The Harlem Walk of Fame is one full block, tree-lined. Both sidewalks contain beautiful bronze plaques honoring Harlem legends.
West 135th St, from Frederick Douglass Blvd to Adam Clayton Powell Blvd.
I’m Debi Kops. I’ll be your guide.
Historian, and a Central Harlem resident for decades.
She wove together New York history, the Art Deco complex, the public art and current events, and brought each building to life with humor and a performer’s magnetism.
Janet Solesky, Rockefeller Center tour
Who you’ll hear about.
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald won the first Wednesday Amateur Night at the Apollo in 1934. Big band leader Chick Webb was in the audience. Years later, Chick hired Ella as the singer for his big band, and they were featured at the Savoy Ballroom for eight years. Ella was known as the First Lady of Song.
Arturo Schomburg
Arturo was an important intellectual figure during the Harlem Renaissance. Over the years he collected literature, art, slave narratives, and other materials of African history, ten thousand pieces in all. The collection became the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie was a beloved American musician who played a bent trumpet. He and fellow musician Charlie Parker became a major influence in the development of bebop and modern jazz.
What you’ll see.
- St. Nicholas Park
- Walk of Fame
- Fane Hotellisted in The Green Book
- Thurgood Marshall High Schooloriginal site of Smalls Paradise
- 135th St. YMCA
- Phillip Payton’s residential block
- Speakers Corner
- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
- Lenox Terrace
- Metropolitan Church
Pursuit of Happiness @ Harlem Hospital
Based on the work of artist Vertis Hayes
Saturdays at ten in the morning.
The date, the tour and the number of seats are already filled in. Debi sees it come through and writes back the same day to confirm.
Your seats are held the second it goes through. Change your mind up to a day before, get everything back. If Debi calls it off, weather or otherwise, the refund lands the same day.
- Meet
- 10:00 a.m. at the entrance to St. Nicholas Park at 135th Street, west side of St. Nicholas Ave, near the uptown entrance to the B or C subway.
- Ends
- 12:00 p.m. across from the Schomburg Center at 135th Street and the southwest corner of Lenox Ave, near the downtown entrance to the 2 or 3 subway.
- Price
- $50 adults, $25 children, valid only for kids no taller than a yellow cab. Up to 20 on a tour. Larger groups, let’s talk.
- Dogs
- Welcome.
- Note
This is a dog-friendly tour.
Cancellations need 24 hours notice.
Harlem’s Rhythm and Rhyme Renaissance Tour
Poets, photographers, and songwriters made these blocks famous, then fought to stay on them. Walk where they walked, from the ’20s to today.
- Sundays at ten
- 2 hours
- $50, $25 for kids