A Mecca for African-American culture and life for more than a century, Harlem started out as Nieuw Haarlem, a prosperous Dutch farming settlement. By the turn of the 20th century, black New Yorkers started moving uptown into Harlem's apartment buildings and town houses. The neighborhood prospered and by the 1920s, Harlem had become the most famous black community in the United States, perhaps in the whole world. The Harlem Renaissance, generally regarded as occuring between 1919 and 1929, was Harlem's golden era, when local writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, and Ralph Ellison achieved literary recognition. The Depression hit hard here, but happily, today the neighborhood is well on the way to new glory days: Young people and families are moving into the newly restored brownstone and limestone buildings, and the combination of architectural treasures, crackling vitality (even Bill Clinton chose Harlem for his post-presidential office!), great music and culture, and honest-to-goodness, lip-smacking soul food make Harlem a must-see destination. Harlem is safe to explore on your own but there are a number of tour companies that will happily show you around.

Harlem's main thoroughfare is 125th Street. The Apollo Theatre, a concert venue for luminaries as well as a rite of passage for rising musicians, is on 125th Street. Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Nat King Cole, Marvin Gaye, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Aretha Franklin have all played here and past winners of its weekly, wild and crazy amateur night include Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and the Jackson

The Studio Museum of Harlem is one of the community's showplaces, housing a large collection of sculpture, paintings, and photographs and specializing in African American artists and artists of African descent. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (part of the New York Public Library's Division of Negro History) on Lenox Avenue, is an eye-popping literary treasure trove, comprising more than 5,000,000 books, documents, and photographs recording black history and more than 400 Black newspapers and 1,000 periodicals from around the world. The Harlem Week/Harlem Jazz & Music Festival is an annual summer festival taking place each August, with food tasting, art exhibits, concerts, seminars, music, street entertainment, sporting events, and an auto show. And don't miss the The Greater Harlem Historic Bike Tour in early August. The Urban World Film Festival takes place in August every year.