Save Harlem Now

Save Harlem Now A membership not for profit advocacy organization dedicated to protecting, preserving, and celebrating Harlem’s irreplaceable built heritage.

On May 21st, we held our 3rd Annual Gene Norman Preservation Awards Gala where we honored several preservationists and c...
06/03/2026

On May 21st, we held our 3rd Annual Gene Norman Preservation Awards Gala where we honored several preservationists and cultural institutions who have worked for decades to keep Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous culture alive in Harlem.

Our honorees were:

Voza Rivers, Founder of the New Heritage Theatre Group, who we have awarded the A. Philip Randolph-Bayard Rustin Lifetime Achievement Award;

Brent Leggs, Executive Director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and Strategic Advisor to the President and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, who we have awarded the Ella Baker Leadership Award;

The Harlem African Burial Ground Initiative (its members: Sharon Wilkins, Rev. Dr. Patricia Singletary, Hon. Melissa Mark-Viverito, and Melinda Velez) who we have awarded the Arturo Schomburg Stewardship Award; and

Dr. Marta Morena Vega, founder of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, who we have awarded the Frederick Douglass Visionary Award. Her guest accepted the award on her behalf as she was unable to attend in person.

The HARLEM AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND INITIATIVE will be honored at Save Harlem Now!’s Third Annual Gene Norman Preservation ...
05/12/2026

The HARLEM AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND INITIATIVE will be honored at Save Harlem Now!’s Third Annual Gene Norman Preservation Awards Gala with the ARTURO SCHOMBURG STEWARDSHIP AWARD.

In 2009, a group of Harlem community members formed the Harlem African Burial Ground Task Force (HABGTF) to advocate for the creation of a memorial that would restore honor, dignity, and respect to those buried at this sacred site. In 2011, NY Community Board 11 designated the HABGTF as the organization representing the interests of the historic cemetery. The HABGTF is now the Harlem African Burial Ground Initiative ().

Its members are (left to right):

Sharon Wilkins (former Deputy Borough Historian of Manhattan)

Rev. Dr. Patricia Singletary (Pastor Emerita and the first female Pastor of Elmendorf Reformed Church established in 1660, the descendant church of the Harlem African Burial Ground)

Hon. Melissa Mark-Viverito (President of the Hamilton Campaign Network and former NYC Council Speaker and Member representing District 8)

Melinda Velez (former Legislative Assistant to former New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito)

📅 Thursday, May 21
⏰ 6 - 10PM
📍 The Historic Riverside Church – Assembly Hall
91 Claremont Avenue, New York, NY 10027

Visit the link in our bio to learn more, support the gala, and get tickets of your own!

04/30/2026

An excerpt from our 2025 Gene Norman Preservation Awards Gala video on our Youtube channel! You can watch the full version as well as the rest of the videos in our 2025 Gala playlist – just head to the link in our bio!

In the 1920s, Central Harlem became one of the most remarkable square miles in American cultural history. The area held ...
04/22/2026

In the 1920s, Central Harlem became one of the most remarkable square miles in American cultural history. The area held an extraordinary concentration of Black talent, ambition, aspiration and institution-building. The jazz clubs and speakeasies of 133rd Street, the 135th Street library, and Harlem YMCA nurtured a community, literary salons and the Dark Tower where A’lelia Walker threw her legendary parties. The elegant brownstones of Strivers Row are where composers, athletes, entrepreneurs, and civil rights pioneers lived side by side.

This tour walks those blocks and tells the stories of the men and women — Madam C.J. Walker, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, John Nail, Eubie Blake, Augusta Savage, Fletcher Henderson, W.C. Handy, and dozens more — whose work in this small neighborhood forever changed American music, literature, and art, and whose legacy still echoes in the buildings that survive today.

📅 Saturday, April 25th, 2026

⏰ 11:00AM (2 hour tour)

📍 Central Harlem (Address will be given upon registration)

💲 $20.00

Register today (link im bio!)

This tour is led by Mark Satlof, a licensed New York City Sightseeing Guide, a 27-year resident of Strivers Row, and a Save Harlem Now! board member. It is presented by Save Harlem Now! in partnership with The Literary Society, organized by Lana Turner.

This walking tour will start at 11am in Central Harlem on Saturday, April 25th and last about two hours. More details will be provided following your RSVP.

📸: Klaus-Peter Statz

04/11/2026

Save Harlem Now! cofounder Valerie Jo Bradley sat down with us for a conversation discussing Harlem’s past, present and future. Throughout her storied career working as a spokesperson, a journalist, a press liaison, and an activist, she always understood the necessity for centering the public in bringing about cultural change. We thank her for such an enlightening discussion and for putting into perspective what it really means to SAVE HARLEM NOW!

Yesterday we had the pleasure of hosting two absolutely astounding authors- Dr. David Levering Lewis and Victoria Christ...
04/02/2026

Yesterday we had the pleasure of hosting two absolutely astounding authors- Dr. David Levering Lewis and Victoria Christopher Murray! Such a joyous experience for all in attendance. Dr. Lewis gave us insightful commentary on his Pulitzer Prize winning biography, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 and W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919–1963 as well as his book, Harlem Was In Vogue. We celebrated black history whilst also touching on how used her book, Harlem Rhapsody, not only to entertain but to inform readers with fiction. A night to remember. Thank you to for working in unison with us, always a pleasure! Thank you to everyone who attended and made our event so lively!

03/19/2026

We had the pleasure of having an insightful, refreshing conversation with the founder of UbuntuMagazine: SHARJAH M’BODJI. Sharjah discussed with us her second issue THE FIRE THIS TIME BEGINS WITH US, her plans for , and what that means for the upcoming youth in Harlem.

Sharjah is only 17 years old with a pulse on Harlem history and the direction we as a people should be headed in. Be sure to check out the latest edition of UbuntuMagazine and submit for its third issue: ❤️ POETIC JUSTICE 🤎

Join Save Harlem Now! and Landmark West! for the Rise and Fall of San Juan Hill. The last installment in our weekly seri...
02/24/2026

Join Save Harlem Now! and Landmark West! for the Rise and Fall of San Juan Hill.

The last installment in our weekly series: The Road to Harlem.

Between roughly 1900 and 1915, San Juan Hill was the center of Black life in Manhattan. In many ways a cultural and economic precursor to Harlem, residents of San Juan Hill established their own businesses, religious organizations, charitable institutions, and more. Though derided by the city’s white outsiders as a neighborhood blighted by crime, vice, and crumbling infrastructure, those who lived in San Juan Hill continuously labored to create a community dedicated to progress and uplift.

This talk will explore the history of the neighborhood, including its eventual destruction under Robert Moses under mid twentieth century urban renewal policies.

📅 Thursday, February 26
⏰ 6:00 to 7:30PM
📍 Virtual. Link in bio!
💲 Free

Jessica Larson is an architectural historian in the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California. She received her Ph.D. in Art History from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. LANDMARK WEST! is a forty-year old preservation and land use nonprofit serving the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Join us one last time for our final installment! The link to register is in our bio!
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Image: The New York Times (via Lincoln Center)

Resharing from our friends at Long before Harlem became the heart of Black New York, Black life, resistance, and commun...
02/05/2026

Resharing from our friends at

Long before Harlem became the heart of Black New York, Black life, resistance, and community were deeply rooted in Lower Manhattan, particularly in what we now call Greenwich Village.

This Black History Month, Village Preservation presents in partnership with and the first two parts of the Save Harlem Now! series “The Road to Harlem: The Forgotten History of Black Manhattan” The series traces the origins of Black New Yorkers from the colonial era through the rise of Harlem, with a special focus on the South Village’s historic Little Africa.

Image 1: Part 1: Free, “Half-Free,” & Enslaved — Black Life in New Amsterdam
Explore the 17th-century Black community of New Amsterdam, including formerly enslaved Africans who established farms north of the colonial town — on land that would later become neighborhoods like Greenwich Village. These early residents laid the groundwork for Black presence in Manhattan generations before emancipation.

Image 2: Part 2: Little Africa — Black Life & Community in the South Village
Discover the vibrant free Black community that thrived in the South Village in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Known as Little Africa, this neighborhood was home to Black churches, businesses, mutual aid societies, and activists — a crucial chapter in Greenwich Village history that is too often left out of the story.

These free programs highlight how Greenwich Village played a vital role in the long arc of Black history in New York City.

Go to our link in the bio to register for these and all of our February programs.

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New York, NY

Website

https://linktr.ee/saveharlemnow

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