2460 Second Avenue, ca. 1928. Up until 2015, this site was a bus depot operated by the New York City Transit Depot. The city-owned site will become the Harlem African Burial Ground and Cultural Center, slated for completion in 2021. An 1820 map indicates that the plot was initially owned by Nathaniel G. Ingraham. A church and slave burial ground occupied the portion of the lot closest to the Harlem River. In the late 19th-century, the lot became Sulzer's Harlem River Park, an amusement park that covered the entire block between First and Second Avenue and 126th and 127th Street. Herman Sulzer opened the Harlem River Park after his father gave him the land in 1878. The property included various entertainment venues such as a large casino, restaurants, meeting rooms, and a carousel. However, it was not to last. On an unfortunate late November morning in 1907, the park caught on fire. The New York Times reported "strong northeast wind all over Harlem," leading to the fire to spread into a $200,000 disaster. The paper chronicled a dramatic scene of a woman who worked for the casino jumping from a window to escape flames engulfing the building's staircase. She survived the fall but broke both her ankles. Nor were only employees affected! Ernest Sultzer, the president of the park at the time, owned an apartment on the second floor of the casino. Upon hearing of the fire, he rushed home to rescue his wife, who was trapped inside. She was saved, but only three exterior walls of the casino remained after the blaze. The nearby 126th Street station of the Second Avenue Elevated was spared as firefighters worked diligently to stop the flames from spreading. A new, much larger casino was built one year later. By World War I, Sultzer's Park had been sold to the city of New York and was being used for a different purpose. The New York 15th National Guard Infantry Regiment, or the 369th Regiment, an all-black infantry unit, was housed in barracks and trained before deployment on the site. The property was acquired by Cosmopolitan Productions in 1918. The company was a brainchild of William Randolph Hearst in conjunction with Adolph Zucker of Paramount Pictures. Heart's publications, such as Cosmopolitan Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, and Good Housekeeping would warm up readers to the storylines of Cosmopolitan Production's movies before they were released. Thus, by the time they hit the screen, the films would have already captured the public's attention. In a particularly unlucky incident, the lot caught fire once again in the morning hours of February 19th, 1923. The Times reported that the second fire razed "the studio's electrical equipment and scenery, and almost the entire wardrobe," though its reels were salvaged. To properly contain the fire, Con Edison had to shut off electricity to the entire surrounding area. The neighborhood was left without power until six in the evening when the flames finally subdued. Hearst rebuilt the studio after the fire, but split with Zukor to merge with Goldwyn Pictures. Goldwyn provided a studio in Culver City, California for the production company to operate out of while the Harlem studio was rebuilt. In 1924, Marcus Loew of Metro Pictures Corporation acquired Goldwyn-Cosmopolitan and re-named it Metro-Goldwyn. By the time the new building was completed, the film company was called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after a subsequent merger. MGM occupied the lot until some time after the mid-20th century.

125th Street Branch, NYPL, July 18, 1928. Constructed as the Harlem Branch in 1904, the library on East 15th Street is a McKim, Mead & White building. It was given its current designation when a new library was named the Harlem Branch upon completion in 1909. (That branch is on West 124th Street.) The three-story facade is of an Italian Renaissance palazzo style. The semi- circular decorative sections over the second floor windows (called tympanum) depict iconography of classical architecture such as laurels and anchors. The one over the center window depicts a shield with part of the seal of the City of New York: a four-blade windmill (representing the Dutch settlers), two beavers, and two flour barrels (symbolizing the two most important exports of New Amsterdam: furs and flour).

Welcome! This is a digital tour companion for our 2024 Jane's Walk tour on May 4th, 2024, led by Kathy Benson-Haskins, co-founder of Landmark East Harlem (landmarkeastharlem.org). For those who don’t know, Jane’s Walk is a global festival of volunteer-led walks inspired by urbanist Jane Jacobs and occurs annually during the first weekend in May. And the Municipal Art Society of NY hosts the largest of the fests right here in New York City—this year some 165 tours over the three days. This walk focuses on the original village of Nieuw Haarlem, established by the Dutch in 1658 when New York was New Amsterdam. We are currently standing two blocks south of the village center, but I wanted to start here because there are two interesting sites that I want you to see beforehand. The first is one of the three most recent buildings to be designated New York City landmarks.

This story is about the lot between First and Second Avenues between 126th and 127th streets. The city is presently redeveloping this block-spanning lot into a cultural center, memorial, and mixed-use development. The memorial will commemorate the African Burial Ground, which was part of the Dutch village of Nieuw Harlem. The excavation of the cemetery took place after the New York Transit Depot closed the bus depot that had operated on the site. The project will be called the Harlem African Burial Ground Memorial and is planned for completion in 2021. Between the cemetery and bus depot, this lot has taken on quite a history in its own right. Take a look at the history of this corner in Harlem.

Gristede Brothers, ca. 1921. Founded by two teenage brothers, Diedrich (Dick) and Charles Gristede, in 1888, Gristede's would become a city mainstay over the next half century. The original small grocery store, located at 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue, prospered and within 50 years the grocery store had become a successful chain with more than 150 stores in the city, Westchester, Long Island and Connecticut. This 128th Street location opened in a new purpose-built structure in 1920. Today the building still stands, sans the 'Gristede Brothers 1920' lettering that once graced the triangular pediment at the top.

New York Public Library, 125th Street Branch ARCHITECT: McKim, Mead & White DATE: 1904 STYLE: Renaissance Revival McKim, Mead & White’s philosophy was that the libraries were designed to serve two purposes: to be specific to their neighborhood yet universal in character, and to be expressive of a municipal building type. The striking Renaissance Revival-style building is of the palazzo type. The building is clad in rusticated Indiana limestone and is three stories high and three bays wide. Large arched windows dominate the first floor with an entrance offset to the right with an arched glass transom above. The tall second-floor window openings are topped by arched decorative transom panels. The third floor has three small square windows that pierce the façade, creating a clerestory.

Accident on Lexington Avenue at the intersection of 121st Street, July 21, 1915.

A direct means of making Harlem's first apartment buildings more attractive to potential tenants was the practice of including an ornate banking room on the ground floor. In fact, before 1920, bank buildings that did not include apartment suites were uncommon. The Mount Morris Bank/Morris Apartments was the result of a limited competition that included McKim, Mead & White. Designed by Lamb & Rich and completed in 1884, the structure housed apartments that were later transformed into offices. Splendidly devised, the cherry-red brick and terra-cotta structure exhibited a stylistic lineage derived from Romanesque, Queen Anne, and Dutch sources. It was one of Lamb's great achievements. One of about six small banks founded in late nineteenth-century Harlem, the Mount Morris Bank was by 1913 absorbed by a mightier citywide financial institution, the Corn Exchange Bank. The building itself was partially destroyed by arson in 1997.

Columbus Theatre, 1896. Oscar Hammerstein I opened the Columbus Theatre on 125th Street in 1890. It presented lighter theatrical fare than its sister theater down the street, the Harlem Opera House. The playhouse was sold to F.F. Proctor and renamed Keith & Proctor's 125th Street Theater, showing vaudeville acts. The Proctor/Keith partnership ended in 1911. Films had been added to the theater's program by the time, and it was renamed Proctor's 125th Street Theatre. The theater was taken over by RKO in the 1930s and closed in 1953.

Storefront law offices in East Harlem, May 18, 1938. These law offices, run by the two sons of founder David Flam, occupied 165 East 121st Street for 25 years. Located directly across the street from the Harlem Courthouse, the firm offered an array of court-related services. A variant image shows two lawyers, perhaps the brothers Flam, standing at the front door. Abbott rejected this version, however, in which the men detracted from the colorful names stenciled on the plate glass. Only weeks after Abbott’s photograph, the firm moved to larger quarters at 181 East 121st Street. Today no. 165 is an overgrown vacant lot, and the rest of the block is largely abandoned. The imposing courthouse, built in 1891 and long neglected, was granted landmark status in 1967 and is under renovation.

Take your mother for a stroll around East and Central Harlem above 125th Street, straddling Fifth Avenue, the traditional dividing line between East and Central Harlem. Members of Landmark East Harlem (LEH) will introduce you to the treasures of the second historic district that LEH has proposed for listing on the National and State Registers of Historic Places. Featured sites include 19th-century wood-frame houses, Victorian-era rowhouses, landmarks associated with James Baldwin and Langston Hughes, former church buildings that have been given new purpose, and the brownstone stoop that served as the site of the iconic 1958 photograph of jazz musicians by Art Kane for Esquire magazine.

125th Street approach to the Triborough Bridge, 1937.

Northwest corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue looking west, March 15, 1915.

Election in East Harlem, October 28, 1912. Political banners promoting Republican candidates line the streets at Lexington Avenue and East 125th Street, a little over a week before Election Day. In the Presidential race, Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic candidate, defeated the incumbent Republican William Howard Taft; Theodore Roosevelt, running as a candidate of the Progressive Party, having failed to secure toe G.O.P. nomination; and Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs. In the background, the elevated 125th Street station of the New York Central Railway is visible.

East 128th Street and Harlem River Drive Handball Court Keith Haring 1986 Famed graffiti artist Keith Haring (1958-90) painted two colorful murals on both sides of a concrete handball court in 1986. The design is composed of Haring’s signature kinetic figures and abstract forms in bold outlines, cautioning youth against crack, an addictive and dangerous form of cocaine whose use had reached epidemic proportions. The Crack is Wack mural is a lasting reminder of Keith Haring’s talent and legacy. A foundation in his memory was established, which continues to support the preservation of the mural. Photo courtesy Marina Ortiz, East Harlem Preservation, Inc.

Kopper House, ca. 1920. Referred to as the "oldest house in Harlem" at the beginning of the 20th century, the Kopper House was built in 1790 by architect Johann Hermann Raub for his family. As can been seen pointedly in this photograph, the front of the house (the porch at right) was constructed in brick, while the rear was clapboard. The front of the house was rendered in the more expensive material and the eventual layout of the street (here 124th Street) provided the stark view of the two halves. Originally the house would have been surrounded by a large plot of land and an orchard of fruit trees brought to this country by its builder. The house, referred to as "Haunted House" in a 1924 NY Times article about it, survived into the early 1930s but it is unclear when it was finally demolished.