Harlem Walk – churches and soul food!
This ended up being a pretty good walk and so I thought I would record it in case we ever wanted to do it in the future. Particularly since we didn’t make it to everything on our list, but we put in a great effort!
Lee and Helen came to stay in Maplewood and were spending a few nights on the Upper West Side not far from Harlem and so I thought this would be a good way to show them how to get to their hotel from Maplewood, and to see an interesting part of New york. Little did they know what they were in for!
A rough map of our walk was….
First stop the subway on 125th st. My first above ground subway in New York!
The Riverside Church (which has stunning views from it’s tower)
Trying to find my way out of the mammoth place, I accidentally went up the tower (on the recommendation of the security guard) which had a superb view…
A detour through Columbia University…
The unfinished Cathedral of St John Divine…
Morningside park and pond…
(note the walk is best walked in this direction so that you can go down the hill! Make sure you don’t miss the cute turtles who were happily sunning themselves the day we were there)
Mt Neboh Baptist Church…
We saw a church service here, which was thoroughly entertaining but definitely felt like a bit of a show particularly with the forced $20 pp donation. Next time I would try one of the Plan B churches. We didn’t go to the most well known service at the Abssyinian Baptist Church as we didn’t want to queue for up to two hours and then go to a 2.5 hour service. We weren’t quite that dedicated!
Lunch at Amy Ruth’s. We had planned on Sylvia’s Soul Food but we were way too hungy by this point. Amy Ruth’s by the way was excellent which is supported by the amount of fried chicken walking out the door each day. We had to try the specialty of waffles and fried chicken, but the highlight surprisingly was their delectable corn bread.
We had a quick look for the Malcolm Shabazz market but it wasn’t where Google said it should be! and walked past Masjid Mosque (which was once a casino apparently)…
Mt Morris Historical District and Marcus Garvey Park…we couldn’t find the Acropolis with the view?
The Lennox Lounge…
Finally the Apollo Theater…
And exitted via the subway. All in all whilst it was a busy walk it was a great overview of Harlem 🙂
(Helen really won her stripes on this walk with her committment to the schedule!)
Wallamble 