New York break: one hundred streets of fortitude

I sit in my chair
And filled with despair
There’s no one could be so sad
With gloom everywhereI sit and I stare
I know that I’ll soon go mad…

[Billie Holiday, Solitude]

Rain, sleet, snow, then a combination of the three. New York, imitating a Wisconsin spring. Thanks, I feel so at home.

No, wait! You’re reading Ocean, written by a blogger made of hearty Polish peasant stock (with strains of gypsy, I am told). I’m out. Billie pushed me out the door, straight into Harlem, where she herself once crooned.

[Here I have to express deep gratitude to Paul Blair, NY jazz journalist who chatted with me for some time this morning about Harlem. Invaluable! For more on Paul, tune in on Friday – he and I are taking a walk through his home turf – Brooklyn.]

The thing is, I want to check out the entire Harlem neighborhood and that place is monstrously big. Indeed, I got off the subway at 168th and Broadway and I honestly did walk more than 100 blocks, this way and that. I’m cold. Frozen, in fact. I’m tired. I saw so much. But I did not see enough.

A great deal has been written about the gentrification of Harlem, about Bill Clinton’s digs there, about 125th street, but are we all on the same page about this? Has Harlem changed that much?

From my walk, I would say not as much as it could have, should have. West Harlem, upwards of 140th, the little Dominica of New York, is significantly disadvantaged. The Black central Harlem around Strivers’ Row (so named because it was, even 100 years ago, a place for the socially and professionally upwardly mobile) has signs of rebirth, but the renovated row houses are completely surrounded by blocks of closed storefronts and abandoned buildings in need of repair. Jungle Alley and Marcus Garvey Park are hangouts – of the type where you don’t want to hang out for long and especially not after dark.

And yet, Harlem still seems alive and pushing ahead, in spite of it all. Art and culture thrived here in the 20s and 30s, even though the anticipated economic rebirth never took off then. The brownstones, some of the most beautiful in the city, were never occupied by prosperous owners. Instead, Black families squeezed out of other New York districts, moved here, rented at inflated prices, and stayed, and with them stayed the music and the clubs and the art. All are evident. It’s a kickin’ neighborhood!

The pictures below are the Harlem that I want to see more of. It is the boom rather than the bust (with an occasional photographic digression). It is the hope, not hype. [The photos follow the geographic progression of my walk – from 168th down to the northern tip of Central Park. Adjust the quality, please, for the fact that it was raining-snowing-sleeting and the wind was blowing me up to the rooftops, along with the goddam umbrella, the bag, the camera and my super-sized scarf, frantically protecting me from the horrible weather.]