Portal:New York (state)/Selected article/10
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African-American cultural and business center. After being associated for much of the twentieth century with crime and poverty, it is now experiencing social and economic gentrification.
Harlem stretches from the East River to the Hudson River between 155th Street—where it meets Washington Heights—to a ragged border along the south. Central Harlem begins at 110th Street, at the northern boundary of Central Park; Spanish Harlem extends east Harlem's boundaries south to 96th Street, while in the west it begins north of Upper West Side, which gives an irregular border west of Morningside Avenue. Harlem's boundaries have changed over the years; as Ralph Ellison observed: "Wherever Negroes live uptown is considered Harlem." The first European settlement in what is now Harlem was by Hendrick de Forest and Dutch settlers in 1637.