Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African American cultural and business center. Harlem was a village independent of New York City until 1873, and has been defined by a series of boom and bust cycles, with significant ethnic shifts accompanying each bust. Originally a farming village best known as the site of Revolutionary War battles, it collapsed around 1850 and was occupied by Irish squatters. It revived after being incorporated into New York City and boomed with the introduction of efficient public transit to lower Manhattan. Too many houses were built, and the market cracked twice -- first in the mid 1890s, and again in 1904. Jews, Italians, and other ethnic groups moved into the neighborhood in large numbers and, after the 1904 crash, black residents arrived en masse.

It was this last group that would define Harlem in public consciousness. In the 1920s and 1930s, the neighborhood was the locus of the "Harlem Renaissance," an outpouring of artistic and professional skill without precedent in the American black community. However, starting with the Great Depression and especially after World War II, rates of crime and poverty increased significantly, and the neighborhood became essentially synonymous with these and other social ills.

By 1995, Harlem was experiencing social and economic gentrification. Though the percentage of residents who are black peaked in 1950, the area remains predominantly black.

Location and boundaries

Harlem stretches from the East River to the Hudson River between 158th Street—where it meets Washington Heights—to a ragged border along the south. Central Harlem begins at 110th Street, at the northern boundary of Central Park; Spanish Harlem extends east Harlem's boundaries south to 96th Street, while in the west it begins north of Upper West Side, which gives an irregular border west of Morningside Avenue. Harlem's boundaries have changed over the years; as Ralph Ellison observed: "Wherever Negroes live uptown is considered Harlem."

The neighborhood contains a number of smaller, cohesive districts. The following are some examples:

• West Harlem (west of St. Nicholas Avenue and north of 123rd Street)
• Hamilton Heights, around the Hamilton Grange
• Manhattanville, north of Morningside Heights
• Central Harlem
• Mount Morris, extending west from Marcus Garvey Park
• Strivers' Row, centered on 139th Street
• Sugar Hill
• Astor Row, centered on 130th Street
• East Harlem (east of Fifth Avenue)
• Spanish Harlem, south of 116th Street

Before the black migration

The first European settlement in what is now Harlem was by Hendrick de Forest and Dutch settlers in 1637. The area was repeatedly ambushed by Native Americans, most likely Lenape, who were previously the only inhabitants of the land, leading many Dutch to abandon it. The settlement was formalized in 1658 as Nieuw Haarlem (New Haarlem), after the Dutch city of Haarlem, under leadership of Peter Stuyvesant."To Live In Harlem," Frank Hercules, National Geographic, February 1977, p.178+ The Indian trail to Harlem's lush bottomland meadows was rebuilt by eleven black laborers on behalf of the Dutch West India Company, and eventually developed into the Boston Post Road. In 1664, the English took control of the New Netherland colony and anglicized the name of the town to Harlem. On September 16, 1776, the Battle of Harlem Heights, sometimes referred to as the Battle of Harlem or Battle of Harlem Plain, was fought in western Harlem around the Hollow Way (now West 125th St.), with conflicts on Morningside Heights to the south and Harlem Heights to the north.