Statue of Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harlem area encompasses several other neighborhoods and extends west and north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and East 96th Street. 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. Harlem was predominantly occupied by Jewish and Italian Americans in the 19th century, but African-American residents began to arrive in large numbers during the Great Migration in the 20th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, Central and West Harlem were the center of the Harlem Renaissance, a major African-American cultural movement. With job losses during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the deindustrialization of New York City after World War II, rates of crime and poverty increased significantly. In the 21st century, crime rates decreased significantly, and Harlem started to gentrify. The area is served by the New York City Subway and local bus routes. It contains several public elementary, middle, and high schools, and is close to several colleges, including Columbia University, Manhattan School of Music, and the City College of New York. Central Harlem is part of Manhattan Community District 10. It is patrolled by the 28th and 32nd Precincts of the New York City Police Department. The greater Harlem area also includes Manhattan Community Districts 9 and 11 and several police precincts, while fire services are provided by four New York City Fire Department companies.

Education in and around the neighborhood of Harlem, in Manhattan, New York City, is provided in schools and institutions of higher education, both public and private. For many decades, Harlem has had a lower quality of public education than wealthier sections of the city. It is mostly lower-income. But also check out the Harlem Children's ZoneFor purposes of this article, the modern boundaries of greater Harlem are considered to be West 110th Street, Fifth Avenue, East 96th Street, the East River, the Hudson River, and 155th Street, although some variation occurs with the southwestern boundary. This area includes both the neighborhood of Harlem itself, as well as the adjacent neighborhoods of East Harlem, Manhattanville, and Hamilton Heights.

The Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, originally the Harlem State Office Building, is a nineteen-story, high-rise office building located at 163 West 125th Street at the corner of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is named after Adam Clayton Powell Jr, the first African-American elected to Congress from New York. It was designed by the African-American architecture firm of Ifill Johnson Hanchard in the shape of an African mask in the Brutalist style. It is the tallest building in Harlem, overtaking the nearby Hotel Theresa.

The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, with a new one on the same site. Founded in 1968, the museum collects, preserves and interprets art created by African Americans, members of the African diaspora, and artists from the African continent. Its scope includes exhibitions, artists-in-residence programs, educational and public programming, and a permanent collection. Since opening in a rented loft at Fifth Avenue and 125th Street, the Studio Museum has earned recognition for its role in promoting the works of artists of African descent. The museum's Artist-in-Residence program has supported over one hundred graduates who have gone on to highly regarded careers. A wide variety of educational and public programs include lectures, dialogues, panel discussions and performances, as well as interpretive programs, both on- and off-site, for students and teachers. The exhibitions program has also expanded the scope of art historical literature through the production of scholarly catalogues, brochures, and pamphlets.

The Frequency Exhibition was a contemporary exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem from November 9, 2005 - March 12, 2006. Curated by Thelma Golden and associate curator Christine Y. Kim, the exhibition featured the works of 35 emerging Black artists. Frequency, following the 2001 exhibition "Freestyle," is one of five "F" themed exhibitions alongside Flow, Fore, and Fictions. While curators Golden and Kim point out that Frequency was not "Freestyle II," the organization of artists under the umbrella of Black identity engages with "Post-Black" art similarly to the Freestyle exhibition.

The Harlem Alhambra was a theater in Harlem, New York, built in 1905, that began as a vaudeville venue. The building still stands at 2108-2118 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (7th Avenue) at the South-West corner of 126th Street. The architect was John Bailey McElfatrick (1829–1906) who, based in Manhattan, founded the architectural firm John B. McElfatrick & Son – builder of 100 theaters. Construction on the structure commenced late 1902 by its original owner, Harlem Auditorium Amusement Company.

The Frederick Douglass Book Center served as a bookshop and meeting place for the minorities of New York City. The center contained literature that specialized in African, Afro-American, and Caribbean history and culture. The center remained in Harlem until it was torn down in 1968.

The Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith is a Oneness Pentecostal church with headquarters in Manhattan. It was founded in 1919 by Robert C. Lawson. The church's mission statement is: "To evangelize the world for Jesus Christ; to equip every believer to become true Disciples of Christ; and to engage those social problems that challenge the communities we have been called to serve."

Harlem Opera House was a US opera house located at 211 West 125th Street, in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by architect John B. McElfatrick, it was built in 1889 by Oscar Hammerstein; it was his first theater in the city.

St. Nicholas Houses or "Saint Nick," is a public housing project in Central Harlem, in the borough of Manhattan, New York City and are managed by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). The project is located between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, spanning a superblock from 127th Street to 131st Street. The project consists of thirteen 14-story buildings containing 1,523 apartment units.

The Hotel Theresa is located at 2082-96 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard between West 124th and 125th Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. In the mid-20th century, it was a vibrant center of African American life in the area and the city. The 13-story hotel was built in 1912–13 by German-born stockbroker Gustavus Sidenberg (1843–1915), whose wife the hotel is named after, and was designed by the firm of George & Edward Blum, who specialized in designing apartment buildings. The hotel, which was known in its heyday as "the Waldorf of Harlem", exemplifies the Blums' inventive use of terracotta for ornamentation, and has been called "one of the most visually striking structures in northern Manhattan".The building, now an office building known as Theresa Towers, was designated a New York City landmark in 1993 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

The Victoria Theater is a theater located on 125th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was designed in 1917 by Thomas W. Lamb, a notable and prolific theater architect of the era, for the Loew's Corporation.The Loew's Victoria Theater, as it was known until 1977, opened as a 2,394-seat, luxury Vaudeville and motion picture theater. Typical of movie palaces of its era, it contained a stage and backstage dressing rooms and provisions for live music, including an organ. It cost $250,000 to build and was hailed “as one of the largest and most beautiful theaters in greater N.Y.” by a contemporary publication. When the Victoria was built, it joined many other Harlem theaters including the Proctor, Hammerstein Opera House, the Alhambra as well as the nearby Apollo, then the Hurtig & Seamon's New (Burlesque) Theater.In 1977, the Harlem Community Development Corporation acquired the building.The Victoria has experienced numerous changes since its opening, the most radical being its conversion to a multi-screen movie theater; in 1987, five movie theaters were created from the large auditorium, mezzanine and stage areas. The theater closed as a cinema in 1989, though a 400-seat venue was left intact in the orchestra, at which the original Harlem company of Godspell, which drew major newspaper and television network broadcast coverage, ran for approximately a year in the 1996/97 season. In 2005 several proposals for redevelopment were made. Only two proposals call for reusing the theater's interior, which has angered some community leaders, according to the New York Times.The new Victoria Theater project, developed by the Lam Group and Exact Capital, designed by architect Ariel Aufgang and interiors by AJC Design, began construction in April 2017 and was scheduled to open in the spring of 2019. The completed 400,000-square-foot structure will have 191 mixed-income rental apartments; a 210-room Marriott Renaissance hotel; about 25,000 square feet of retail; and another 25,000 square feet of cultural and arts space. This project has suffered numerous delays and was forced to seek refinancing. After a very long process it appears that refinancing was secured in the Spring of 2022. As of September 2022, some portions of the building are open, but the hotel and theater are not operational.