Harlem

Harlem is a neighborhood of Manhattan, long known as a major African American cultural and business center. Although the name is sometimes stretched to include all of upper Manhattan including Washington Heights, Fort George[?], Inwood and Spanish Harlem[?], traditionally Harlem is bounded on the south by East 96th Street, on the West by Central Park West/Frederick Douglass Boulevard to 125th Street then west on 125th Street to the Hudson River, on the North by 155th Street, and on the east by the East River.

The first settlement in what is now Harlem was by Dutch settlers in the first half of the 17th century, and they named it Nieuw Haarlem (or New Haarlem, after the Dutch city of Haarlem). In 1664, the British took control of the New Netherland colony and renamed the town Harlem. As New York City grew, it eventually incorporated Harlem.

In the 1920s, Harlem was the center of a flowering of Black culture that became known as the Harlem Renaissance.

The name of Harlem has also gained international fame through the Harlem Globetrotters, a basketball show team.

The Apollo Theatre[?] opened in Harlem on January 26, 1934.