Slum Clearance

Urban renewal project, Albion, Michigan, 1967

Urban Renewal

Urban renewal project, New Bedford, Massachusetts, 1966

Affluent Harlem

By the late twentieth century, new development in Harlem typically retained, repaired, or sensitively replaced the neighborhood’s built fabric, but the residents of such housing were increasingly affluent. Pictured here are two examples, both on West 131st Street. Shown on the left is West One Three One Plaza, a middle-income condominium building developed by a Harlem-based community development corporation and completed in 1993. Harlem Sol, a privately developed condominium building, is shown on the right. Involving the restoration of a historic brownstone and contextual new construction, the structure was completed in 2011.

Read Muhammad Speaks

This 1968 Architects’ Renewal Committee in Harlem (arch) rendering of 125th Street from the East Harlem Triangle plan was also used by arch to represent Eighth Avenue in the West Harlem plan, suggesting this as an ideal type symbolizing the organization’s vision for Harlem’s major boulevards. Eclectic buildings align to define a public realm in which residents gather, converse, and display symbols of the black power movement. Reprinted from Architects’ Renewal Committee in Harlem, East Harlem Triangle Plan (New York, 1968), 38.

Morningside Park

This September 1968 architect’s rendering shows residents on the public space intended for the cleared gymnasium site in Morningside Park. It suggests the vision of the Architects’ Renewal Committee in Harlem and the West Harlem Community Organization of the space as inclusive, welcoming of all Harlemites, and supportive of the era’s radical politics. Signage includes the advice “Read Muhammad Speaks” and “Support Black Panthers.” Reprinted from Architects’ Renewal Committee in Harlem and West Harlem Community Organization, West Harlem Morningside: A Community Proposal (New York, 1968), 34. Drawing by E. Donald Van Purnell.

Triangle Commons

This August 1968 architect’s rendering shows Triangle Commons, the community and social services center to be located at the center of the East Harlem Triangle neighborhood. Planners envisioned its plaza as a vibrant public space that maintained Harlem’s civic life. Reprinted from Architects’ Renewal Committee in Harlem, East Harlem Triangle Plan (New York, 1968), 53. Drawing by E. Donald Van Purnell.

Theoretical Design

This conceptual plan prepared by the Architects’ Renewal Committee in Harlem and the Community Association of the East Harlem Triangle in August 1968 shows a mixture of land uses within the East Harlem Triangle neighborhood and community and social services at its center. 125th Street forms the southern boundary of this plan, and Madison Avenue defines the western boundary. Reprinted from Architects’ Renewal Committee in Harlem, East Harlem Triangle Plan (New York, 1968), 49.

Music Hath Charms

Cartoon satirizing noisy neighbors, Galaxy of Comicalities, April 5, 1834

Through the City of Tomorrow

Shell Oil advertising campaign, 1930s

Harbor

San Francisco harbor, 1851