Harlem

Gill (humanities, Manhattan Sch. of Music) offers a largely objective overview of a community usually studied only for its most distinctive, arguably most exciting, phase—the Harlem Renaissance of art and literature in the 20th century. He traces the entire history of this initially isolated northern outpost of Manhattan through its cycles as a refuge for different groups of both the propertied and the poor. Among possible surprises is that New York City did not annex Harlem until 1873 and that it served as an important home for Jews, Italians, and Puerto Ricans as well as for African Americans. The book demonstrates how Harlem experienced aspects of urbanization, marginalization, immiseration, and gentrification as well as its share of political corruption, organized crime, and cultural flowering.