Harlem Day!
Apollo Theater, theatre established in 1913 at 253 West 125th Street in the Harlem district of New York City. It has been a significant venue for African American popular music.
The Apollo was the central theatre on Harlem’s main commercial street, and its position reflects its central role in Harlem’s culture. Designed by New York architect George Keister, the building was leased by Jules Hurtig and Harry Seamon and opened as Hurtig and Seamon’s New (Burlesque) Theater. After a few years it was purchased by a competitor and renamed the 125th Street Apollo Theater. The district surrounding the building was opened up during the 1910s to African Americans making the Great Migration out of the South, and in the 1920s Harlem was transformed into a Black residential and commercial area.
The Apollo was again under new ownership in 1932; burlesque shows began to give way to musical revues, and the theatre’s new owners began to tailor shows to the area’s most recent residents. The building opened its doors to African Americans for the first time on January 26, 1934. That year the long-standing weekly talent show called Amateur Night at the Apollo was born, and one of its early winners was the young Ella Fitzgerald. These Wednesday night shows became legendary, not only for the individuals and groups discovered there (including Lena Horne, Sam Cooke, the Orioles, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, and many others) but also for the highly sophisticated and critical audience that attended. Many performers—including Brown, Moms Mabley, B.B. King, and Clyde McPhatter—recorded live albums at the theatre; these recordings document the Apollo’s trademark performer-audience dialogue.
The Harriet Tubman Memorial is a must see spot in Harlem.
The statue of this amazing heroin caught our attention for the symbolism of roots of trees coming from her back.
Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and social activist. After escaping slavery, Tubman made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including her family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known collectively as the Underground Railroad. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women's suffrage.
One of Caren's hot tips was the newly inaugurated Renaissance New York Harlem Hotel. It was just a nice hotel, with with amazing friendly stuff who let us explore the beautiful interior and take pictures from the view. The loud jazz and soul music gave us a sound track for the day.
Gabi's big smile says everything.
The 13-story hotel was built in 1912-13 by German-born stockbroker Gustavus Sidenberg (1843–1915), whose wife the hotel is named after, and was designed by the firm of George & Edward Blum, who specialized in designing apartment buildings. The hotel, which was known in its heyday as «the Waldorf of Harlem», exemplifies the Blums’ inventive use of terra-cotta for ornamentation, and has been called «one of the most visually striking structures in northern Manhattan.»
The building, now an office building known as Theresa Towers, was designated a New York City landmark in 1993, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
In 1960 Fidel Castro came to New York for the opening session of the United Nations, and, after storming out of the Hotel Shelburne in Midtown Manhattan because of the management’s demand for payment in cash, he and his entourage stayed at the Theresa, where they rented 80 rooms for $800 per day. According to the New York Times, Castro felt that «Negroes would be more sympathetic» to his cause, and indeed he drew enthusiastic crowds of supporters, along with some protesters. While Castro was there, he was visited by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, as well as by such luminaries as Malcolm X, poets Langston Hughes and Allen Ginsberg, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, and radical sociologist C. Wright Mills. Subsequent to Castro’s visit, other Third World leaders, such as Patrice Lumumba of the Belgian Congo, chose to stay at the Theresa.
In October 1960, John F. Kennedy campaigned for the presidency at the hotel, along with Eleanor Roosevelt and other leading figures in the Democratic Party.
This stairs honours the biggest names of African American jazz.
Ps. This photo was taken by a friendly man who suggested that we posed for the camera, making us feel like stars as well.
Detail of one of the public washrooms door.
Back on the streets, Harlem for you!
Named in honor of the legendary Harlem speakeasy that attracted neighborhood folk, jazz greats, and noteworthy figures of the 20th century from Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to Nat King Cole and James Baldwin, we’re privileged to share our namesake with the original Red Rooster.
Co-Creators Andrew Chapman and Marcus Samuelsson have long wanted to open a restaurant that would have a positive impact on the neighborhood’s culinary landscape and its community at-large.
The best corn bread and butter I have ever tasted!
We also ordered fried chicken on a waffle and shrimps and grits, which ended up being way too much food, but it was all to die for!
From Harlem to Central park is a few blocks away, but it feels like another city, or even another world.
It's like the air changes. The colours are more subdued. The sounds less intense. The skin tones change.
Us. At the Guggenheim.
Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s examines the groundbreaking and genre-defying body of artistic production from an era of remarkable transformation in South Korea. Created by young artists who came of age in the decades immediately following the Korean War, the artworks reflect and respond to the changing socioeconomic and material conditions that were shaped by a tumultuous political landscape at home and a globalizing world beyond. This is the first North American museum exhibition dedicated to Korean Experimental art (silheom misul) and its artists, whose radical approach to materials and process resulted in some of the most significant avant-garde practices of the twentieth century.
Spanning three tower galleries and featuring approximately eighty works, this exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to experience the creativity and breadth of this generation of Korean artists.
FROM FORBES: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmariani/2019/05/29/after-a-fire-closed-it-new-yorks-bustan-is-better-than-ever-for-innovative-mediterranean-cuisine/?sh=7f59f4a443c2
For several years Bustan, which means “garden” or “orchard,” was among the best and most popular ethnic restaurants on the Upper West Side. Sadly, last year, the interior was engulfed by fire, though the lovely outdoor patio was largely spared. Now re-opened by owner Tuvia Feldman, Bustan has been restored to look pretty much the way it had, and Chef Eli Buliskeria, now joined by Shir Rozenblatt as pastry chef, has taken what was always wonderful on the menu and refined and lightened it all with real finesse.
The menu is still resolutely devoted to the flavors and culinary traditions of North Africa, Italy, Greece and the Middle East, from mezes (or mazettim) to many dishes cooked in a dome-shaped, wood-fired taboon oven.
A photo art exhibition at the restaurant about... trees!
Closing our 48 hours in NYC in style!
Flatbread, falafel, hummus, olives... a dinner to stay in our memory.
The staff was nice enough to accommodate a special request: Israeli salad with onions on the side. :)
That was NYC with my lovely friend, Gabi P.: short, but sweet!
Like the trees we've encountered, we will continue branching out and rooting even more our friendship.
