• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

Harlem

Sterling Forest State Park Expands With Purchase of Historic Black Resort

March 7, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Blue Lake Sterling Forest Taken from Fire TowerSterling Forest State Park in Orange County, NY is growing by an additional 130 acres that includes a portion of the former Greenwood Forest Farms, the first resort in New York State incorporated by and for Black families.

Between its founding in 1919 and through the 1960s, a portion of this property was Greenwood Forest Farms, which was founded by a group of prominent Black families and civic leaders from New York City, the resort became a haven for cultural and civil rights leaders from Harlem and Brooklyn, including writer Langston Hughes. Some descendants of the original pioneers now live in the neighborhood year-round. [Read more…] about Sterling Forest State Park Expands With Purchase of Historic Black Resort

Filed Under: Hudson Valley - Catskills, Nature, Recreation Tagged With: Black History, Brooklyn, Catskills, Cultural History, Harlem, Hudson Valley, nature, Orange County, Social History, State Parks, Sterling Forest State Park

The Cabaret Trail: 1920s Urban Nightlife in New York, Paris & London

December 8, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

President Emmanuel Macron honouring Josephine Baker’s cenotaph at the PantheonOn November 30th, St Louis-born entertainer and civil rights activist Josephine Baker became the first Black woman to be inducted into the Pantheon in Paris, the highest honor that France bestows.

Baker had started her career as a young dancer in Vaudeville shows where her exuberant talent was quickly spotted. When she moved to New York City she joined in the festival of black life and art now known as the Harlem Renaissance, but segregation and racism drove her away from home. [Read more…] about The Cabaret Trail: 1920s Urban Nightlife in New York, Paris & London

Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: Art History, Black History, Cultural History, Dance, French History, Harlem, Harlem Renaissance, Jazz, Musical History, New York City, Performing Arts, Theatre, Vice, womens history

The Cake Walk, Prohibition & John Philip Sousa: Ragtime Wild Paris

November 14, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

Daniel Chester French, bronze statue of George Washington at Place d’Iéna, Paris, 1900One of the effects of colonial expansion in the nineteenth century was that museums stopped being exclusively Euro-centered. The mapping of the annexed world was a responsibility of colonial governments which employed scholars to carry out the tasks of collecting and recording. Curators changed their collecting focus.

Works of art from Africa and Pacific Oceania that were looted, stolen or cheaply acquired without concern about provenance, found their way from British, French, Dutch, and Belgian colonial territories to the museums and curiosity shops of Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Brussels. [Read more…] about The Cake Walk, Prohibition & John Philip Sousa: Ragtime Wild Paris

Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: 1870 Franco-Prussian War, Cultural History, Dance, French History, Harlem, Harlem Renaissance, Jazz, modernism, Musical History, Performing Arts, Prohibition

Marcus Garvey’s Influence on African Independence

July 2, 2021 by Bob Cudmore Leave a Comment

The Historians LogoThis week on The Historians Podcast, New York City attorney Jim Kaplan considers the impact of black separatist leader Marcus Garvey on African independence. Born in Jamaica, Garvey lived some of his most productive years in Harlem. [Read more…] about Marcus Garvey’s Influence on African Independence

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Black History, Harlem, New York City, Podcasts

‘Black Devils’ At War In Europe & At Home

June 13, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

370th Infantry RegimentOn April 6th 1917 America declared war against Germany. It was the first time in the nation’s history that the United States sent soldiers abroad to defend foreign soil. In May 1917, General John Joseph “Black Jack” Pershing was designated Supreme Commander of the troops in France. He assembled the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in July 1917 and its involvement on the battlefield tipped the balance in favor of Allied Forces towards the middle of 1918. [Read more…] about ‘Black Devils’ At War In Europe & At Home

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Black History, Harlem, Jazz, Military History, Music, Musical History, New York City, Performing Arts, World War One

Harlem & The Hellfighter Band That Set France Jazz Mad

May 3, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp 4 Comments

Drawing of Darius MilhaudWhen Paris first heard American jazz, it is – from our perspective – impossible to make sense of the cultural thunderbolt that must have hit audiences. This music was so wholly different to European ears that it was either scornfully rejected or eagerly accepted. [Read more…] about Harlem & The Hellfighter Band That Set France Jazz Mad

Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: Black History, Cultural History, Harlem, Jazz, Military History, Music, Musical History, World War One

Banjo Pickers and Harlem-On-The-Seine

March 14, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

The Creole BaniaThe modern banjo derives from mid-1600 instruments that had been used in the Caribbean by enslaved people taken from West Africa. The original version was made from a hollowed-out (hard-skinned) gourd and a varying number of horsehair strings. [Read more…] about Banjo Pickers and Harlem-On-The-Seine

Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: art, Art History, Harlem, Jazz, Music, Musical History, Performing Arts

Historic Signs Will Celebrate Harlem History

February 21, 2021 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

While We Are Still Here logoFrom Ethel Waters and Althea Gibson to Marcus Garvey and Langston Hughes, Harlem’s extraordinary historic legacy was vital to the intellectual, cultural and political advancements of African Americans and the United States.

Now, with funding from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, While We Are Still Here is planning to install twenty-five historic markers around the Harlem community, beginning in the summer of 2021, to celebrate historic places. [Read more…] about Historic Signs Will Celebrate Harlem History

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Black History, Grants, Harlem, Historic Preservation, William Pomeroy Foundation

Harlem’s “Black Beauty” Mills; London’s Josephine Baker

December 7, 2020 by Jaap Harskamp 3 Comments

Bassanos portrait of Lord KitchenerBorn in 1799, Clemente Bassano (the family name originates from the Veneto region of Italy) settled in London and started his career as a fishmonger in Soho. By 1825 he ran a warehouse from Jermyn Street, St James’s, importing almonds, oil, capers, and macaroni.

His daughter Louise was an opera singer who toured with Franz Liszt on his London visit in 1840/1. Her brother Alessandro became a high society photographer with a studio in Regent Street. His portrait of Horatio Kitchener was used during the First World War for an iconic recruitment poster. [Read more…] about Harlem’s “Black Beauty” Mills; London’s Josephine Baker

Filed Under: Arts, History, Hudson Valley - Catskills, New York City Tagged With: art, Art History, Black History, Dance, Harlem, Harlem Renaissance, Jazz, Musical History, Performing Arts, Theatre, Women, womens history

Marcus Garvey In Harlem: Roots of African Independence

August 31, 2020 by James S. Kaplan Leave a Comment

Universal African Legion in front of the UNIA Liberty Hall on 138th Ave in Harlem, NY during the 1924 UNIA Convention's opening day parade. Photo by James Van Der Zee.Marcus Garvey was a Jamaican-born printer who as a young man became keenly aware of the severe discrimination against Black people, particularly dark skinned people, internationally.

He later moved to London where he met several Black Nationalists seeking to end white European colonialism in Africa.

At a library in London he read Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery in which Washington, the founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, urged that African-Americans pull themselves up and establish black institutions, over seeking equal rights through integration. [Read more…] about Marcus Garvey In Harlem: Roots of African Independence

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Black History, Civil Rights, Harlem, New York City, Political History

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Help Support Our Work

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • Gordon Mason on NYS Historic Barn Tax Credit Program Informational Session
  • David G Waite on Ellis Corners: Before Saratoga Spa State Park & SPAC
  • Eric braverman on Wall Street History: The Politics of New York’s First Banks
  • N. Couture on Haudenosaunee Creation Story & Sculptures with Emily Kasennisaks Stacey
  • Lee on The Mysterious Death of the Angel of Sing Sing
  • Elisa Nelson on Replica Canal Schooner Lois McClure Being Retired, Dismantled
  • Julie O’Connor on James Eights: An Albany Artist-Scientist Who Explored Antarctica in 1830
  • Bob Meyer on Geo-Musicalities: Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang in Saranac Lake
  • John Tepper Marlin on John and Vida: The Other Milhollands
  • Brandon Braman on The Two Hendricks: A Mohawk Indian Mystery

Recent New York Books

Spaces of Enslavement and Resistance in Dutch New York
ilion cover
Spare Parts
new yorks war of 1812
a prison in the woods cover
Visitors to My Street
Greek Fire
Building THe Ashokan Reservoir
ilion book cover
Bryan Jackson the Titanic Was Dooomed

Secondary Sidebar

preservation league
Protect the Adirondacks Hiking Guide