Harlem Shuffle
It was our second full day in New York City and I was excited because I’d booked us on a Harlem Gospel Tour. We had just a short walk down to the bus pick-up spot but as usual, seemed to be the last people to arrive, being relegated to the very back row of the bus, right next to the toilet! Our tour guide, Peggy, was originally from Alabama where she was privileged enough to have been a young congregation member under Martin Luther King Jnr! She moved to New York in 1977 so now qualified to tell us all about her city. Unfortunately Peggy was in the front seat of the bus, and consequently a very long way from us at the very back of the bus. It was almost as if we didn’t exist up there! She made a comment about the Dutch and asked if there were any Dutch people onboard. The people in the seats in front of us waved their hands in the air enthusiastically to identify themselves as Netherlands’ natives and Peggy said, “No, we don’t have any Dutch. Oh well”. The back half of the bus had a good laugh.
As we drove down Madison Avenue towards Harlem, the ritzy designer shops soon gave way to much less prestigious public housing blocks – large plain rectangles that looked like building blocks with rows of windows and no balconies. Peggy told us that Harlem was once a wealthy white neighbourhood and that it wasn’t until 1910 that it started to be inhabited by mostly black residents. Between 1910 and 1920, the government realised there was a surplus of housing that they could never fill with just white renters, so they opened it up to black people, who moved to Harlem in droves because of the cheap rent. At one stage it was also dominated by Eastern European Jews; Oscar Hammerstein and Harry Houdini amongst the famous of the Jews to come out of Harlem. Next to Warsaw and the Lower East Side, Harlem housed the third largest Jewish population in the world! There are still lots of synagogues around the area that have either been turned into theatres or churches, telltale signs of their origins still visible if you look closely.
Today, Harlem has three sections: the central black area, and the east and west Hispanic sections, where the Hispanic population makes up 28% of New York City’s total population. In the past few decades, lots of white people have moved into the Harlem area too, to take advantage of the cheaper housing. There are footpaths lined with gorgeous brown stones (just like in Sesame Street) and loads of trees and hills, which was not what we were expecting to find in Harlem. Peggy told us these brown stones now go for about $2m – $3m each! We also saw plenty of basketball courts nestled between the public housing blocks and I was imagining some of the Harlem Globetrotters honing their skills down there in the ‘hood! We also drove past Magic Johnson’s theatre and the huge Starbucks he owns. It’s good to see him giving back to the community he was raised in.
Our first stop was at the famous Apollo Theatre to check out the names on the footpath of all the famous black musicians that had been given their start there. All the black musician royalty were represented including Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Ritchie, Marvin Gaye and Michael Jackson, just to name a few. We also got to see Franco The Great (also known as the “Picasso of Harlem”), the artist responsible for the incredible murals that adorn the metal shopfront rollerdoors on Harlem’s 125th St., unofficially named Franco Boulevard. Franco was happy to have pictures taken with his adoring fans and was sitting at a table, clad in his overalls and lei, “Franco The Great” emblazoned on his back! The crowd around him was constant so we missed out on a photo with him. We did love his artwork though!
We had a brief stop at the Riverside Park in Harlem where there is an uninterrupted view of the George Washington Bridge. A good deal of land around the bridge, on the banks of the Hudson River, is still undeveloped apparently thanks to the Rockefeller Family, who once owned all the land, donating 2,500 acres back to national parks to preserve it. Known as the New Jersey Palisades, it is still threatened by developers but hopefully there will be enough opposition from the public to hold them off. Peggy was pretty passionate about this and we wouldn’t be surprised if she turned up with a picket herself one day.
Our next stop was the one we’d been waiting for! We pulled up outside the “Kelly Temple Church Of God In Christ” and were greeted by the very friendly, Very Reverend Bishop James Gaylord (I’m not kidding!). We were all ushered upstairs onto the balcony and welcomed with incredible zeal! Bishop Gaylord welcomed all the tourists by country to enthusiastic applause from his brethren. Unfortunately, despite 4 of us being from Australia, Peggy had failed to register our country; after all, we were the invisibles, up the back of the bus! It didn’t deter from the welcome we were receiving anyway!
The congregation was dressed to the nines (no wonder we’d been advised not to wear shorts) and they all looked resplendent in their fancy hats and gloves. The men were all in black suits and colourful ties while most of the women were wearing white. There was a guy on a three-sided Hammond organ, who was just going off, and a drummer who was a dead ringer for JJ from “Good Times”, sitting in a perspex box to muffle his wild bashing. Next, the choir was welcomed and they began to file in, dressed from head to toe in their white choir robes with a hint of blue and gold, swaying in time to the funky beat of the cheesy organ and filling up the balconies directly in front of us. Each time they sang, one choir member would come down and take the mic, belting out the lead vocal. They were awesome! They’d give Aretha a run for her money! The quality of the singing was incredible! The whole choir was clapping and swaying, waving their arms in the air and the congregation below were wiggling their hips and grooving around the church, many shaking tambourines, like there was no tomorrow! There was one guy, dressed in a suit with a polka dot bow tie and he was shuffling and grooving around the whole building! The best thing about it was that it wasn’t a show, it was actually a legitimate church service! It was so much fun! Sam and I were clapping along and getting into it too!
When it was time for the collection, Bishop Gaylord implored us to give whatever we could towards the “work of the Lord”. He looked up at the balcony where we were all sitting and told us we looked “like a million bucks” so had no excuse to not empty our pockets! He then asked us how we’d feel if we came down there to Harlem in a few years and “this here church was long gone?” He said “without no money we ‘aint got no choich”! There was then another ripper of a gospel song to encourage us even further. It was so worth the visit!
When Daina knew she was coming to New York she asked her friends for ideas of where she should go. One of her friends simply wrote the word: “Buddakan”. Daina told us it was a restaurant so we thought we’d make it our dinner destination. It probably would have helped to Google it before we turned up in our thongs. We’ve have actually since looked it up and the dress code according to Buddakan themselves is, get this…”downtown chic, hip and fun”! I don’t think our t-shirts and Havaianas qualified do you? The Asian family that followed us in in their tracksuits and joggers made us feel a bit better. This place was UNbelievable! From the minute we stood outside the ten foot high timber door and then stepped into the dimly lit, extremely trendy interior, we knew we were somewhere special! The walls are adorned with tapestries and huge paintings and as we wandered from the bar at the entry down a long corridor, lined with display cabinets full of Ming vases, we passed a great sunken room with mirrored walls and huge, plentiful candle-laden chandeliers suspended above communal tables. Our room, with its Aladdin-cave feel, had giant red vases and 3 arched doorways cut into different shapes. Our waiter was extremely attentive and fun and the food was out of this world! The desserts were so impressive we were naughty and ordered 3 to share! Talk about plating up! George, Gary and Matt would’ve been so proud of the detail in the preparation. It almost looked too good to eat. Almost.
Catching the subway back to our hotel we were just about rolling we were so full. The New York subway is stifling hot, especially at night. We just can’t work out why on earth they can’t aircondition it or even put some fans in there. It’s ridiculously stuffy and hot and we almost passed out getting down to the platform! We made it back to our hotel and sunk into our feather pillows, ready for a sound sleep!
