- published: 18 Mar 2010
- views: 2941394
Coordinates: 40°47′52.64″N 73°56′24.17″W / 40.7979556°N 73.9400472°W / 40.7979556; -73.9400472
East Harlem, also colloquially known as El Barrio and previously as Spanish Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side, and East 96th Street and east of Fifth Avenue to the East and Harlem Rivers. It lies within Manhattan Community District 11. Despite its name, it is generally not considered to be a part of Harlem.
The neighborhood is one of the largest predominantly Latino communities in New York City, mostly made up of Puerto Ricans, as well as increasing numbers of Dominican, Salvadoran and Mexican immigrants. It includes the area formerly known as Italian Harlem, in which the remnants of a once predominantly Italian community remain. The Chinese population has increased dramatically in East Harlem since 2000.
East Harlem suffers from many social issues, such as the highest jobless rate in New York City, teenage pregnancy, AIDS, drug abuse, homelessness, and an asthma rate five times the national average. It has the second highest concentration of public housing in the United States, closely following Brownsville, Brooklyn. The area has the highest violent crime rate in Manhattan. Police services to the neighborhood are divided between the 23rd and the 25th Precincts.
Coordinates: 40°48′32.52″N 73°56′54.14″W / 40.8090333°N 73.9483722°W / 40.8090333; -73.9483722
Harlem is a large neighborhood in the northern section of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Since the 1920s, Harlem has been known as a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Harlem's history has been defined by a series of economic boom-and-bust cycles, with significant population shifts accompanying each cycle.
African-American residents began to arrive en masse in 1905, with numbers fed by the Great Migration. In the 1920s and 1930s, Central and West Harlem were the focus of the "Harlem Renaissance", an outpouring of artistic work without precedent in the American black community. However, with job losses in the time of the Great Depression and the deindustrialization of New York City after World War II, rates of crime and poverty increased significantly. Harlem's black population peaked in the 1950s. In 2008, the United States Census found that for the first time since the 1930s, less than half of residents were black, and black residents only counted for 40% of the population.
There is a rose in Spanish Harlem
A red rose up in Spanish Harlem
It's never seen the sun
It only comes out when the moon is on the run
And all the stars are gleaming
It's growing in the street
Right up through the concrete
But soft and sweet
And dreaming
There is a rose in Spanish Harlem
A red rose up in Spanish Harlem
With eyes as black as coal
That look down in my soul
And start a fire there and then I lose control
I have to beg your pardon
I'm gonna pick that rose
And watch her as she grows
In my garden
My garden
With eyes as black as coal
That look down in my soul
And start a fire there and then I lose control
I have to beg your pardon
I'm gonna pick that rose
And watch her as she grows
In my garden
There is a rose in Spanish Harlem