About Harlem | Health Statistics | History | Resources

History

Early History
The area got its name from a suburb of Amsterdam , the Dutch city from which many of its earliest settlers came. By the 1600s, New Amsterdam , which was the name of the Dutch colony that is now called New York City , was already recruiting new settlers with advertisements which promised to provide them with African slaves to work their land and help to build their settlement.

Throughout the 1700s and 1800s, New York , a natural port city, grew with settlers from all over Europe . As the colonies became the States, and as its agrarian economy gave way to an industrial one, New York and Harlem ­slowly began to take shape as the cosmopolitan community the world knows today.

Until the turn of the 20th century the area remained mainly isolated houses, farms, and open space. This late settlement had advantages—by the time urbanization took hold, building codes had outlawed the lightless, air­less tenements of lower Manhattan . Instead, Harlem became a neighborhood of well-built, spacious brown­stones and town houses.

Although Harlem has always had Black residents, the neighborhood was mainly a wealthy White suburb until the early years of the twentieth century. This held true even after New York Blacks started arriving, continuing their migration northward from "Little Africa" in Greenwich Village through Chelsea and what later came to be known as Hell's Kitchen.

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Harlem : Early 1900s
Around the turn of the century, real estate prices crashed in Harlem due to over-building and in 1904, Philip Payton's Afro-Am Realty Company began leasing vast amounts of space and renting it out to Black tenants. Harlem achieved critical mass as a Black neighborhood during World War I when Blacks began leaving intolerable conditions in the South and the Caribbean . Central Harlem , where new, high-quality housing now lay empty, offered a better environment, less racism, and less violence than other neighborhoods.

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Harlem : 1920s-1950s
Harlem thrived under the influence of the newcom­ers and all the varying cultural influences they brought with them. The mixtures bred a community of artists, writers, musicians, and actors as well as entrepreneurial businessmen and women. By the mid­ 1920s, these newcomers had touched off the cultural explosion known as the “ Harlem Renaissance.”

Although Blacks had always contributed to mainstream American culture, the Renaissance was the first internationally recognized time in which they took their cultural destiny into their own hands. Blacks returned to Broadway as both writers and stars, and published more novels in a few years than Blacks in America had ever published before. Black musi­cians and composers, who had always had a strong (but somewhat unaccredited) influence on mainstream American music, came into their own with unprecedented popularity.

The Harlem Renaissance was a politi­cal movement as well as a cultural one. Many of the leading figures of the Renaissance had political goals, ranging across the spectrum from combating racism to exploring the African roots of Black culture. At the time, the Renaissance was seen as a statement of Black cultural independence and a rebellion against racist stereotypes that saw Blacks as incapable of "true" creativity or clear thought.

Harlem 's life has always had a strong religious element. While serving as the spiritual focus of the community, Harlem 's churches have been economically and politically crucial. Controlled by Blacks, employing skilled workers, account­ants, and lawyers as well as ministers, the churches have been a major factor in the growth of the neighborhood's middle class. In addition to feeding Harlem's spirit, the churches served as a home for the community's political struggles and as a social catch-all, providing all manner of services from feeding the poor, to find­ing shelter for the homeless and treat­ment for those trapped in the land­mines of substance abuse.

For newcomers, Harlem represented opportunity—the American Dream made possible for those long denied. But the area was hardly without prob­lems. Blacks, Latinos, and other minorities were allowed only menial jobs in many White-owned businesses. They were excluded from unions, and had all too little political clout in their own neighborhood. Some Harlem businesses that depended on Black customers refused to hire any Black employees. Blacks who reached the middle class could find it hard to get loans from White-owned banks, making it more difficult for them to own or start their own businesses. All these factors took a tragic toll when the national economy collapsed in 1929.

The Great Depression blighted the hopes of a generation, and few places in the country were hit harder than Harlem . As Blacks, joined by Latinos from Latin America (specifically Puerto Rico ), and the Caribbean , continued to arrive, they were kept out of other neighborhoods. Between 1920 and 1930 Harlem 's Black population increased by nearly 100,000, making it the largest Black neighborhood in the country. Overcrowding, which led to high rents, became a serious problem. When the Depression slashed employment and pushed social services to the breaking point, the neighborhood began to decay.

A neighborhood's health is inseparable from its housing, employment, and educa­tion. As the Depression deepened, these fac­tors worsened and Harlem 's residents’ health declined. In March 1935, after Harlem resi­dents took to the streets to protest the police brutalization of a Puerto Rican teenager, a commission investigating the root causes of the riot had this to say about Harlem's residents health: "The precarious economic conditions,” along with crowding and poorly maintained housing, "contributed to a Negro death rate...exorbitantly high in the very diseases in which lack of sanitation and medical care, and poverty are important factors.” This point would be familiar to any health worker in Harlem today.

Unfortunately, listing Harlem 's problems wasn't the same thing as dealing with them. The commission's report, with its uncomfortable criticisms of social conditions and institutional racism, was suppressed.

The Depression brought another racial pattern familiar today: in the mind of the majority, Harlem became defined by its problems. Like today, Harlem had prosperous areas and depressed ones, but outsiders began to view the neighborhood as one uniform, continuous slum. The media and other detractors projected all the city's troubles onto Harlem , choosing to believe that crime, violence, and despair were problems only in Harlem , where they were unsolvable and could therefore be ignored.

By the 1930s most of the characteristics of the Harlem of today were in place. On the one hand, one could see real problems-overcrowding, poverty, deteriorated housing, lack of access to medical care, and official policies that were neglectful at best. On the other hand one could point to a strong, unique, diverse culture that resisted these pressures and struggled to overcome them.

With implementation of the New Deal, the Depression eased and with World War II, it disappeared. Still, Blacks, Latinos, and other minorities remained the first to be laid off in bad times and the last to be hired in good ones, while a steady stream of new arrivers kept rents high. However, these problems were balanced by the positive forces in the neighbor­hood—the churches, communities, and culture that made Harlem unique. Many longtime Harlem residents look back on those years with nostalgia.

Puerto Ricans first moved into the neighborhoods of East Harlem in the 1920s along with other immigrant families from across Caribbean communities. By 1930 most of the city's Puerto Rican residents lived in East Harlem . During the 1940s and 1950s as Italian families moved to other areas of the city Puerto Ricans became the dominant group numbering 63,000 in 1950. Although many Puerto Ricans moved to other parts of the city in the 1950s, they continued to maintain strong ties to the community that became known as El Barrio or Spanish Harlem.

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Harlem : 1960s-1970s
The 1960s and 1970s saw the height of a new approach to social change for people of color, which has been called "reform from above” –a concentration on changing society through government and law. This strategy paid off in expanded voting rights and other gains nationwide. But the early promise of these achievements was never realized and ironically these were not the best years for Harlem.

Across the country unemployment, crime rates, and drug use soared and social services began to break down. Harlem and other poor urban areas were hit hardest. Even the nationwide civil rights gains often worked against Harlem : middle-class Blacks and Latinos left Harlem as opportunities opened up in surrounding communities.

During the late 1960s and 1970s, Harlem was the site of numerous race riots incited by segregation, discrimination and deplorable living conditions. Between 1967 and 1987, the city lost over a half million jobs as the economy made a dramatic shift away from the manufacturing sector into the emerging service economy. Over the past few decades, Harlem 's unemployment rate continued to be among the highest in the city and consistently exceeds 30%. In addi­tion, New York City public schools have largely failed to prepare students adequately and the number of graduates has declined over the years.

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Harlem : 1980s-1990s
Under these pressures, the vitality of Harlem was stretched to the breaking point. Sometimes even a small blow-the abandonment of a single building, or the closing of a store-could start a chain reaction that would devastate an entire block or more. Central Harlem , for example, lost a third of its housing and half its population between 1960 and 1990. The health of Harlem residents deteriorated with their neighborhood.

Social and health problems worsened during the 1980s with the appearance of crack cocaine and AIDS. Both of these plagues struck the entire country, but both were associated in the public mind with the people and urban areas that were most severely affected.

In 1989, the neighborhood gained political stature as David N. Dinkins, former Manhattan Borough President, became the city's first African American mayor. His leadership shined a new light on the city's long-ignored African American population which, in Manhattan , was still largely con­centrated in Harlem . Dinkins' administration openly attempted to create a dialogue between New York City 's Black and Latino popu­lations and the rest of the city's constituencies.

However, Dinkins' leadership coincided with some of the dark­est days in recent memory. The powerful drug epidemic—and the increased violence it spawned—took the attention of the administration away from its efforts toward coalition building on which it had campaigned. Harlem reeled from the crisis, in the light of the entire city's attention as the representative of its Mayor's community, was doubly vulnerable.

The convergence of the crack cocaine and heroin epidemics, massive unem­ployment, HIV/AIDS and tough new mandatory sentencing laws fueled a staggering increase in the number of Black men and women in state and local prison systems (where HIV infection rates are 5 times higher than in the general pop­ulation). Incarceration contributed to family decay throughout the community as young men and women were removed from their families and communities. The social consequences of the drug epidemic were profound and continue to impact the community today.

Still, Harlem 's heart kept beating even during the darkest days of the 1980s and early 1990s. Churches and other community organizations worked to hold the neighborhood together, and public and private institutions learned to cooperate with them. Gardens were planted in vacant lots, playgrounds were improved, and programs gave children alterna­tives to street life, drugs, and gangs. In fact, a number of community-run social programs for community/self-empower­ment began to thrive around issues of job skills and employment, healthcare, diet & nutrition and education, including parochial, African-centered and community-chartered schools.

The expanding economy of the 1990s increased employment and reduced crime. The Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone made hundreds of millions of dollars available from the federal government, the city, and the state, to be translated into businesses and jobs. As the money began to make itself felt in the neighborhood, some of the old problems were eased even while new ones were some­times created. For instance, although the redevelopment of the community can mean repaired housing, safer streets, and more political clout, it can also mean forcing out long­time residents-particularly those with limited financial resources.

Neighborhoods can be revived while preserving and strengthening the community. In Bradhurst, for instance, an intensive project under the leadership of Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement has taken blighted blocks and restored them to safe, well-maintained housing for current residents. For the first time in decades, residents can move safely through these neighborhoods.

This example shows that Harlem can be revitalized without losing its culture and identity. Residents are talking now about a "second Renaissance." Whether these hopes will be fulfilled is the great unanswered question for Harlem 's future. But the history of Harlem , and of its creative, resilient residents, is one of survival. There is every reason to believe that the neighborhood's future will continue to be bright.

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