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Harlem River Houses

1937 establishments in New York CityHarlemPublic housing in ManhattanResidential buildings completed in 1937Residential buildings in Manhattan
Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in ManhattanTreasury Relief Art ProjectUse mdy dates from October 2019
Harlem River Houses from Harlem River Drive walkway
Harlem River Houses from Harlem River Drive walkway

The Harlem River Houses is a New York City Housing Authority public housing complex between 151st Street, 153rd Street, Macombs Place, and the Harlem River Drive in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The complex, which covers 9 acres (3.6 ha), was built in 1936-37 and opened in October 1937 – one of the first two housing projects in the city funded by the Federal government – with the goal of providing quality housing for working-class African Americans. It has 574 apartments.The complex was designated a New York City Landmark in 1975 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. In 2014 the complex was designated a Special Planned Community Preservation District, a zoning category created in 1974 "to preserve and protect ... superior examples of town planning or large-scale development." The success of the project can be attributed to its formal, classically influenced design, to the project's focus on attracting a wide variety of tenants, not just the indigent, and to its "generous budget and high aspirations for quality."

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Harlem River Houses (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Harlem River Houses
West 151st Street, New York Manhattan

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 40.825833333333 ° E -73.936666666667 °
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Address

West 151st Street 211E
10039 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
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Harlem River Houses from Harlem River Drive walkway
Harlem River Houses from Harlem River Drive walkway
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Clef Club

The Clef Club was an entertainment venue and society for African-American musicians in Harlem, achieving its largest success in the 1910s. Incorporated by James Reese Europe in 1910, it was a combination musicians' hangout, fraternity club, labor exchange, and concert hall, across the street from Marshall's Hotel. In its best years, the Clef Club's annual take exceeded $100,000. For musical entertainment in the club, Europe created the first all African-American orchestra in the country called the Clef Club Orchestra. This orchestra was very large, numbering around 125 members, and consisted of a wide variety of instruments. Among the instruments included the normal orchestral instruments of violins, violas, cellos, basses, and the normal wind and brass instruments, but also included mandolins, guitars, banjos, ukuleles, and a large bass drum. These “strummed” instruments were not in small amounts either. According to one account the orchestra included “thirty strummers- ten each of mandolins, guitars and a rare harp guitar, and banjos.” The orchestra was also frequently joined by a men's chorus, eight pianists, and various soloists.Very few of these musicians had any musical training, and hardly any could read music. The conductor is quoted as saying: “I always put a man who can read notes in the middle where the others can pick him up."The Clef Club orchestra performed in 1912 - 1915 on the stage of Carnegie Hall in New York City. This concert stands as a crowning achievement for both the orchestra as well as Europe. The orchestra was very well received, and it is said that during one concert march in particular “music-loving Manhattan felt a thrill down its spine such as only the greatest performances can inspire.” Among Reese's musical collaborators at the Clef Club was Ford Dabney, composer of the song "Shine".