Sydenham Hospital, 1925. Sydenham opened as a private hospital in a Harlem brownstone in 1892. The hospital served mostly African-American patients who lived in the neighborhood. To meet the needs of its growing community, Sydenham moved to West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue in 1924. Though Harlem was a largely African-American neighborhood, the staff of the hospital was reported to be all-white in 1944; likely due to the fact that discrimination within the medical community left little to no opportunities for African American healthcare professionals. To amend this, the hospital employed a desegregation policy, which was radical at the time. Sydenham hired twenty African Americans to its staff and brought six African Americans onto its Board, making it the first full-service hospital to hire black physicians. By 1947, the New York Times wrote that it was "praised...for its inter-racial activities...an example for the entire world," by Eleanor Roosevelt, who spoke at a fundraiser on behalf of the hospital. After the fundraiser, the director Dr. Sigmund L. Friedman made the statement that Sydenham was "the best place to prove that race, creed, and color have no importance in the hospital." The fundraiser that Mrs. Roosevelt spoke at was just one of many attempts to keep the hospital fiscally afloat. Throughout its existence, Sydenham was ridden with money problems. Finally bending to financial strain in 1949, the hospital was transferred from private ownership to New York City's municipal hospital system, though it allowed private patients to continue seeing doctors at Sydenham to "preserve the interracial practice of the hospital." In 1979, Sydenham Hospital became the center of a massive walk-out staged by the Committee for Interns and Residents. When Ed Koch took office as the Mayor in 1977, he reduced city spending on all municipal hospitals. Two hospitals in Harlem, Sydenham and Metropolitan, were slated for closure. Harlem was a "medically underserved area," and the two public hospitals were vital for the community's wellbeing. Additionally, Sydenham's sickle cell anemia clinic, led by Florence Gaynor, was of importance to the medical community at large. Unfortunately, countless public rallies and demonstrations were ignored by the city and in 1980, the city officially closed Sydenham. The hospital was subsequently occupied by "The People's Administration," for 10-days of protest, who brought national attention to the importance of the hospital. Sydenham's demise provided a cautionary lesson. In 1998, reflecting on the changing terrain of public healthcare in New York City, Sharon Lerner wrote in the Village Voice: "The Sydenham blunder paved the way for today’s more clandestine approach to hospital downsizing, in which the city reduces its contribution to the Health and Hospitals Corporation and the agency is thereby ”forced” to make cuts to the public hospitals."

H. C. F. Koch & Company Department, ca. 1891. C. F. Koch & Company was established in 1860 in Greenwich Village as a purveyor of dry good and "fancy good." The business successful moved uptown to the Ladies Mile shopping district by the 1870s. Shocking their competitors in the neighborhood, Koch announced that they would close their 20th Street store for a move to Harlem in 1890. The Harlem building, designed by architect William H. Hume, was a five-story shopping emporium. Opened in 1891, the store sold its previous ware but, according to a contemporary article, also offered "a full line of millinery, china and glassware, bedding and furniture, shoes, boys’ clothing, etc." The building also featured passenger elevators, electric lighting, and a pneumatic tube cash system. The store remained successful through the mid 1920s but suffered as the neighborhood demographics shifted in the late 1920s and early 1930s. They closed in 1932 after the founder passed away. Somewhat surprisingly though the 1891 building remains on 125th Street looking very much like it must have 125 years ago.

Lenox Lounge, ca. 1985. The Lenox Lounge opened in 1939 and quickly became a favorite Harlem spot for musicians and those in search of great jazz, classy interiors (the bar’s legendary Zebra Room was known for its zebra skinned walls), and good drinks. By the 1960s there was less jazz activity in the neighborhood bars and by the end of the 20th century, the Lenox Lounge had deteriorated. In 1999-2000 it underwent a restoration to bring back its period details like the Zebra print walls and geometric floor tiles, while at the same time booking live jazz once again. Sadly, due to rent increases the club closed at the end of 2012. A new owner planned to keep the interiors for a new venue, while the owner who sold the building (and retained the rights to the Lenox Lounge name) planned to open a new club nearby. Neither plan came to fruition and the structure was demolished in 2017

Lenox Lounge, 1961. This legendary art deco lounge survived for decades before submitting to changing tastes and development. Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and a host of jazz greats all played here.

Orient Theatre, June 24, 1927. The Orient Theatre was in operation by 1915 and had a seating capacity of 600. The theatre remained open until the early 1950s. In 1952, famed Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson opened a menswear and appliance store in a portion of the building which had previously housed the theatre.

L.M. Blumstein department store, 125th Street. March 21, 1954. Louis Blumstein, a German Immigrant, opened a department store on West 125th Street in 1898. Over the next two decades, the street continued to develop into an uptown shopping district. Blumstein died in 1920, but his family pressed on with expansion plans, breaking ground on a new, eight-story building in 1921. The hybrid Art Nouveau-Art Deco structure stretched the entire block between 124th and 125th Streets and made extensive use of copper ornamentation on its main facade. As African-American families moved to Harlem in greater numbers, the entirely white sales staff at Blumstein’s became a point of tension in the neighborhood. In 1934, the Citizens’ League For Fair Play organized a successful boycott of the store, leading to a change in its hiring practices. In 1943, Blumstein’s became the first department store to feature black mannequins and a black Santa Claus as part of its holiday programming. On September 20, 1958, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed at a book signing held at Blumstein’s. Izola Curry stabbed the civil rights leader with a letter opener, nearly piercing his aorta. A bystander wisely cautioned onlookers not to remove the letter opener, lest it cause damage on the way out, likely saving King’s life. The Blumstein family sold the building in 1976.

Hotel Theresa ARCHITECT: George & Edward Blum DATE: 1912-13 STYLE: Terra-cotta The Theresa entered the national limelight in 1960 when Cuban premier Fidel Castro chose to stay at the hotel while visiting New York to speak at the United Nations General Assembly; while at the Theresa, Castro hosted a visit from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. The Hotel Theresa, built in 1912-13, is significant in the history of Harlem, America’s most prominent African-American community, as one of the most important social centers of that community. It is a major work by the noted architectural firm of George & Edward Blum, exemplifying this firm’s singular approach to ornamentation and inventive use of terra-cotta.

161 West 129th Street, ca. 1932.

Temple Israel, ca. 1907. The Temple Israel Reform congregation was incorporated in 1873, first worshipping in a series of rented and temporary spaces in East Harlem, then in a converted church at Fifth Avenue and 125th Street. The congregation was primarily composed of German immigrants, part of what was then a large Jewish community in Harlem. In 1906, the congregation broke ground on its own space, a Neoclassical limestone synagogue at the corner of Lenox Avenue and 120th Street. However, Temple Israel’s Lenox Avenue tenure was to be short lived; Harlem’s Jewish population began to shift to other parts of the city, and Temple Israel followed suit, moving to a new, Upper West Side synagogue in 1920. The Mount Olivet Baptist Church, the current tenants, purchased the Lenox Avenue building in 1925.

The Winfield Scott Hancock Statue commemorates the United States Army Officer and presidential nominee who fought in numerous wars including the Mexican War, Seminole War, and Civil War. The Board of Aldermen dedicated this recently acquired plot of land to the war hero in 1886. Sculptor James Wilson Alexander MacDonald likely based this piece on a plaster mask taken of Hancock the year he ran for president. A smaller casting is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection.

"Settling in for what they initially assumed would be a temporary stay at Harlem’s Theresa Hotel, Anna and Merritt \[Hedgeman] set about looking for employment and permanent housing… The Theresa offered a suite of rooms at a reasonable rate, a central location, and a bit of celebrity. The stately white terra cotta and brick hotel had only recently opened its doors to black guests, but now a bevy of black entertainers, artists, and socialites called the “Waldorf of Harlem” home… The tallest building in Harlem, standing on the corner of 125th Street and 7th Avenue, now Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, and near Frank’s Restaurant, the Apollo Theater, the Harlem Opera House, the African Memorial National Bookstore, and Blumstein’s Department Store, the Theresa literally offered a window on Harlem’s political, social, and cultural life. Anna and Merritt would become two of the hotel’s high-profile residents, a group that included writer Zora Neale Hurston, socialite Grace Nail Johnson, Negro Yearbook editor Florence Murray, and entertainer Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson." For more on the social world at Harlem's Theresa, check out this article by Jennifer Scanlon on the forgotten civil rights pioneer Anna Hedgeman in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Hancock Park was dedicated to war hero Winfield Scott Hancock in 1886 by the New York City Board of Aldermen. The board gained possession of this property the year of Hancock's death and saw fit to celebrate the decorated general. The Coalition of 100 Black Women has maintained this small park since 1981. Recent plantings have included the introduction of evergreens, tulips, and a perennial garden.

The Apollo Theater is located at 253 West 125th Street. For more than forty years it was the country’s most important venue for black entertainment. Built in 1913, it was originally a vaudeville and burlesque house known as Hurtig & Seamon’s New Theater. Amateur Night, introduced by showman Ralph Cooper, Sr., has been a staple at the Apollo since its opening in 1934. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, James Brown, and the Jackson Five are just a few of the winners of Amateur Night.

Saint Paul’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church ARCHITECT: Schneider & Herter DATE: 1897-98 STYLE: Neo-Gothic, Church Faced in bluish-gray Vermont marble, the church building is a distinguished example of late nineteenth-century neo-Gothic church design. The symmetrical tripartite facade, featuring projecting corner towers with prominent spires, is enriched with gabled arches, lancet windows, finials, and an impressive rose window of leaded opalescent glass with jewel work. After nearly a century of use, the church’s grandeur and architectural integrity are very much apparent.

Mount Morris Brownstones: 6–10 Mount Morris Park West Designed by James A. Ware 1891 This row of brownstone houses has recently been restored and is in beautiful condition. The architect, James A. Ware, is most recognized for his development of the dumbbell tenement.

Apollo Theater, ca. 1985. The most famous music venue in Harlem was opened as a “Whites Only” burlesque theater in 1914. It reopened as the Apollo Theater in 1934. From the swing bands of the 1930s to soul and gospel, rock, and blues, the Apollo has been host to Duke Ellington, Count Basie, the Staple Sisters, Mahalia Jackson, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, Buddy Holly, Billie Holiday, Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, James Brown, George Clinton and the Parliament-Funkadelic, Al Green, and in 2012, President Barack Obama singing "Let’s Stay Together" to Al Green.

Turks Lounge and Bar, March 11, 1954.

Mount Olivet Baptist Church (Temple Israel) 201–203 Lenox Avenue Designed by Arnold W. Brunner, 1906–07 This Neo-Classical limestone building looks like a Roman temple, yet it was originally constructed as a synagogue. Arnold W. Brunner designed many synagogues, including Shearith Israel located on Central Park West, 10 years before this building, in 1897. If one looks closely, Stars of David can be found adorning the building. Mount Olivet, the first African-American congregation on Lenox Avenue, has occupied this building since 1924. The congregation was organized in 1878 and continues to worship at this site today. This building is an example of religious structures in Harlem serving different religions and cultures over time as residents change.

O'Reilly Storage, April 13, 1925. One of the tallest structures in this area of Harlem, the O'Reilly Storage was constructed in 1892 as a storage facility to serve the new residents of the booming middle class neighborhood. The orange and red brick building stood for more than a century, becoming the Dwyer Warehouse in the 1960s. By the start of the 21st century, the building was in poor condition and was largely razed in 2005. The condominium that rose in its place includes some small portion of the original building's base and calls to mind the former structure with orange bricks and a similar silhouette, complete with hexagonal corner tower.

New York Public Library, Harlem Branch. March 20, 1928. A Carnegie Library designed by the McKim, Mead & White firm, the Harlem Branch opened to the public in January 1909. It replaced an earlier Harlem Branch library which, according to the NYPL, had been in operation as early as 1826.

Hotel Theresa ca. 1934 Built by Gustavus Sidenberg, a lace dealer who named the hotel for his late wife before marrying another Theresa, the Hotel Theresa was hailed as a triumphant testament to Harlem's arrival as a self-contained district. It was the tallest Harlem structure of its day, retaining that distinction until 1973, when the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. state office building was erected. The structure's height, together with the stylized sunrise on the façade, symbolized the builder's hopes for all the good things modernity was still to bring to Harlem. Sidenberg maintained a strict policy that excluded black people, except as servants. Many other hotels, theaters, and department stores discriminated against blacks during the years now celebrated as the Harlem Renaissance. Not until 1937, nearly twenty years after African Americans came to dominate Harlem's population, was this discriminatory policy rescinded at the Hotel Theresa. New black owners welcomed boxer Joe Louis, singer and actress Lena Horne, and dancer and singer Josephine Baker, as well as Cuban premiere Fidel Castro. Senator John F. Kennedy would choose the Hotel Theresa as his forum when he asked Harlem blacks for their support, and Malcolm X would form the Organization of Afro-American Unity in the top floor's double-height dining room.

Harlem Opera House ca. 1905 Impresario Oscar Hammerstein's 1,800-seat Harlem Opera House was designed by one of the city's most productive theater specialists, J. B. McElfatrick & Sons. The facade was ornately embellished with arabesque panels and a hierarchy of pilasters; allegorical statuary surmounted its crowning parapet. Its interpretation of European architecture was as free as that of any Disney castle. Jules Hurtig and Harry Seamon took over the Harlem Opera House around 1903 and operated there until they leased a newly-built theater at 253 West 125th Street (corner of Lenox Avenue) in 1914. Hurtig & Seamon's (New) Burlesque Theatre played to an all-white clientele, but in 1928, that structure became the Apollo Theatre.

Apollo Theater ARCHITECT: George Keister DATE: 1913-14 The Apollo Theater was for four decades starting in the 1930s one of New York City’s and the nation’s foremost arenas for leading popular black American performing talent. It retains much of its original character, including its proscenium and flanking boxes and classically-inspired plaster ornament. Its construction reflects the early twentieth-century entertainment history of vaudeville and burlesque in Harlem, in particular, the tradition of Harlem theaters which displayed black performers in a variety show format. The Apollo Theater was graced by the presence of nearly all major black American performers at some point in their careers, reflects the migration of blacks to Harlem and represents the cultural contributions of Harlem and black Americans to New York City and the nation.

Metropolitan Baptist Church ARCHITECT: John R. Thomas DATE: 1884-85 STYLE: Gothic, Romanesque Revival Designed in two sections by different architects, the Metropolitan Baptist Church (originally the New York Presbyterian Church) is a fine example of the many new churches built in Harlem during the late 19th century at a time when the local church represented wealth and stability to the community. The building is distinguished by a somewhat unusual blend of the Gothic and Romanesque Revival styles, both favored in part for their imposing character, and reflects the importance of its original congregation. The earlier section of rough-faced limestone church, fronting on West 128th Street, was planned by John Rochester Thomas in 1884. It housed a small lecture room/chapel and was erected with the intention of adding a principal auditorium structure at a later date. The addition, comprising the Seventh Avenue facade and the northern section of the church, was completed in 1890 and designed by Richard R. Davis. Davis’ extension, with its dominating gable and towers, complemented the Thomas design incorporating many details from the earlier structure.

Park & Tilford ca. 1908 By the time the Park and Tilford building was completed in 1907, architect B. Hustace Simonson had emerged as a leader in duplex apartment design. His fashionable reserve is well-represented here: Ionic pilasters on the upper floor correspond to the ground story's Ionic piers and engaged columns. Only the entrance to the offices has any decorative flourish-a flowery garland. Park and Tilford was one of New York's most prestigious purveyors of fine spirits, choice groceries, and tobacco. The rich of Harlem shopped here in the 1910s, and a teenage Henry Roth (later to become an acclaimed writer) worked as a delivery boy. Delivering groceries throughout the neighborhood, he observed that Harlem was a divided community: white gentiles shopped primarily on 125th Street, Jews on 116th Street, and African Americans on 135th Street. Roth appreciated all too well that there were many places where he, a Jew, was no more welcome than were black newcomers. Fearing the effects of the anticipated enactment of Prohibition and faced with an increasingly poor and black neighborhood, Park and Tilford closed its doors in 1919.

122nd Street, east from Seventh Avenue (now Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard). Ca. 1905. Thaddeus Wilkerson's street scene has every appearance of a Sunday stroll, with men, women, and children (plus one stray dog!) all out and about. The church in the background is St. Martin’s Episcopal. The storefronts of the corner building at right is (then No. 2039) are J. Perlmutter, possibly a grocer, and American Lenox Laundry.

West 125th Street, north side between St. Nicholas Avenue and Fredrick Douglas Boulevard, June 21, 1934. Frank's Restaurant is seen at center with the neon sign hanging out from the building. For much of its early 20th century history Frank's only allowed African Americans in the bar but not the restaurant proper. Exceptions to this were famous entertainers and politicians. The story goes that in the 1940s heavyweight champ Joe Louis would often bring large groups to Frank's and they would seat them, not wanting to reject the wishes of the celebrity. By the 1950s Frank's was integrated.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and 126th Street ca. 1964 Following the killing of James Powell, a fifteen-year-old boy, by police, on July 16th, 1964, Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant erupted into six consecutive nights of rioting and protests. Disparate groups in both communities, outraged at continued racism and police brutality, organized a series of meetings that looked for solutions in the form of everything from passive protest to active revolution. Throughout the riots, protestors clashed with the police, whose presence and anti-riot tactics were inflammatory for the grieving neighborhood. Four thousand New Yorkers were said to have taken part in the riots that ended on July 22nd, leaving one rioter dead, and hundreds more injured and arrested.

The Borden’s Milk ice cream parlor at Eighth Avenue (Frederick Douglass Boulevard) and West 125th Street, 1939. Photographer Sid Grossman’s shot captures a busy street scene on Eighth Avenue, underneath the tracks of the IRT Ninth Avenue El, which ran over Eighth Avenue above 110th Street. The shot also includes a No. 10 bus, bound for Macombs Place and West 154th Street.

Protestant Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity ca. 1932 Inspired by Henry Hobson Richardson's Trinity Church in Boston (1872-1877), Harlem's Holy Trinity is built of granite with bands of reddish brown Longmeadow sandstone. Its three buildings are highly individual but still coherent as a group. A particularly masterful touch is the cluster of homelike chimneys that balances the institutional center lantern. On the interior, the church is fifty feet square at the crossing, with shallow transepts and a raised chancel embellished with carving, stained glass, and mosaics. Because of two devastating fires, these decorations supplied by the Tiffany Studios no longer exist.

Fire at 102 West 129th Street, May 5, 1925. A fire was discovered in the basement of No. 102 West 129th Street, at Lenox Avenue, in the early morning hours of Tuesday, May 5. All tenants were evacuated without serious injury.

This bar is renowned for its history as a performance venue in Harlem, hosting such greats as Billie Holliday, Miles Davis and John Coltrane and patrons such as James Baldwin and Langston Hughes in its famed Zebra Room. The exterior and interior contain hallmarks of the Art Deco style including the graphic signage on the front of the building. It has been used in numerous television shows, music videos and movies. The bar was restored in the late 1990s. Note- The Lenox Lounge is no longer open.

311 Lenox Avenue, 1920. The better known and more prominent location of the Corn Exchange Bank in Harlem occupied a large lot at the corner of 125th Street and Park Avenue (built as the Mount Morris Bank in 1883 and taken over by the Corn Exchange in 1913). Bu,t with the success of the bank, further expansion in the neighborhood was undertaken in 1919. A four-story house was purchased near the corner of 125th and Lenox Avenue. It was quickly demolished and a new bank structure designed by S. Edson Gage was quickly constructed, featuring a large arched window.

As African Americans migrated uptown to Harlem in large numbers in the 1910s and ’20s, existing theaters began showcasing black performers. Some of these venues welcomed black audiences. The Apollo Theater, which had operated as a burlesque venue in the 1910s and ’20s, was relatively late in bringing on black entertainers. Although performers such as blues singer Alberta Hunter are said to have appeared here as early as 1930, African-American performers became the rule under new ownership in 1932. Three years later, again under new ownership, the Apollo instituted a permanent variety show format featuring leading black talent that would last until the 1970s. This was particularly important as, even through the 1950s, few major theaters across the United States featured black entertainers. Every form of popular African-American entertainment – comedy, drama, dance, gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, swing, bebop, rock and roll, and soul music – was showcased at the Apollo. LGBT luminaries included comedian Jackie “Moms” Mabley; singers Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, Josephine Baker, Clyde McPhatter, Little Richard, Carmen McRae, Johnny Mathis, Arthur Conley, Carolyn Franklin (and sister of Aretha), Billy Preston, Nona Hendryx, Teddy Pendergrass, and Luther Vandross; and gospel greats Clara Ward, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Marie Knight, Alex Bradford, Ruth Davis, Jackie Verdell, and James Cleveland.