Harlem - News July 31, 2011All the city a stage for TV (New York Post) | ||
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Sunday, July 31, 2011
Harlem - News
Black Swan Records
Answers to Questions About New York
By MICHAEL POLLAK
Q. The liner notes for one of my albums mentions a Black Swan Records in New York. It sounds interesting. Could you tell me about the company?
A. Black Swan Records formally existed only from 1921 to its bankruptcy in 1923, but its cultural influence was profound. “By 1924, Black Swan was known not only as a pioneering black-owned business, but also as a radical experiment in black politics and culture,” David Suisman, a history professor at the University of Delaware, wrote in Humanities magazine last year.
The first major black-owned record company, it was founded by Harry H. Pace, a banking and insurance worker who had graduated valedictorian of his class at Atlanta University, where he became a disciple of one of his professors, W. E. B. Du Bois, the sociologist and founder of the N.A.A.C.P. Pace worked as the business manager of an early Du Bois journal of black ideas and culture. Later, in 1912, he met W. C. Handy, the “father of the blues,” in Memphis, and they formed the Pace & Handy Music Company, combining Pace’s business knowledge and Handy’s creative genius. In 1918, they moved Pace & Handy to the Gaiety Theater building on Broadway, which they promoted as the Home of the Blues and their company as the Leading Colored Music Publishers.
In early 1921, Pace struck out on his own, taking most of the office staff with him to found Pace Phonograph Company — its first office was in his home on West 138th Street — and starting Black Swan Records. It was aimed at recording black performers at a time when many big record companies would not. Pace’s goal was to challenge white stereotypes by recording not just comic and blues songs, but also sacred and operatic music and serious ballads. Du Bois was one of Black Swan’s directors.
African-American - News
African-American - News July 31, 2011Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz addresses the audience at the NAACP's Annual Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Awards Dinner held in Los Angeles on July 26, 2011. Hispanics have to claw their way to the top: Political Insider (NJ) Few, proud and black (CNN) The former First Baptist Church building has a rich history. The building, which housed the first African-American congregation in Port Clinton, is slated for demolition. Black teen's unusual talent: Singing Chinese opera (Asbury Park Press Online) | ||
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Saturday, July 30, 2011
HARLEM NEWS AND VIEWS
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Harlem - News
Harlem - News July 30, 2011The City Council gave the thumbs up to green thumbs Thursday, with a package of legislation designed to give local farming a major boost. Seneca Village Archeological Dig (DNAInfo) TriBeCa Sober House Prepares to Welcome Its First Students (DNAInfo) What if you could see what's happening and what's happened, on any block in the city?A A new website is trying to make that happen. | ||
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Enjoy Park Greenery, City Says, but Not as Salad
Enjoy Park Greenery, City Says, but Not as Salad
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Leda Meredith, right, who wrote a book about eating locally on a budget, leads tours in Prospect Park about foraging.
By LISA W. FODERARO
Published: July 29, 2011
Maybe it is the spiraling cost of food in a tough economy or the logical next step in the movement to eat locally. Whatever the reason, New Yorkers are increasingly fanning out across the city’s parks to hunt and gather edible wild plants, like mushrooms, American ginger and elderberries.
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Ruby Harris, 9, of Brooklyn, inspecting an edible plant on a foraging tour of Prospect Park.
Now parks officials want them to stop. New York’s public lands are not a communal pantry, they say. In recent months, the city has stepped up training of park rangers and enforcement-patrol officers, directing them to keep an eye out for foragers and chase them off.
“If people decide that they want to make their salads out of our plants, then we’re not going to have any chipmunks,” said Maria Hernandez, director of horticulture for the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit group that manages Central Park.
African-American - News
African-American - News July 30, 2011Three generations of Omega Psi Phis (The Washington Post) And vote for what? 16%+ black unemployment? The country's first black president bombing Africa? President Obama catering to every voter bloc except black voters? What exactly? Oh, I'll be voting, but not how the NAACP would like for me to vote. African-American Women - Go Natural' Online (WBUR-AM Boston) S.C. Governor Fights to Fly Confederate Flag at Capitol (Fox News) Former Iowa legislator Danny Carroll speaks during a rally against gay marriage as Chuck Hurley of the Iowa Family Policy Center, right, and the Rev. The strange death of domestic policy (Daily Herald) | ||
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Friday, July 29, 2011
Kush Chronicles: 11 Men Popped For Pushing That “Ya Mean” Out Of A Harlem Furniture Store
SMH at this guy’s shirt:
Authorities have harshed the alleged buzz of 11 men accused of wholesaling marijuana out of a Harlem furniture store — including one unhappy-looking guy who was arrested in a cereal-parodying t-shirt reading “WEED — Breakfast of Champions.” Alleged ringleader Frank McTaggart, 44, was ordered held without bail today after lead prosecutor Jordan Arnold argued that for more than a year McTaggart’s crew “took over” the W. 132 St. block surrounding Rally Furniture. The furniture store was just a front, prosecutors said — so much so that the dusty chairs and tables inside only moved when crew members dragged them out onto the sidewalk for drug-fueled, all-night block parties
The 11 were hit with conspiracy and pot sale charges, among them David Dawson, 29, who’d been hauled to court in a Wheaties-spoofing t-shirt, which featured a drawing of a lit joint and the words “Generally High” where the General Mills logo should have been. The arrests were the work of prosecutors with the Manhattan DA’s Violent Crininal Enterprises Unit and NYPD narcotics detectives.
No comment.
Kush Chronicles: 11 Men Popped For Pushing That “Ya Mean” Out Of A Harlem Furniture Store
Bossip Staff
Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:16:07 GMT
Explore Harlem On A Free (Sort Of) Red Rooster Bicycle
Harlem—so hot right now! So hot that you will soon have the privilege of rolling up your pantleg to discover all of the neighborhood's hidden treasures via a good old-fashioned velocipede; after, that is, you've plunked down $34 for a steak at celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson's restaurant Red Rooster Harlem. [ more › ]
Explore Harlem On A Free (Sort Of) Red Rooster Bicycle
Jamie Feldmar
Thu, 28 Jul 2011 23:18:28 GMT
Local Artist Leaves Two Paintings Behind In Cab
Local artist Renelio Marin is asking for help in tracking down two of his most important paintings which he says he forgot in a cab on his way to an art show in Harlem.
Local Artist Leaves Two Paintings Behind In Cab
Fri, 29 Jul 2011 01:20:53 GMT
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Police Search for Two Girls Missing Since Monday
Police Search for Two Girls Missing Since Monday
July 27, 2011 9:41am | By Tuan Nguyen, DNAinfo
Queen Sutherland, 14, (L) and Janell Johnson, 13, were last seen in Harlem July 25, 2011. (NYPD)
UPPER EAST SIDE — Police are seeking the public’s help to locate two girls who have been missing since Monday night.
Queen Sutherland, 14, of E 102nd Street and Janell Johnson, 13, of Brooklyn, were last seen around 9:00 p.m. in Sutherland’s house in Harlem. The girls are cousins, police said.
Sutherland is described as 4-foot-11-inches tall and weighing 100 pounds. She has black and blond braids and was last seen wearing an orange t-shirt, blue jeans and neon green and gray sneakers.
Johnson, who stands five-foot-six-inches tall and weighs 115 lbs., has long black hair that she often wears in a ponytail. She was last seen wearing a white t-shirt with the words “Don't Hate Me Because I'm Pretty” and purple pants, and white and purple Airmax sneakers.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or send their tips or text 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577.
All calls are strictly confidential.
Harlem Farm Share Brings Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Uptown
Harlem Farm Share Brings Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Uptown
July 27, 2011 7:19pm | By Jeff Mays, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
Corbin Hill Road Farm founder Dennis Deryck and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer outside of a new distribution site on West 132 Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem. (DNAinfo/Jeff Mays)
HARLEM — When people taste the collard greens, potatoes or carrots delivered by upstate New York's Corbin Hill Road Farm for the first time, founder Dennis Deryck often recognizes the confused look on people's faces.
"Some people won't like it with the first bite because they've forgotten what fresh produce tastes like. We picked our collard greens yesterday and brought them to Harlem today," Deryck said. "But within a few minutes, they say, 'This is wonderful.'"
Thanks to a new partnership with the Manhattan Borough President's Office, the Harlem Farm Share program, many more residents will have a chance to sample fresh and organic fruit and vegetables.
"Healthy eating has in the past been for people who can afford it," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer at West 132nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue — one of the farm's new distribution sites, which doubles as a local Democratic club. "There are poor communities that don't have access to healthy peaches or potatoes."
Unearthing Traces of African-American Village Displaced by Central Park
Unearthing Traces of African-American Village Displaced by Central Park
By LISA W. FODERARO
For more than a decade, anthropologists and historians pieced together the history of a short-lived African-American community that was snuffed out in the 1850s by the creation of Central Park. They combed vital records and tax documents, scanned parkland using radar and studied soil borings.
But because the vestiges of the community were buried beneath the park, the leaders of the Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History — a consortium of three professors from City College, Barnard College and New York University — were kept from doing the one thing that would open a window onto the daily existence of the some 260 residents: digging.
That all changed eight weeks ago, after they won permission from the city to excavate in an area of the park near 85th Street and Central Park West.
While the borings of the past produced just a few artifacts, the dig, which will end on Friday, generated 250 bags of material that should keep the scholars busy for months, if not years. The work on Wednesday alone yielded a toothbrush handle fashioned of bone and the lid of a stoneware jar.
About two-thirds of the residents of Seneca Village were African-American, while the rest were of European descent, mostly Irish. The community was settled in the 1820s, a few years before slavery was abolished in New York. Despite old news reports that the village was a squatter camp, it was, in fact, made up of working- and middle-class property owners.
Detailed historical maps indicate that the village stretched from 82nd to 89th Streets, between what were then Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Nan A. Rothschild, an anthropologist who is a professor at Columbia University and Barnard College, said that there were other settlements in the area, but that “this is the most formal, coherent community that we know of, because it was laid out in a grid pattern and had three churches and a school.”
With the help of 10 college interns, the institute focused on two primary sites: the yard of a resident named Nancy Moore, and the home of William G. Wilson, a sexton at All Angels’ Episcopal Church, both of whom were black. Records show that Mr. Wilson and his wife, Charlotte, had eight children and lived in a three-story wood-frame house.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Student interns in Central Park at the site of Seneca Village, which was settled in the 1820s.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
A shard of pottery found at the site.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Buttons were among the settlement artifacts.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
The bowl of a clay pipe from the village, which was demolished in the 1850s.
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