provides recommendations for restaurants and cafes where they can stop along the way. Walking Harlem gives readers all the tools they need to thoroughly explore over a century’s worth of this vital neighborhood’s cultural, political, religious, and artistic heritage. With its informative text and nearly seventy stunning photographs, this is the most comprehensive, engaging, and educational walking tour guidebook on one of New York’s historic neighborhoods.

Presenting the definitive guide to one of New York City's most fascinating and unsung places-the new Harlem. From West Harlem to Central Harlem to East Harlem, the Harlem Travel Guide is your ticket to all things cultural, historical, entertaining, and delicious. With a rich 350-year history, Harlem has been host to some of the most creative, influential, and captivating people of our times, and its ethnic diversity and wealth of talent make Harlem an experience not to be missed.In the Harlem Travel Guide, you'll discover where to find: o the most elegant boutique accommodationso fine-dining establishments that offer outstanding international cuisineo museums and art galleries that feature important exhibitions of works by African, African-American, African-Caribbean and Latin artists o performance halls that provide the finest in theater, opera, and danceo cultural institutions that offer a wide range of multimedia happenings o Nineteenth- and twentieth-century architectural treasureso a wealth of landmark historical sites o music venues and nightclubs that run the gamut from classical strains to R&B to soul, hip-hop to gospel, world-class jazz to hot Latin beatso uncommonly known cultural and historical factso full-color maps of each distinctive area & a listing of exciting annual eventso useful tips of how to meet all of your travel needs Whether you're a resident or are visiting the Big Apple for the first time, isn't it time you discovered New York's most fascinating destination?

This vivid memoir captures how race, class, and privilege shaped a white boy’s coming of age in 1970s New York—now with a new epilogue. “I am not your typical middle-class white male,” begins Dalton Conley’s Honky, an intensely engaging memoir of growing up amid predominantly African American and Latino housing projects on New York’s Lower East Side. In narrating these sharply observed memories, from his little sister’s burning desire for cornrows to the shooting of a close childhood friend, Conley shows how race and class inextricably shaped his life—as well as the lives of his schoolmates and neighbors. In a new afterword, Conley, now a well-established senior sociologist, provides an update on what his informants’ respective trajectories tell us about race and class in the city. He further reflects on how urban areas have (and haven’t) changed over the past few decades, including the stubborn resilience of poverty in New York. At once a gripping coming-of-age story and a brilliant case study illuminating broader inequalities in American society, Honky guides us to a deeper understanding of the cultural capital of whiteness, the social construction of race, and the intricacies of upward mobility.

The community of East Harlem in New York City lays claim to a rich and culturally diverse history. Once home to 35 ethnicities and 27 languages, the neighborhood attracted Irish, Jewish, and Italian immigrants in the early 20th century and later saw an influx of Puerto Rican immigrants and African Americans. In this oral history, former and current residents recount the early days, the post-World War II rise of public housing, the departure of Eastern European inhabitants, the growth of Latino and African American populations, the spirited 1960s, the urban blight of the 1980s, and the more recent resurgence and gentrification. This story of strength and struggle provides a vivid portrait of a fascinating community and the many resilient people who have called it home.