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Mount Morris Park Historic District

HarlemHistoric districts in ManhattanHistoric districts on the National Register of Historic Places in ManhattanNew York City Designated Landmarks in ManhattanNew York City designated historic districts
Queen Anne architecture in New York City

Mount Morris Park Historic District was designated a historic district by New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1971, and is part of the larger Mount Morris Park neighborhood. It is a large 16-block area in west central Harlem. The boundaries are West 118th and West 124th Streets, Fifth Avenue, and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue)."Doctor's Row" comprises the nearby stretch of West 122nd Street, Mount Morris Park West and Malcolm X Boulevard; one of the doctors of "Doctor's Row" was the father of the composer Richard Rodgers. Mount Morris Square, the core of the district, is now called Marcus Garvey Park.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Mount Morris Park Historic District (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Mount Morris Park Historic District
West 121st Street, New York Manhattan

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Latitude Longitude
N 40.804722222222 ° E -73.946944444444 °
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West 121st Street 22
10027 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
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New Bethel Way of the Cross Church of Christ
New Bethel Way of the Cross Church of Christ

New Bethel Way of the Cross Church of Christ (originally Congregation Shaare Zedek of Harlem) is a historic church and former synagogue at 23–25 West 118th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, United States. Designed by Michael Bernstein in the Moorish Revival style, it occupies a site of 50 by 100 feet (15 by 30 m). The building has a brick facade, terracotta trim, and an asphalt roof. The main elevation of the facade, to the south, has several entrance archways and a circular rose window in the center, as well as twin towers crowned with bulbous, copper-covered domes. Inside, an entrance vestibule leads to a sanctuary with balcony. Stairs lead up to the balcony and down to auxiliary spaces in the basement, and there are a pastor's study and deacon's quarters flanking the sanctuary. The building was developed by Shaare Zedek, a Conservative Jewish congregation that originally met on the Lower East Side before splitting into two congregations in the late 1890s. The subsidiary congregation bought land in 1899 and completed the synagogue in 1901. The main congregation remained on the Lower East Side until 1914, when it merged with the Harlem congregation; it moved out in 1921. The building was then used by another congregation, Chevra Talmud Torah Dagustow, and subsequently by Canaan Baptist Church from 1935 to 1966. Since 1966, it has been used by the Bethel Way of the Cross Church of Christ. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Harlem Fire Watchtower
Harlem Fire Watchtower

The Harlem Fire Watchtower, also known as the Mount Morris Fire Watchtower, is the only surviving one of eleven cast-iron watchtowers placed throughout New York City starting in the 1850s. Standing at 47 feet (14 m) tall, it was built by Julius H. Kroehl for $2,300 based on a design by James Bogardus. It is located in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, Manhattan. The Mount Morris Park tower went into service in 1857 in response to Harlem residents’ demand. The towers gave volunteers a perch from which to watch for fires that were common in the wooden structures that then made up much of New York City, and the watchers then spread the word via bell ringing. Later, electric telegraphs were installed but the bell provided local alarms. When pull boxes and other technological advances rendered the fire watchtowers obsolete, the system was discontinued and the other towers eventually were destroyed. Harlem's, protected in the middle of a park, endured. During the New Deal, the area surrounding the watchtower was rebuilt by government employees as part of the Works Project Administration jobs program. This project created a gracious plaza (sometimes called "the Acropolis"), stone retaining wall, and wide steps approaching the summit from several sides for pedestrians. The tower was designated a city landmark in 1967 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. The last work on the watchtower came in 1994, but cracks in the overall structure and in the bell remained. The granite parapet along the top was in need of restoration. Weather, lack of maintenance, and neglect took their toll over the years. Roof damage allowed water into the structure, rusting structural members. The original copper roof deteriorated and fell off, exposing the interior to more damage. Many of the internal steps were missing and park visitors may no longer climb them or get near the structure, which is protected by a fence. In 2013, the Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association and the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance partnered with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to raise $4 million to restore the Harlem Watchtower, led by Valerie Jo Bradley. Starting in late 2014, NYC Parks disassembled the tower to restore the structure and ensure its soundness and stability before reconstruction. The tower reopened to visitors in December 2019.