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The historic development of Harlem began with an Indian village on the banks of
the Hudson River, between 110th and 125th Streets. Attracted by the fertility of
the soil and the ease with which the area could be defended as a military outpost,
settlers incorporated the Village of Harlem in 1658 under Dutch rule. By 1661, the
farming community had 32 adult men — most of them heads of families — and a contingent
of soldiers paid to protect and help build the village.
In 1672, slaves built the first road from lower Manhattan to Harlem over an old
Indian trail known today as Broadway. With transportation to downtown New York chiefly
by riverboat, the new village developed its economic base centered around the farmer’s
market, tavern and ferry house in the vicinity of 125th Street and the Harlem River.
A gateway to Harlem developed at Central Park North and Lenox and St. Nicholas Avenues
in the early 1700s, as way stations were built to accommodate travelers from New
York.
Prior to the American Revolution of 1776, the community was quietly becoming a choice
area for gentlemen farmers to build country estates and wealthy merchants to build
elegant houses. The Morris-Jumel Mansion, designated a landmark in 1967, was built
in 1765. This Georgian country house at 160th Street and Edgecombe Avenue served
as General George Washington’s headquarters during the War of Independence.
The Manhattan street system, laid out according to a plan of 1811, had the effect
of altering Harlem’s appearance from an idyllic valley of farmland into a residential
area. Harlem was developed in stages as hills were leveled, streams were filled
and transportation was improved. The most important development to affect Harlem’s
growth was the construction from 1832 to 1835 of the New York and Harlem Railroad
running along Park Avenue from City Hall to the Harlem River. Conceived as a real
estate venture, as well as a means of passenger and freight transportation, the
railroad helped to unify the island, but also created serious environmental problems
and a formidable barrier between East and Central Harlem. In 1873, the Village of
Harlem was “annexed” to the City of New York. As transportation, commerce and industry
developed and numbers of immigrants arrived, Harlem became the city’s first suburb.
It was considered one of the most fashionable residential areas in which to live.
Single family brick and brownstone residences began to rise in West and Central
Harlem, attracting upper and middle income families. With the construction of the
Second, Third and Eighth Avenue elevated lines during the 1870s and 1880s, most
of the Old Law walk-ups and elevated tenement houses were built on lots measuring
25 to 50 feet by 100 feet, with building coverage up to 90% of the lot. The Tenement
Housing Act of 1901 slightly upgraded design standards primarily by reducing coverage
to 70% of the lot. The completion of the Lenox Avenue subway in 1904 was accompanied
by a major building boom and rampant real estate speculation.
According to the 1910 Census, the Greater Harlem area extending from 110th to 155th
Streets between the Hudson and Harlem Rivers had a population of approximately 500,000
persons, of which roughly 50,000 were Black and 75,000 native-born White. The vast
majority were immigrants from Russia, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Australia, Hungary,
England, Spain and Scandinavia.
Although a few Blacks have lived in isolated areas of Harlem since its early settlement,
it was in the early 1800s that they began to move into the area in greater numbers.
By 1830, Black farmers had settled on East 130th Street, between Fifth and Park
Avenues, with Mother AME Zion church as the focal point of the settlement.
From 1904 onward, large numbers of Blacks began to move to Harlem from lower and
midtown Manhattan and from out of town. This was, in large part, the result of an
over-optimistic building boom at the turn of the century, which forced developers
faced with financial ruin to start renting apartments designed for White middle-income
families to the new arrivals. At first, landlords rented to “respectable” Black
families at outrageous prices. As Blacks started to arrive in masses, landlords
raised the rents and subdivided apartments to begin a legacy of over-crowding and
poor building maintenance that formed the foundation of slum conditions.
Efforts to keep Harlem White were made by business, civic and property owner associations,
but they failed in the end simply because realtors found it profitable to sell and
rent to Blacks. By 1918, the Black population numbered 60,000 persons living mostly
between Park and Eighth Avenues from 130th to 144th Streets. A few Blacks were even
able to buy houses on Striver’s Row along 138th and 139th Streets. These homes were
built in 1890 for $10,000 to $12,000 and often sold at a loss by Whites moving to
other parts of the city and suburbs.
Harlem had the character of a day and night “city within a city,” during the 1920s
and thrived as a major entertainment center and showcase for talented Black artists.
Jazz clubs provided jobs and income to the area. Theaters, libraries and institutions,
like the YMCA, provided outlets for cultural expression in the community.
Harlem’s Black population rapidly increased from 83,248 in 1920 to 203,894 in 1930,
with a residential density of 236 persons per acre, or twice that of Manhattan as
a whole. Low incomes and high rents forced two or three families into apartments
designed for one family.
Areas to the West and North were exclusively White, except for “Sugar Hill,” which
was occupied by a few middle and upper income Black families. Most Blacks were concentrated
in Central Harlem, with East Harlem’s Puerto Rican population coming mostly after
1930.
The Depression of 1929 brought all new construction and building maintenance to
a halt. A community that was becoming the leading Black metropolis of the world
was, at the same time, rapidly declining into an area of extended slum neighborhoods.
However, Morningside Heights, Hamilton Heights and Washington Heights did retain
a higher level of maintenance, in part due to the influence of major institutions
in these areas.
The mood of the 1930s was characterized by community demands for improved housing
conditions, better social welfare, higher healthcare standards, and more educational
opportunities. Political pressure resulted in legislation for several capital improvement
programs funded by city, state and federal agencies. Under the Roosevelt Administration,
the WPA Program was especially effective in physical development projects. The Harlem
River Houses, 557 units of low-rise housing, completed in 1937, were Harlem’s first
public housing project built with federal assistance. It remains today one of the
best maintained public housing complexes in Harlem.
In 1944, one of Harlem’s first master plans was produced by a team of architects
and planners headed by William Lescaze. Focused on Central Harlem between 110th
and 125th Streets from Morningside to Fifth Avenues, the plan laid the framework
for the present superblock public housing strip between 112th and 115th Streets,
extending from Lenox Avenue to the Harlem River.
The Urban Renewal Act of 1949 raised the hope with its promise to provide decent
housing for every American family. In the decade that followed, however, slum clearance
programs resulted in the relocation of as many, if not more, families as they housed,
establishing at the same time a pattern of monolithic architectural design in overwhelming
superblock housing developments with few design amenities.
In part, as a result of previous slum clearance policies, the 1960s were characterized
by a period of community suspicion and concern, as well as a desire for control
over and a change in the approach to urban planning and development. Although the
middle of the decade saw a large number of new urban renewal projects designated
in Harlem, often at the request of involved community groups, large areas are still
unaffected by such plans, with the result that much decay has continued unchecked.
*The above history is compliments of Mt. Morris Park Community Improvement
Association
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