Harlem
The island of Manhattan is bounded by the East, Hudson, and Harlem Rivers, and is one of the five boroughs of New York City. In the early 1920s, the city is a center point of migration, making New York City the world’s most populous city by 1925. An economic boom after the Great War has created more opportunities as the city grows into surrounding farmland, while in the late 1920s, Lower Manhattan begins growing into the sky with the completion of the Chrysler and Empire State buildings in the 1930s.
Harlem falls between 96th and 155th streets to the south and north, and the Harlem River and Hudson River on the east and west. Within Harlem, two grand boulevards run north-south through the neighborhood: Seventh and Lenox Avenues. The neighborhood extends south to Central Park. Elevated train tracks run above crowded streets, bringing in the service from Lower Manhattan to 129th Street in Harlem, and along Third Avenue from the Bronx to the north across the Harlem River. With increased demand from a booming population of residents, the “els” make the rattle and grind of trains a common background pulse in the city.
Because there is a pre-existing black population in the neighborhood, Harlem becomes the popular stop for the newly arrived black immigrants. Many new to the city come as part of the first Great Migration of those fleeing segregation and violence in the South, and those who come in search of better opportunities in the wake of the Great War. A secondary stream comes from the Caribbean islands; migration from the West Indies accounts for a little more than 12 percent of the new population by 1923, making Jamaican and Haitian accents common throughout the area.
Between 1900 and 1920, the black population in central Harlem triples, taking advantage of the economic opportunity created by a demand for workers during the war. The changing demographics are not welcomed by white residents, leading to attempts a few years before the start of the war to resist the influx. Financial, political, and journalistic pressure sought to establish Lenox Avenue as an informal color line. By the 1920s, this effort fails under pressure from the AARC and the opportunities presented by a thriving and growing population. By 1930, the neighborhood is 70 percent black as far south as Central Park.
As a rule of thumb, the higher the street number in Harlem, the higher-class type of establishment or housing you can expect to find. As a result, the northern edges of the neighborhood are also the wealthier areas, where the black elite live. A spectrum from major clubs on the north end on down to speakeasies and greasy meal carts toward the south, where a penny buys you a bowl of soup that might’ve touched meat in a previous incarnation.
HARLEM IN THE 1920S
Once an afluent neighborhood, Harlem was gradually abandoned by its original white Manhattanite inhabitants as European immigrants, predominantly Italian and Jewish refugees flocked into the area towards the end of the 19th century. They, in turn, steadily gave way over the opening decades of the 20th century to residents from New York’s other black communities, as well as newcomers who moved to the city as part of the Great Migration, immigrants from the British Caribbean colonies, and a growing number of Latin American arrivals after World War One in the area that became known as “Spanish Harlem.” During the 1920s, the area was populated by African-Americans (predominantly Central and West Harlem), alongside Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Latino communities (largely based in East Harlem). The neighborhood was plagued by police brutality, as well as racial tension as newcomers came and went, further fuelled by the return of African-American soldiers seeking housing, work, and recognition of their civil rights following the Great War. African-American gangs formed across the city in order to protect their neighbors and neighborhoods from the police and white (usually Irish) rabble-rousers, although much of the tension in Harlem itself involved police harassment of the various ethnic communities. While the New York Age urged respectability and good citizenship in the face of this violence, the Amsterdam News encouraged Harlem’s African-American residents to speak up and demand justice, though stopped short of advocating violence in return. In 1920, the boundaries of Harlem were roughly defined as 131st Street to 144th Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenue. By 1928, this had expanded out to cover the area between St. Nicholas Avenue and the Harlem River (west to east) between 110th Street and Central Park and 159th Street and the Polo Grounds (south to north). Perhaps the thing Harlem is most famous for during the 1920s and ‘30s is the Harlem Renaissance, an outpouring of African-American art, literature, culture, and social activism that reached its peak between 1924 and 1929. People from all over the city (and country) flocked to Harlem for, amongst other things, events and talks at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library and the flamboyant nightlife in the neighborhood’s many clubs, speakeasies, and saloons. Homosexuality was also more accepted in Harlem than elsewhere in New York, but due to the ongoing pressures to conform from certain quarters, such residents still had to watch their step.Industry & Trade
OLD VERSUS NEW
The weekly New York Age, published in Harlem, represented the middle-class values of what became known as the “Old Negroes” (the wealthier conservative establishment who had lived in New York since its earliest days, who largely believed that acceptance could only be achieved by conforming to white expectations). Its opposite number, the weekly Amsterdam News, represented the “New Negroes,” concentrating more on the issues and events affecting Harlem and promoting political self-expression and genuine equalityDistricts
Sugar Hill
145th to 155th Streets Sugar HillThe Valley
130th to 140th Streets The ValleyJungle Alley
133rd Street Jungle AlleyThe Black Mecca
The Black MeccaThe Golden Edge
110th Street The Golden EdgeGuilds and Factions
ORGANIZED CRIME
Harlem was home to several organized crime factions, including the notorious Italian Black Hand gang of extortionists (whose activities largely died out in the 1920s due to changes in American immigration law). It was also the playground of both the Jewish and Italian mobs (including the 116th Street Crew), who controlled the area’s speakeasies and nightclubs, including the famous Cotton Club (owned by gangster and former Sing-Sing inmate, Owney Madden). African-American gangs, particularly those under the control of Stephanie St. Clair and Casper Holstein (the so-called “Bolito King”) ran numbers in Harlem so as not to encroach on the white gangs’ territories (extortion, prostitution, and bootlegging)Maps
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Harlem
Harlem, circa. 1920s
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