[HN Gopher] Lessons from Harlem
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       Lessons from Harlem
        
       Author : greenie_beans
       Score  : 34 points
       Date   : 2025-05-02 14:24 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (theamericanscholar.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (theamericanscholar.org)
        
       | ramesh31 wrote:
       | There's a long sordid history of white musicians aping on black
       | authenticity for karma points, and this seems to fit right in. On
       | moving to New York, I found it hilarious all the euphemisms
       | people use to avoid the word "Harlem"; it's "uptown" or "upper
       | manhattan" or "central park north". Anything but that dreaded
       | word. No no, nothing good could ever come from there. But package
       | it up with a nice clean smile and a heartfelt college essay
       | anecdote, and you'll get your face on the cover of the Village
       | Voice.
        
         | Animats wrote:
         | It's nostalgia for the days when Being A Musician was a big
         | deal.
        
         | greenie_beans wrote:
         | this was written by an academic who spent his career studying
         | and writing about those sort of dynamics in american music
        
       | raintrees wrote:
       | Thanks for posting this. While craziness may reign in various
       | places, parts of the world go on healing itself, one human effort
       | at a time, and faster when more than one do so together...
        
       | woodruffw wrote:
       | > I almost never went near 125th Street, the unofficial boundary
       | of Harlem
       | 
       | With my obnoxious local hat on: Harlem starts at 110th street and
       | runs to roughly 155th street, narrowing on the West Side with
       | each of the long parks (Morningside, St. Nicholas, Jackie
       | Robinson).
       | 
       | 125th street would be the "heart" of Harlem, not the boundary.
       | This would have been even more obvious in the 1980s, when the
       | racial divisions between Bloomingdale, Morningside Heights,
       | Harlem, and Spanish Harlem were even more stark.
        
         | pavlov wrote:
         | The article says he "lived only two blocks away [from 125 St]
         | in Morningside Heights, across the street from Riverside
         | Church", so the author is looking at Harlem from roughly 120 St
         | and Broadway.
         | 
         | From that POV, the boundaries of his presumed-safe neighborhood
         | would be Morningside Park and 125 St.
        
           | woodruffw wrote:
           | I thought about that, but even from the West Side looking
           | East you wouldn't refer to 125th street as the "boundary." I
           | think this is more likely just sloppy editing.
           | 
           | Source: I grew up 15 minutes from there, and lived in South
           | Harlem for years.
        
           | knappa wrote:
           | Having lived within a block or so of the place being
           | described, 125th is a pretty accurate placement of the
           | Harlem's southern border west of Broadway. (Maybe a bit more
           | south at St Clair place.) Further east is different. I can't
           | speak to the situation in the 80s.
        
         | kmoser wrote:
         | Depending on who you ask, Harlem extends as far south as East
         | 96th St.
        
       | cadamsdotcom wrote:
       | Amazingly heartfelt and well written. Feels like a portal into a
       | different world.
       | 
       | I'm glad the author kept a journal and went to the trouble of
       | writing this up. Makes you wonder what amazing things pass,
       | becoming part of history, unremarked upon.
        
       | kmoser wrote:
       | There's also the Netflix documentary _Satan and Adam_ which
       | follows their trajectory: https://www.netflix.com/title/81077539
        
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       (page generated 2025-05-02 23:01 UTC)