WHERE IS THE HARLEM NEIGHBORHOOD RIGHT NOW???

Last weekend, I went to New York City. I was staying at my friends' house on 77th street. It was great to spend a long weekend at New York City and meet some old friends. Monday afternoon, I was thinking about what I did in the past weekend on the bus back to school; a word suddenly appeared in my mind--"Harlem." I learnt Harlem Renaissance from my poetry class and read many poems from poets in this period, such as Langston Hughes. "Why didn't I go there???!!!" Maybe I had too much fun. But I want to go there and see how the neighborhood looks like right now.



The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s, it was also known as the "Negro Movement." It was centered in the Harlem Neighborhood in th New York City ( which starts at 125th street, between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue, Manhattan). As we know the golden age of Harlem Neighborhood was about 1920s--1930s because it was the black culture center at that time, but the neighborhood has been there since 17th century. The hard economic times hit Harlem during the Depression with poverty, high unemployment and high crime rates. After the 1980s, the was a huge redevelpment in the neighborhood. As the Manhattan real estate market boomed, the abandoned buildings in Harlem were replaced with new housing and office buildings. Soon many shops and restaurants moved in, some people call it Harlem’s second renaissance became official. It seems like the Harlem Neighborhood looks totally different right now from the pictures and the articles I read, but I still want to visit there. Most of the buildings might disappeared already, but the Harlem Renaissance is memorized in people's hearts.

Some extra information about Harlem Renaissance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_Club_(New_York_City)
http://www.biography.com/blackhistory/harlem-renaissance.jsp