Spirit of Harlem: A Portrait of America's Most Exciting Neighborhood

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"Harlem, long known as the epicenter of black cultural life in America, is undergoing a radical change. An unprecedented infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars in development capital is revitalizing the community and transforming a cityscape marred by decades of poverty. In a striking show of exuberance, upscale shops are materializing in once-abandoned buildings, new homes are popping up in vacant lots, and sheets of glass twinkle in place of grim, boarded-up windows. The economic renewal has lured a host of new people to the neighborhood:
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Overview

"Harlem, long known as the epicenter of black cultural life in America, is undergoing a radical change. An unprecedented infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars in development capital is revitalizing the community and transforming a cityscape marred by decades of poverty. In a striking show of exuberance, upscale shops are materializing in once-abandoned buildings, new homes are popping up in vacant lots, and sheets of glass twinkle in place of grim, boarded-up windows. The economic renewal has lured a host of new people to the neighborhood: doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, and even a former president. But it has also posed a threat to many residents who have lived through the worst of times and now fear that they will lose their homes and livelihoods as boom times sweep in." Spirit of Harlem documents this extraordinary period of transition through the words and faces of newcomers and longtime residents alike. There are reminiscences of Harlem during the 1920s through the 1960s, stories of friends and families gathering at churches, in local shops, and on the streets, and thoughts on what the future holds for the neighborhood.
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Editorial Reviews

The Washington Post
From the same team who produced the bestselling Crowns (a surprisingly successful photographic study of black women in church hats published in 2000) comes this fascinating survey of intriguing Harlemites. — Jabari Asim
Publishers Weekly
The duo responsible for Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats pay homage to a grand and quickly changing neighborhood. Local teachers, doctors, lawyers and journalists tell their own stories, as do artists, musicians, hatmakers, dry cleaners, literary agents, fencers, barbers, chess players and street vendors, illustrated by 52 on-site portraits. While the photos are largely conventional, many of the personal histories deserve their own books. Brett Cook-Dizney, a graffiti artist, briefly explains the "apprenticeship structure" of graffiti, "where someone usually shows you technique and style and then you fill in their lines for a while." Sy Oumoukoulshome, a hair braider, relates the honored place that braiders hold in her home country. "It's a tradition that some families in Senegal specialize in doing braids. They call them griots. It goes from generation to generation.... In Senegal, hair braiders have respect from people. But not in Harlem." The sequencing of stories and portraits is thoughtfully done. In one sequence, Kevin Taylor, the producer of Black Entertainment Television, precedes Robert Garland, a choreographer at Dance Theatre of Harlem, followed by Noah Stewart, who broke tradition by singing a spiritual at his Juilliard audition. He is in turn followed by Alice McClarty, a singer for the Sounds of Glory Choir, who herself precedes saxophonist Lonnie Youngblood. (Nov. 18) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Both of these titles explore the black experience in America, one in the particular locale of Harlem, the other on some of the 600 American streets named for Martin Luther King Jr. Wonderful photos and a generous, open-hearted narrative are integral to each book. Harlem is based on 50 two-page interviews, with photos of people ages 15 to 96 that reveal their perceptions, hopes, and understanding of the world and their neighborhood. A choreographer finds Harlem "the dance capital of the world for a long time." An art dealer remembers learning to play "Black ball you had to be willing to get knocked around" by Harlem Globetrotters at the Riverton projects. Others depicted include an Olympic fencer, a TV producer, a Schomburg tour guide, and a poet. The author and photographer previously collaborated on another wonderful title of smaller scope: Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats. Award-winning journalist Tilove and Falco, a commercial photographer, have created an episodic view as they careered for two years in search of streets named after Martin Luther King, including 125th Street in Harlem, first for a newspaper series and then for this book. The tour starts in Belle Glade, FL (pop. 15,000), whose high school has produced 21 pro athletes and, during the 1980s, the world's highest rate of AIDS. Succeeding chapters take in King's Atlanta; Selma, where MLK intersects with Jeff Davis Street; Dallas, Galveston, Jasper, and other Texas towns; Chicago; Oakland; and more. In place after place, MLK streets "lay bare the racial fault lines"; they are places where "white America seldom goes and Black America can be itself." We meet people striving to create a black nation, sponsoring a Black History competition and the Algebra Project, and creating Afrocentric schools. There are ministers, funeral directors, journalists, professors, poets, politicians, and artists, all living their lives in the vicinity of streets named for Martin Luther King Jr. There are ordinary people and people like poet Haki Madhubuti, influential in black America but invisible elsewhere. This book serves as a testament that the dream still lives. Buy both titles for every public library and for African American, social history, and local history collections.-Janice Dunham, John Jay Coll. Lib., CUNY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780385504065
  • Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 11/18/2003
  • Pages: 232
  • Product dimensions: 7.78 (w) x 8.38 (h) x 1.08 (d)

Meet the Author

CRAIG MARBERRY conducted the interviews and wrote the essays that appear in Spirit of Harlem. A former television reporter who has written articles for the Washington Post, Essence, and the Harlem-based newspaper the Amsterdam News, he is the owner of Info Video, an award-winning video production company. MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM is the photographer of Spirit of Harlem. He is the owner of Michael Cunningham Photography, whose clients include Coca-Cola USA and the Sara Lee Corporation, and his photographs have been featured in the New York Times, Ebony, and other national publications.

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First Chapter

Lana Turner, 51 REAL ESTATE BROKER

In Harlem, everything is in your face. It's a man blowing a trumpet on a subway platform or a stranger asking for a dollar. It's half a dozen African women sitting on chairs along the sidewalk, asking to braid your hair. It's a kid with his shirt open and his pants falling down, moving to the music in his head. It's walking past a group of men and one of them says, "Baby, you sho' look good today." The minute you step out your door, everything in Harlem is in your face. There's a beauty and a poetry in all of that.

Some people say, "Oh, the crowded streets and the noise! How can you take it?" To me, the idea of living anywhere else is so foreign because there's so much going on here that's beautiful, that's thought provoking, that's humorous. Despite all the things we have to plow through, blacks in Harlem still have a sense of humor.

There used to be a handwritten sign on a building on Lenox Avenue, across the street from Sylvia's Restaurant. It said: "This is the future home of the Crossroads Baptist Church, whenever we can raise the money." I loved that sign. It was hilarious, and yet it said something about faith.

I think it's important to walk the streets of Harlem. You can't feel Harlem if you're driving by. But if you walk, you'll see all kinds of things. There's an artist by the name of David Hammons. Back when there was an empty lot filled with tall weeds next to the Studio Museum, David Hammons collected dozens and dozens of wine bottles, the cheap ones made from green glass. He took those bottles and turned them upside down and stuck them on top of the weeds. One day I was walking past the museum, not payingany attention, and was dumbfounded when I saw what he did. It was like a field of glass flowers. That to me is extraordinary. It's extraordinary because there's humor in it and there's truth in it. It said something about the larger society seeing Harlem as a throw-away society, and how Harlem, nevertheless, can see the beauty in itself, can find art in weeds and empty bottles. There's beauty in the discarded. I'll never forget that.

I don't mean to idealize Harlem. There are some things that certainly need to change. No one would say they want crime or dirty streets, and everybody wants a better education for their children. But there are many things here that are so wonderful.

There's a woman I've seen who wears a tiara every day, and some sort of fairy-tale dress. It would be easy to write her off, but there's a certain courage rooted in her attire. This is a woman who sees herself as royalty. Her statement is to herself, and she's true to it every day. Some people fashion a way to be uniquely themselves outside of what everyone else thinks. They are the mavericks who influence the music we hear, the books we read, the art we appreciate.

Yes, Harlem has its own mythic proportions attached to it, but it's not unlike other black communities throughout the United States. There's humor, there's courage, there's art. Everyone worries about, "Oh, Harlem is becoming this or that!" I don't worry. What really makes Harlem Harlem, is the soul of the place. And despite all the change coming, I don't think you can obliterate that.

If you look back to to the early 1900s, when African Americans first came to Harlem in sizable numbers, there were headlines in the papers that were written in terms of a war being waged: "The Negroes Are a Menace" or, "Negroes Take Yet Another Building on 139th Street."

MICHAEL HENRY ADAMS Michael Henry Adams, 45 HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR

Once, I was conducting a tour of Harlem for the Lesbian-Gay Community Center. We were standing on Seventh Avenue and I was talking about the building across the street, and how Josephine Baker had lived there with a group of women when she was a chorus girl in Eubie Blake's musical Shuffle Along. As I was speaking, whizzing out of an upper window in the building behind us came a soda bottle. It hit a man in the head. The bottle broke and blood streamed down the man's face. Someone took him to Harlem Hospital, and four people on the tour decided they were leaving. Another man said, "Let's just cut our losses and go to lunch." I said, "No. Harlem is my home. I can't just surrender the streets to hoodlums." A woman in the group agreed, "Yeah, that's right! Let's get reinforcements and go through the building and find the person who threw the bottle." I said, "Well, I don't know about all of that." Anyhow, we continued the tour.

This whole notion of who belongs in Harlem, and who doesn't, is momentous. Black people here are really embittered by the prospect of displacement. You can ride on the subway and hear young men discussing what they see as white people coming and taking over Harlem. I've heard people complain about the national chains getting tax incentives to come here: the Gap, the Disney Store, Starbucks--heaven knows Manhattan doesn't need another Starbucks. And when I take tour groups around, which are often all white or predominantly white, invariably there will be a gesture of resentment toward the group. Some residents, rather than walking around the group, will very loudly and curtly say, "Excuse me!" Then they'll march through the middle of the group, the inference being, "This is my sidewalk. How dare you inconvenience me!"

That happens all the time. I was giving a tour last year and someone walked by and started shouting, "You people should go back where you came from. Harlem is not for sale! Harlem is not for sale!" The tragedy is that everything is always for sale. And the tragedy as far as African Americans are concerned is that we own so little of anything anywhere, including here in Harlem. A lot of people say this is our fault because we didn't buy buildings when we had the opportunity. There's something to be said for that. But as a historian, it occurs to me that this has happened before.

If you look back to the early 1900s, when African Americans first came to Harlem in sizable numbers, there were headlines in the papers that were written in terms of a war being waged: "The Negroes Are a Menace," or, "Negroes Take Yet Another Building on 139th Street." You'd think that was motivated out of pure racism, but now, as I experience the discomfiture of seeing the complexion of Harlem change, I realize that part of what those people were feeling was a sense of loss, a sense that a place they thought of as uniquely their own, a place connected to their culture and heritage, was turning into something else, was becoming someone else's.

During a recent television interview on CBS's "Sunday Morning," I said, "More and more, as I walk around Harlem, I see people who don't look like me, but who obviously live here." This was a joke to some of my white friends. They said, "What do you mean they don't look like you? They don't wear a straw hat?" But it's a concern to me because I wonder, in the wake of this change, if the African-American cultural capital can endure.

Bubba and me thought Harlem was heaven, all the tall buildings and the lights and the sights. One thing that stood out to me was seeing so many black people. I asked my aunt, "Where do the white folks live?"

REV. BETTY NEAL Rev. Betty Neal, 70 MINISTER AND ACTIVIST

I was twelve years old when they had that big riot in Harlem in 1943. I was in New York for the first time, on vacation, me and my brother, Alexander. We called him Bubba. Bubba was a year younger than me. My folks had sent us to visit with our aunt. We lived in Sumter, South Carolina, the Gamecock City, home of Revolutionary War general Thomas Sumter. There were no other houses out where we lived. We were way out in the woods. There was no running water, no electricity. We had a pump and kerosene lamps.

Me and Bubba were so happy about going to Harlem. Daddy took us to the bus depot. He went up to some black folk and asked who was going to New York. Somebody spoke up and Daddy asked them to watch over us. People were different in those days. You could trust strangers with your children, traveling eight hundred miles. Daddy told us to be good.

All the white people got on the bus first. When they got seated, all the black people got on and sat in the back. That's how it was.

In those days, buses didn't have toilets so they had to stop frequently. When we got off, we'd have to go on the colored folks' side of the depot to get a sandwich or anything. At one place we stopped, everybody got off except me and Bubba. We decided to sit on the front seat and open up the lunch mama made for us. Two white women had been sitting on that seat. When the driver got back on he said, "Now y'all chillins gotta go to the back of the bus. We ain't in New Yawk yet."

Aunt Roxanna met us at the bus station. Bubba and me thought Harlem was heaven, all the tall buildings and the lights and the sights. One thing that stood out to me was seeing so many black people. I asked my aunt, "Where do the white folks live?" She just laughed.

Aunt Roxanna lived at 239 West 116th Street. Right on the first floor. Beautiful apartment she had. She flicked a switch and a light came on. It was like a miracle. Aunt Roxanna had running water, a real bathtub. At home, we bathed in a big washtub. You had to heat the water in the fireplace or on the stove, if Mama was cooking. In the winter, the tub was in your bedroom. In the summer, it was on the back porch and you'd use cold water. At Aunt Roxanna's, I took a bath two or three times a day.

One night, the radio said there was a riot going on in Harlem. They were telling everybody to get off the street. A cop had beat up a black soldier, or shot a black soldier, and all hell broke loose. Four or five people got killed. My aunt said, "Oh, my Lord! Where's Bubba?" She ran from door to door and street to street but we couldn't find him. She said it wasn't no need calling the police because the police were busy with the riot.

Must have been around ten or eleven before Bubba came back. He said he was up on 125th watching the whole thing. He said, "Yeah, they were breaking out store windows and stealing things. People were running everywhere." Aunt Roxanna said, "Bubba, it's a wonder you didn't get killed."

That was some summer vacation.

When I was fifteen, I became a graffiti artist. I just got cans of spray paint and went out in the middle of the night and started doing it. . . . I was creating art on private property so it was vandalism, but I called it noncommissional work.

BRETT COOK-DIZNEY Brett Cook-Dizney, 33 ARTIST

My father doesn't talk to me. He's a retired educator, former assistant superintendent of schools in Oakland, California, where I grew up. His perspective is: "You have a degree in art. You have a degree in education. You could do anything, but you're living in an abandoned building, with no health care. How can you go to an institution like Berkeley and be satisfied living that spartan existence?"

Right before I moved to Harlem in 1997, I lived in an abandoned building in Newark, New Jersey. There was no heat. I ate potatoes every day. It was a huge building. It covered a whole block. Some nights, I could hear people breaking into the building to use drugs. I told myself, This sacrifice will matter one day. I've been through a lot to get here, to be an artist in Harlem.

I always loved creating art. My mother kept me quiet in church by giving me her deposit slips to draw on. When I was fifteen, I became a graffiti artist. I just got cans of spray paint and went out in the middle of the night and started doing it. That's not the traditional apprenticeship structure in graffiti, where someone usually shows you technique and style and then you fill in their lines for a while. Other graffiti artists were painting text, but I would paint figures, people in suits and fat shoestrings. I was creating art on private property so it was vandalism, but I called it noncommissional work.

People look at my murals and assume that I use brushes. But I work out of cans. Traditional painters say, "What you're doing with tone and color is incredible." Graffiti artists say, "Your can control is off the meter." Graffiti artists may not understand tone and color, but they understand how difficult it is to do what I do. When you work out of the can, you can't mix your colors on a palate. I have to do all these juxtapositions of colors to create depth and light and shadows.

I always thought graffiti was a real medium, even though the art world kicks it to the curb. But people don't know how to define what I do. Is it hip-hop? Is it high art? Is it urban beautification? Is it social activism? It's all of that, and a bunch of other stuff.

I've done thirty-something paintings here in Harlem in the last four years. Big eight-feet by twelve-feet panels of ordinary people who live in Harlem, people that look like your best friend's uncle on his mother's side, people you wouldn't otherwise hear about unless it was in an obituary. I hang the pieces in the neighborhoods where the subjects live. Six hundred people may come to a gallery, but if I put it outside, six hundred thousand people might see it in a day. The pieces are not going to live forever outside, but what they represent is timeless.

I never sign my work so it's difficult to get feedback. People can't find me. But that's fine because it's not about me. It's about the work. It's about Harlem. One day, as I was hanging some pieces on buildings, there was such an outpouring of gratitude. People kept coming up saying, "Thank you. Thank you." At every site, people upon people upon people. "We really appreciate this. Pictures of ourselves in Harlem. Thank you." It was one of the most profound days I've ever had as an artist. I'd like my father to understand how I felt that day, but it's a lot bigger than my father. It's about having people understand. Life is more than the pursuit of comfort. Life is learning to sacrifice.

Copyright© 2003 by Craig Marberry and Michael Cunningham
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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 23, 2003

    Awesome

    Spirit of Harlem is a wonderful treasure of a book. Looking at the photographs and reading the interviews is like going on a journey. Your eyes take in every color and every shape; your ears take in every sound, every smell, and you can hear the people's voices, some ordinary, some famous, yet they all ring loud and rise from these pages. I've never read anything like this book, one that forces you to laugh and cry at the same time. One that opens up your eyes to a world that you didn't really existed. It's a flavor-filled coffee table book bursting with wondrous history. And it truly embodies the human spirit as the voices of people from different races and cultures all share their common bond of living and/or working in Harlem. The Spirit of Harlem is just that - a spirit of discovery that races through from the pages and causes you to learn things you've never heard before. Even if you've haven't been to Harlem, the book makes you proud and happy to know that such a place exists. This important book is highly recommended.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 23, 2009

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