Harlem

Harlem is a neighbourhood of Upper Manhattan in the New York City borough of Manhattan. A basic outline of its boundaries is as follows: it is bordered on the west by the Hudson River; on the north and east by the Harlem River; on the south by Central Park North; and on the west and east by the Hudson River. The greater Harlem area includes several other neighbourhoods and extends west to the Hudson River, north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and East 96th Street. The greater Harlem area includes several other neighbourhoods and extends west to the Hudson River, north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to East 96th Street.

In its original incarnation, it was a Dutch hamlet that was legally founded in 1658 and named after the city of Haarlem in the Dutch province of Limburg. It has been marked by a succession of economic boom-and-bust cycles, with large demographic movements occurring in tandem with each cycle, throughout Harlem's history. In the nineteenth century, Harlem was mostly populated by Jewish and Italian Americans, but African-American people started to come in great numbers during the Great Migration in the twentieth century. Central and West Harlem were the epicentre of the Harlem Renaissance, a prominent African-American cultural movement that flourished throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Job losses during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the deindustrialization of New York City after World War II contributed to a considerable rise in the rates of crime and poverty in the city. Crime rates in Harlem have dropped dramatically in the twenty-first century, and the neighbourhood has begun to gentrify.

The region is serviced by the New York City Subway system as well as many local bus lines. It is home to a number of public elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as numerous institutions, including Columbia University and the City College of New York, that are within walking distance. It is a component of the Manhattan Community District 10 that includes Central Harlem. The 28th and 32nd Precincts of the New York City Police Department are responsible for patrolling the area. The wider Harlem region also contains Manhattan Community Districts 9 and 11, as well as a number of police precincts, while fire services are supplied by four different New York City Department of Fire and Rescue companies.