Black History Month is all around us in New York City. Here are some of the many places within the five boroughs to explore Black New Yorkers’ indelible influence on art, culture and cuisine.
Queens
The Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona is where the jazz trailblazer lived for nearly three decades with his fourth wife, Lucille Wilson. Now the original structure of the two-story, mid-century brick house has a state of the art structure adjacent to that houses the musician’s archives, as well as performance spaces, research rooms and an exhibition room.
In nearby Jamaica, the 325-seat Black Spectrum Theater has been bringing Blackcentric entertainment to the area via stage productions, films, performing arts and community forums since 1970.
Henrica’s Restaurant and Lounge in Rosedale has been a longtime favorite for people with a palate for Caribbean and Chinese fusion with popular dishes such as Jerk Chicken Lo Mein, Brown Stew Tofu and Henrica’s Chop Suey.
Staten Island
The borough that boasts civil rights activist Evelyn King, 18th century bare-knuckled boxer Bill Richmond, chess master Walter Harris and the Wu-Tang Clan amongst its ranks is also the place where free Blacks established the Sandy Ground settlements on the South Shore in the early 1800s.
The Oakwood neighborhood is home to Frederick Douglass Memorial Park, which is recognized as the only African American cemetery in New York City. Named after the 19th-century abolitionist leader, orator and newspaper publisher, the burial ground is also the final resting place of Queen of the Blues Mamie Smith, jazz musician Tommy Ladnier and Negro Baseball Hall of Famer Sol White.
As far as food goes, Shaw-Nae’s House: Soul Food Sanctuary in Stapleton offers sweet potato cornbread, shrimp mac and cheese and Sugar Daddy Wings.
The Bronx
Already a popular destination for seafood lovers, the 1.5-mile long fishing village of City Island is now home to a Black-owned restaurant specializing in seafood and soul food. Seafood Kingz 2 Inc. opened in 2022 as a northern offshoot to a previously owned fish fry joint in St. Albans, Queens. Owner Darryl Lelie and his family brought their own culinary twist to the waterfront enclave with Cajun fried tenders, king crab legs and fried lobster tails.
A who’s-who of Black history makers are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery • Conservancy, from jazz pioneers Duke Ellington, W.C. Handy and Miles Davis to North Pole explorer Matthew Henson and entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker. The sprawling, 400-acre “urban oasis” was designated a national historic landmark in 2011.
For bookworms who believe reading is fundamental, Mott Haven’s The Lit. Bar is an independent bookstore and wine bar that Bronx-born “venture activist” Noëlle Santos opened in 2019 with a mission to bring literature and community together. The neighborhood’s first Black-owned wine bar-bookstore offers a wide array of titles alongside a variety of wine, charcuterie boards and other snacks.
Brooklyn
Visitors to the Weeksville Heritage Center are transported to the 19th century where one of the country’s first free Black communities was established in pre-Civil War America and rediscovered in the late 1960s. The designated landmark — named after James Weeks, a former slave from Virginia who purchased the Crown Heights-area land in 1838 — is also home to the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses, which were built between 1840-1880.
Brooklyn native Richard Beavers opened his eponymous Bed-Stuy gallery in 2007 with a mission to promote diverse works for contemporary art. The space, which prides itself on being “small in size; large in stature and philosophy,” was listed as one of the top Black-owned spaces amplifying Black art by Black Enterprise magazine. The gallery has presented awe-inspiring works by collagist Leroy Campbell, quilt maker Phyllis Stephens, photographer Jamel Shabazz, and painter Marcus Jansen through the years.
Just down the road, Je T’aime Patisserie serves up fresh-baked French treats at the only known specialty bakery in the area to accept EBT/SNAP cards as payment. The self-taught proprietor, Jatee Kearsley, has gone viral on social media for creating colorful concoctions such as croissants in unique flavors like Thin Mint, red velvet and orange blossom champagne cream.
Manhattan (Harlem)
The Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, founded in 2015 by Manhattan non-profit Broadway Housing Communities, is the only New York children’s museum north of the Upper West Side. It is designed by Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye, the visionary behind the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, D.C.. The museum’s high-rise building also houses 124 affordable apartments and a preschool.
With the mission to bring diversity to classical ballet, Harlem-born dancer and choreographer Arthur Mitchell, ballet master Karel Shook and actors Cicely Tyson and Brock Peters founded the Dance Theater of Harlem during the civil rights movement. Through its school, DTH provides world-class arts education programming taught by African American and other racially diverse artists. Alicia Graf Mack, the new artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, is an alum of the school.
For nearly 70 years, Sylvia’s Harlem Restaurant has been a comfort food staple in Harlem. “Queen of Soul Food” Sylvia Woods once was a waitress at the luncheonette she would later transform into a home-away-from-home for customers who wanted Southern favorites like crispy fried chicken, barbecued salmon, collard greens, macaroni and cheese and peach cobbler. The eatery has since become a tourist attraction and a frequent stop for the likes of Muhammad Ali, Diana Ross, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Shaquille O’Neal and Bruno Mars.
