Does This Bus Stop at 125h Street? #3 & #4

By Richard Daub This is part three and four in a six part series. Photo of the tour guide. I was also curious about what the outside perception of Harlem. Having grown up on Long Island in the 1980s, Harlem was simply a place that you did not go. Become a Harlem Insider! Sign-Up for…

Madam C.J. Walker

Madam C.J. Walker (December 23, 1867 – May 25, 1919) was an African-American businesswoman, hair care entrepreneur and philanthropist. She made her fortune by developing and marketing a hugely successful line of beauty and hair products for black women, under the company she founded, Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company. Become a Harlem Insider! Sign-Up for…

Dining with Miss Lil: Taking Stock

By Lil Nickelson How many times have you said, “There’s nothing here to eat?” You use this as a reason to justify buying take out. The truth is your refrigerator and cabinets are filled with stuff, but it would take you too long to get it together. Cooking is easier when you have what you…

Harlemite Sean John Combs

Sean John Combs (born November 4, 1969), also known by his stage names Puff Daddy, Diddy, and P. Diddy, is an Harlem rapper. He’s a record producer, actor, and entrepreneur. Combs was born in Harlem and grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. He worked as a talent director at Uptown Records before founding Bad…

Astor Row in Harlem

Astor Row is the name given to 130th Street between Fifth Avenue and Lenox Avenue in Harlem, in the New York.More specifically, it refers to the semi-attached row houses on the south side of the street. These were among the first speculative townhouses built in Harlem, and their design is very unusual. Become a Harlem…

Morningside Heights

Morningside Heights is a neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City and is chiefly known as the home of institutions such as Columbia University, Teachers College, Barnard College, the Manhattan School of Music, Bank Street College of Education, “Grant’s Tomb”, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, the Riverside Church, the Broadway…

A Harlem Embalmer’s Gets His Turn

The deceased — in life he was a doorman — was on a gurney in the basement. He was naked, as wrinkled as a rhino, and face up on a sheet. Around him in the clammy room were the tools of his embalmer: the trocar that had emptied out his stomach, the scalpel that had…