Journal 6

Today’s class we went to Harlem and Morningside Heights. We started in East Harlem where we stopped at the Museum of the City of New York. We watched a movie about how Harlem was created and how all our other class connected to this point. Saw a little bit about Brooklyn, Queens and Time Square. In the movie they had older pictures of the Manhattan Island which looked like a forest when the Indians where living on the land and after they were kicked out it was turned into farm land. In the film we learned about why Canal St. got its name because it was originally a canal. The film went into how Harlem got its name and was founded. Dutch farmers founded in “1658 called Niebuhr Harlem, ten miles north of New Amsterdam at tip of Manhattan. Increasingly in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries, this beautiful outlying land attracted gentleman farmers and wealthy merchants, who developed the estate and built country mansions” (BG p.437). But at this time the only way to get to Harlem was by boat. The film also told us that East Harlem was a place where immigrants went to live after they got off the boat. Harlem started to hit its boom when the subway was in place to take people to and from work. This made Harlem assessable for people to live there and then Harlem turned from a farm land to a city like its today.

We finished up in the Museum and made our way to Central Park's North entrance which had a cool gate and beyond the gate was a green lawn with a fountain in the middle of it. I like this entrance so far from the ones I have seen and this was my first time on this side of the park which I didn’t expect that it would look like that. It was different and more peaceful. Before we went to lunch we stopped at this witch and spirits place where you can buy medicine and items to keep bad spirits away and the guy told us that he sell hope to people which I found that was pretty cool. We left the park and went to lunch. We made our way into central Harlem were we had a tour. We found out that Bill Clinton worked in this area and he had his own floor in the building. The tour guide told us that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King spent time in Harlem and they named a road after Malcolm X, Malcolm X Blvd. He talked about the Apollo Theater, how it had a tree trunk in the theater and every performer that goes on stage has to rub it or else it doesn’t matter how famous you are you will get booed of staged. We made our way to the park were we came across movie trailers and found out that we were going to be in the TV show Elementary. They put out yellow sheets telling the people that they cant' park on the street on shooting hours and I also found out that they can ask to rent out your house to film in and you would get good money for that. But they could make a big mess and damage things but after they are done they will paint your home. We made it to the park and were about to walk up a big hill to see the last fire tower but we couldn’t because the hill was closed. This park is ran around during the New York City Marathon which I thought was pretty cool.

We finished up by seeing Harriet Tubman statue and walked up a lot of stairs to get ourselves to Morning side Heights to look at Columbia University’s campus. It was a huge different from Harlem and Morningside Heights. Its crazy how you could walk that short of a distance and see a big change. Since there’s a lot of gentrification in Harlem maybe there won't be a huge difference when you take a walk over to Morning side Heights.