"Everybody says 'Good Morning' in Harlem because it's true! And that's lovely."- Marcia Gay Harden

The emptiest I've ever
seen Grand Central 

Today was a day where I woke up very early, it was my first time doing a walking tour in quite a while! (I feel like I haven't done very many in the last little while) and I started by day off by eating, playing a bit with the puppy dog and then I headed out.

I looked at google maps and it told me to take the shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square but because it was one of those places where I'd have to swipe my card, I didn't want to pay twice to take the metro (considering it is about a 5 minute walk) and I walked out and walked over there myself.

Unfortunately, I took the wrong train...(Well the right one kind of) because the train I was actually looking for was the express, but I took the local, which stopped everywhere at like every stop. Thank god, I was able to get off the
train and get on another one which was express up the Harlem. 

When I got off the train, I actually ran into the exact person I needed, who was taking the tour with me! Talk about good timing. 

The mural outside the hospital 

We started off the tour in front of the Harlem public library across the street from the hospital. 

We walked around just a few blocks, but in those few blocks, we learned a lot. 

The first thing was saw was the gigantic mural on the hospital, it was one of Sammy David Jr. He was born in Harlem and one of the first ever Black men to perform solo. 

We kept walking and stopped by a beautiful church where we learned about
the differences between Negro Spiritual and Gospel music. 

New York had a campaign
to plant 1 million trees

Gospel music is music that is sung in churches to spread the word of the Lord, whereas Negro Spiritual music was a sneaky underground way to warn runaway slaves. It was all part of the underground railroad. 

Now back during this time, it was illegal for two slaves to speak without white Illegal to congregate or worship without a white person around - the white slave owners were afraid of an uprising or death. All the lyrics in the music would be laced with meaning. The songs could mean anything from a meeting tonight or as soon as full moon.The song "Wade in the water" was a warning. The song meant that the other slaves knew of someone's arrival in the underground
railroad and that there were dogs chasing their scent. So to get rid of the scent, they had to "wade" in the water by the river bank. 

One of the beautiful
churches in Harlem,

We reached a corner where there used to be the renaissance ball room, which used to be a really cool ball room, but was torn down a few years ago and is now being built as "affordable housing." 

Where is affordable housing you may ask?

It is two people making "$84,000" and above. Yes. $84G. How ridiculous is that? They take the medium income of what people in New York State makes. 

Yeah,

"Affordable Housing"
and what used
to be a ballroom.

New York has a lot of poor and homeless people, but they have a heck of a lot of rich people too. 

Don't worry though - 10% of the building will be for the poor - those making $45 grand or less a year. People wonder why there are so many homeless people.

Harlem wasn't always like this though, a scary, shady, dark area. Back in the 1700s, Hamilton actually lived in Harlem, and it was a place for the rich! That's why the sidewalks were so wide! Franklin Roosevelt even purchased everything north and East of Central park. The wealthy would go to Harlem like it was their Hamptons, there were sunny summer homes with huge sidewalks. Stanford White, the person who designed the arch in Washington were no cars or electricity). However, because Harlem was actually too expensive for a while, many homes were vacant for quite a while.

One of Historically
black schools

Square Park, loved beaux art and French Renaissance, so he designed many of the buildings in Harlem to look just as beautiful and big. People would actually ride uptown in a horse and buggy about three hours to get to Harlem (since there

In 1892, Ellis Island opened up as a federal immigration system and thus started the clash of East and West immigrants. The wealthy would go downtown for an opera or a ballet and the poor would be there, asking for money. 

So the wealthy went uptown. 

Of course, running away, this will solve all the problems and the poor will disappear right?

Anyway. 

Graffiti to bring
awareness to breast
cancer

To ensure the abolition of slavery in all of the U.S., Lincoln pushed for passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Congress passed it by the necessary two-thirds vote on January 31, 1865, and it was ratified by the states on December 6, 1865. Now, every baby could learn to read and white, including black babies. When they came of age, they'd go to a Historically Black Colleges and University and went on to become doctors, lawyers or engineers. Now that they had money, they started moving up to Harlem and buying up the real estate. Unfortunately, the mortgage doubled...but these black groups paid it in cash. 

One of the streets, "Strives Road" was meant to teach the importance of recycling the black dollar. When you needed a dentist, you went to a black dentist. When you needed an Obgyn, you went to a black Obgyn. The money stayed in the community, it never went out and they thrived. One of the best examples of this was "Black Wall Street" during the early 20
th century. That is until the Tulsa race riot of 1921, in which white residents massacred black residents and, in just a few hours, razed the neighbourhood. You can look at Www.beforetheydied.com to learn about some of the people killed.

Great indie book store

We took a bit of a break at a coffee shop and I went into my bag and found a bag of jerky (yes, welcome to Wendy) and talked to the lady for a little bit. It's interesting, I found out from her that if I ever want to be a tour guide, I have to be able to pass a state exam and be licensed. Something I've never heard of before, but I think it's a good idea so that a bunch of weird random people do not come about and try to lead tourists astray. It makes me feel better.

We passed by these apartment buildings and we learned the story of Robert Smalls.

Now, back in the day, black people were not allowed to fight in wars - let alone black slaves. 

So Smalls was one of eight slaves on a portion of a steamer's crew. During a stopover along the South Carolina coast, the three white crewmen failed to follow the procedure to remain on board at all times and decided to leave the slaves on the boat and dock on land. 

Our tour guide outside
Bille Holiday's bar

Smalls took his wife, some slaves and the boat. He piloted it past five confederate ships, Smalls flew all the correct flags requesting safe passage through Confederate waters. Entering Union territory, Smalls surrendered Planter to the Union’s USS Onward. Smalls also gave Union forces Confederate signal codes and maps showing underwater mine placement. The value of the ship and its cargo was $30,000. Later, Smalls met with Pres. Abraham Lincoln. The pilot told Lincoln that black soldiers “will be better fighters than whites” because the blacks will be “fighting for their freedom.

He became the Union navy’s first black ship captain in 1863, ultimately fighting in 17 battles. Smalls returned to Beaufort after the war and entered politics, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives for four years and, later, the South Carolina state senate.

Apartments for the Black soldiers

It was interesting as these houses held the 269 regiment. They built these houses because they did not want the black soldiers living with the white soldiers. 

Unfortunately, the black soldiers were also very badly trained. Because they were not trusted with
guns, they trained with broomsticks and mop handles. However, they were so successful that they actually did not lose when they fought the Germans. They were called "hell fighters." 

These veterans were not invited to the veterans parade so they ended up doing their own parade. 

We even got to go
through a really cool
fire station

The YMCA in the area is also super cool. During the Spring break, because of the issue of children drowning, the YMCA will teach kids how to swim. The line is insane. It is also Bill Clinton's designated gym! 

We also passed by a small jazz bar (a real jazz bar) where Billie Holiday. After auditioning as a dancer, without even looking up, they said "next" and then she asked if she could sing. She did and at the end of the tune she got 150$ in tips for a job that paid $18 a week. This was in Swing Street, during the Harlem renaissance. 

The hotel

There were restaurants and bars here where you could find a lot of music. But they had to be careful because they were scared of cops, so at one of the clubs, people were to knock three times and then cough a specific way. The cough changed every night so they had to know if they wanted to get in. 

We walked by a food place called "Sylvia's" which is known as the best comfort place in New York to grab food. Comfort food is not from the West indies, Africa, or anywhere else. It is from America. It is slavery food. And as a slave, you took home only the undesirable foods, so the gizzards, the thighs, grits, whatever. 

We walked by some more places, and we stopped in a Square where we saw the Waldorf Astoria of Harlem, which was called Ebb place, it was the place for parties and everything. It was, as the young people say, lit up. 

Apollo Theatre

We ended the tour by going to the Apollo theatre which was originally a burlesque house but is now a theatre, where Ella Fitzgerald got her start and first started skiddled daddled."
doing the "

After the tour, my friend and I went over to Sylvia's where we grabbed some real comfort food. I ordered the chicken and waffles with a nice homemade beer while she grabbed some catfish and grits. 

Both were delicious. Oh my god, they were done beautifully and well. Fried to a golden crisp without the soggy-ness and the waffles were delicious. Crunchy, soft, fluffy and they let me douse it in syrup *heaven,*

We started walking back over to the metro and visited a sexual education fair

The best place. 

where people were trying to promote safe sex. They were handing out a lot of condoms and other stuff... It was interesting to see. I was actually really happy that they even had an event like that there, it meant that the community knew and recognized that there was this issue going on and was trying to promote the prevention of both teen pregnancy and the spread of STIs. 

Afterwards, we headed over to this really cute bookstore that is run by volunteers and donations. This is one of the very few small independent stores that are truly independent because of what they believe in rather than it being the most trendy or popular thing there. I really respected them for that. I donated some money for a sticker and then was on my way.

SO GOOD, FRIED CHICKEN AND
WAFFLES

We headed into the metro where we entered into the train to go down to Williamsburg. Here we were just walking down the street when all of a sudden, we were given these free cookie/baguette sticks which were AMAZING. They were from the same company that gave me the box of cookies before. Before anyone says anything about how I always get free food all the time (I'm not denying this at all) I have to say, this company is promoting hard, spreading cheer and giving stuff out to people so that they can enjoy it. Michel et Augustin really believe in the idea of word of mouth and spreading the joy through people just simply enjoying and telling their friends.

Beautiful market

This is a company I can get behind. They have an open house on the first Thursday of every month so
I'm going to try my best to go and check it out and give them my support! 

We headed over to the Williamburg Bridge, where there was an Artists' market and a place where they were show casing all the art and differently foods that people in Brooklyn made and it was super cool! A lot of the artwork was beautiful and I really enjoyed
sampling all the foods around there!

HOW CUTE
ARE THESE
BOXES?!

When we finished up, we walked over to the grocery store where we grabbed some drinks and some food to hang out with later that evening. We headed back to her place in Williamsburg which has an amazing and beautiful view! 

We headed up to her rooftop to relax (I got to chill in the hammock and then again on the chairs by the edge) and read a book. When another friend came by to hang out, we all sat around and enjoyed the atmosphere and the fun! 

We were joined by another person and then we decided to grab some Chinese food take out, which was DELICIOUS and came in these tiny and cute little boxes and ate on the rooftop, talked and enjoyed each other's company.

All in all a good, enjoyable night.