Now that Pride Season is kicking off, I want you to look at the parades, parties, regattas, and ask yourself a nagging little question: Don’t they seem overabundantly…white?
Now in it’s fifth year, Harlem Pride in New York City celebrates the African-American contributions to the cause — and they are legion, by the way. Running June 22-29 (that’s right before NYC Pride begins on the 27th), the festivities center on Marcus Garvey Park, a neat square of green in east Harlem, but this is a party that tends to overflow.
Beginning with a Sunday Service at Rivers At Rehoboth Church, the event moves on through film showings and a fundraiser before the big blow-out on the 27th at Jackie Robinson Park just west of Marcus Garvey. While Harlem Pride commemorates black contributors to gay life in American, and remembers those no longer with us, the festival also celebrates the Harlem of today: In recent years, the neighborhood has seen a big upswing in Afro-Caribbean immigrants, and this tropical flavor is reflected by the Dominican Film Festival on the 22nd. Sturdy partygoers can leap from Harlem’s festivities to the Big Apple’s main Pride shebang on the 28th(Harlem Pride will have its own parade float for that — move fast and you might be able to get on it!).
Harlem has been getting a lot of good press lately. By far one of the cheaper of Manhattan’s sections, several businesses are migrating up the subway lines and revitalizing the ‘hood as they do. If you are hungry in Harlem, it was always Sylvia’s that you went to (and you still should, the soul food is A-MAZ-ING) but the new kid on the block, Red Rooster is pulling in crowds from all over the metro area. On the map, Harlem looks to be light years away from just about anything else, but the map can be deceptive: Four express subways lines, the A, D, 4, and 5, make even the most distant Harlem address about 15 minutes from midtown Manhattan.
Keeping that in mind that puts some of the best of Harlem within easy reach—the Apollo Theater, St. John the Devine, the National Jazz Museum, the Malcolm X Museum, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Another uptick? Harlem is poised to be the next gayborhood of New York. Chelsea is “over” and Hell’s Kitchen is getting pricey fast. So gays are heading north up the subways, and bringing the infrastructure with them; at 3610 Broadway is the Chipped Cup, Harlem’s first gay coffee house.
For more info, go to harlempride.org
Steele Luxury Travel