36 Hours in Upper Manhattan
In
the 18th century, the northern half of Manhattan Island served as a
bucolic escape for New Yorkers with the cash to afford it and the horse
and carriage to get them there. It’s easier to visit these days (the A
train to Harlem being the most famous of many routes) and easier to get
around, with the city’s newfangled green cabs in abundance in
neighborhoods where yellow cabs have always been scarce. There’s also a
whole lot more to do these days. Harlem, the Dutch settlement that
became the black capital of America, is in the throes of gentrification:
a mix of old and new, from gospel-filled black church services to fine
cocktail bars abuzz with young professionals of all races. Meanwhile,
farther north, between the island’s oldest surviving house and its
largest swath of never developed land, is a Latino neighborhood the
likes of which you can no longer find south of Central Park.
FRIDAY
1. In (the) Wood | 4 p.m.
Take
the A train — but not to Harlem. Instead, head to the end of the line,
the 207th Street station in the Inwood neighborhood. A few blocks west
is a Manhattan you won’t recognize, although the Lenape people who once
inhabited the island surely would. Inwood Hill Park is a vast expanse of
Manhattan, most of which has never been built upon — 196 acres of
ridges, caves and forest that occasionally break for vistas of the
Hudson River and Spuyten Duyvil Creek. It’s also got Shorakkopoch Rock,
where Peter Minuit’s purchase of Manhattan Island from the Lenape tribe
supposedly took place. The paths are a loopy (and unmarked) tangle, so
print out a PDF map from nycgovparks.org or you’ll be scavenging berries for dinner.
2. Chile Infusion | 7 p.m.
You
don’t come to northern Manhattan for the Mexican food, even if La
Condesa, a cozy, surprisingly upscale spot, can produce a heck of an
enchilada. Instead, make a pre-dinner stop for the sophisticated
margaritas (from $8.50), with several variations using house infusions,
such as chipotle-infused mezcal with pineapple.
3. Family Dinner | 8 p.m.
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Eating at Margot Restaurant
This spot in Upper Manhattan draws loyal diners for its Dominican cooking.
Washington
Heights has been a predominantly Dominican neighborhood since the
1980s, which explains why Margarita Santana started finding a market for
her home-style Dominican cooking in 1984. A few years later she opened
Margot, a bright little restaurant with an outsized reputation among
Dominican-Americans. Smiles fill in for the limited English of the
staff, as your red-and-white checked table covering disappears under
plates of Dominican steak with onions ($13) and stewed goat ($12) with
sides of rice and soupy red beans, and fried plantains and
anise-flavored yuca arepas. Ask for a beer and they’ll send you to the
cramped, old-school bodega one block south; just step around the men
engaged in boisterous conversation and pluck some Presidente beers
($1.75) from the fridge.
4. Uptown Night Life | 10 p.m.
Washington
Heights and Inwood have long been dotted with Latino nightclubs, but
old-time merengue palaces have given way (in part) to the more modern
loungey options. Apt. 78 is just such a place: a comparatively tiny but
popular night spot whose name is a tribute to the defunct meatpacking
district club Apt, and looks vaguely like the interior of a New York
apartment. A very, very crowded apartment: The place packs in a youngish
uptown crowd that likes reggae and hip-hop at least as much as Latin
rhythms. Once April comes, though, the place to be is La Marina, all the
way west on the banks of the Hudson. Whether the party is inside or
out, everyone gets a view of the George Washington Bridge.
Inwood Hill Park
1/2 mile
Spuyten
Duyvil Creek
La Marina
new
jersey
Inwood
Dyckman st.
The Cloisters
Hudson
River
Apt. 78
bronx
Harlem River
Morris-Jumel Mansion
La Condesa
Jumel Terrace Books
Margot Restaurant
Convent Avenue Baptist Church
Serengeti Teas and Spices
Studio Museum in Harlem
lenox ave.
Red
Rooster
Billie’s Black
Harlem
Heritage
Tours
Lee Lee’s Baked Goods
Lido
El Museo
del Barrio
Adja Khady Food
Distributor
La Fonda Boricua
Minton’s
Bier
International
fifth ave.
67 Orange Street
MANHATTAN
central park
SATURDAY
5. The Harlem Two-Step | 10 a.m.
Serengeti
Teas and Spices is the first stateside retail store for Liberian-born
Caranda Martin’s tea company, and behind its carved mahogany and marble
bar Mr. Martin and his staff might suggest their smoky Masai Lion’s Head
black tea ($4) blend. They’re just as serious about their coffee, which
they roast every other day. Forgo their pastry by sneaking in some
warm, buttery, flaky rugelach ($1 each, hope for apricot) from tiny Lee
Lee’s Baked Goods a few blocks away, where Alvin Lee Smalls has been
making his “rugelach by a brother” since 2001.
6. Walk It Off | 11 a.m.
Get
a flavor of the new and the old, the African and the African-American,
on this 1.5-mile loop around Harlem: Start down Frederick Douglass
Boulevard — known as restaurant row but also home to stylish but
friendly shops like the Bébénoir boutique — then east across 116th to
see signs of Harlem’s West African immigrant population (check out the
Senegalese baskets in the window of Adja Khady Food Distributor). Turn
up Lenox Avenue, past cafes and churches, then cut west on 125th Street,
Harlem’s main drag — where American Apparel and the like have moved in
but street vendors still sell Obama playing cards and “Kim Kardashian”
scented oil.
7. Art-Food Pairings | Noon
Match
your food with your art. In central Harlem, the Studio Museum in Harlem
features artists of the African diaspora; from there head for a
“gourmet soul” lunch, like the moist, pan-cooked catfish filet folded
over a mound of crab meat ($14) at Billie’s Black. Or head east to
Spanish Harlem, the spiritual home of New York’s Puerto Rican community,
to El Museo del Barrio (showcasing Latino and Latin American artists)
before a lunch of mofongo de pernil — fried plantains mashed together
with roast pork shoulder — under the art-covered walls of La Fonda
Boricua.
8. This Old House | 3 p.m.
George
Washington slept (and planned for battle) here in 1776, Alexander
Hamilton dined here in 1790, and the man who shot him in a duel, Aaron
Burr, moved in after he married its most colorful resident, Madame Eliza
Jumel. Despite the characters who passed through the columned front
entrance of the Morris-Jumel Mansion and the marvelous period furniture
within, few visitors make it to Manhattan’s oldest surviving residence.
Those who do should not miss Jumel Terrace Books, the by-appointment
bookstore specializing in local history in the bottom floor of a nearby
brownstone. Its main attraction is the owner, Kurt Thometz, who lives
upstairs and may know more about uptown than all of his books combined.
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Music at Minton’s
Drop in for a set or supper at this Harlem spot.
9. Jacket Required | 8 p.m.
Dizzy
Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk were among the regulars
at Minton’s Playhouse in the 1940s, and the spot is often credited as
the birthplace of bebop. It closed in the 1970s, but a new Minton’s has
just been born in the form of a white-tablecloth club, a project of the
former Time Warner C.E.O. Richard Parsons and the Southern cuisine
innovator Alexander Smalls. Its jazz ambitions are decidedly retro: The
snowy-haired house band, some of whom played at the original Minton’s,
is delightfully old-fashioned. But its culinary ambitions are
forward-thinking: cremolata crusted grouper with braised young spinach
($36) or sweet potato ricotta dumplings with Tokyo turnips and coconut
collard greens ($28), for example.
10. Three Scenes | 11 p.m.
Noisy
beer garden? Intimate cocktail hideaway? See-and-be-seen scene? The new
Harlem has bars for all moods. Bier International has long wooden
tables and a beer list that’s heavy on the German but with choices from
exotic lands like Corsica, Kenya and the Bronx. 67 Orange Street is a
tiny hipsterish joint with very serious bartenders creating $13
cocktails with names like Cleopatra’s Lust and Manhattan After Dark. Or
go to the go-to, Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster, not yet three years
old and already practically a Harlem landmark, or head for Ginny’s
Supper Club speakeasy underneath.
SUNDAY
11. Sunday Best | 9:30 a.m.
Visiting
a Baptist service, with ministers preaching, gospel choirs grooving and
animated congregations matching them step for step has become a staple
of Harlem tourism. Skip the lines by attending the Canaan Baptist Church
of Christ with Harlem Heritage Tours; the $39 package includes a
neighborhood tour afterward, given by either the energetic Neil
Shoemaker, who is a native Harlemite and won’t let you forget it, or
Andi Owens, an 85-year-old guide with at least one clever quip for each
of those years. Or head to the Convent Avenue Baptist Church and ask if
you can sit with the congregation.
12. Mimosas Unlimited | 1:30 p.m.
At
first glance, you might think that Harlemites pack bright, cheery Lido
for Sunday brunch for the $13 bottomless mimosa. But the real highlight
is the food. Sure, all the regular hollandaisey, pancakey items are on
the menu, but this is also an Italian place, so try the pumpkin ravioli
drenched in ginger cream, drizzled with balsamic syrup and sprinkled
with sage ($18). Or compromise with an Italian-brunch hybrid: the
buttery egg panini with goat cheese, bacon and tomato ($13).
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Escaping to the Cloisters
A visit to this branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art could make you forget you’re in Manhattan.
13. Stained Glass and Unicorns | 3 p.m.
Fort
Tryon Park has commanding views of the Hudson River and the New Jersey
Palisades, but is best known for the Cloisters, a branch of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art housed in a monastery-like building with
three cloister gardens constructed in part from architectural elements
from medieval structures transported across the Atlantic. Within are
sculpture, stained glass and illuminated manuscripts, and perhaps the
Met’s most famous medieval works, the Unicorn Tapestries.
THE DETAILS
1. Inwood Hill Park.
2. La Condesa, 3508 Broadway; lacondesanyc.com.
3. Margot Restaurant, 3822 Broadway, 212-781-8494.
4. Apt. 78, 4447 Broadway, apt78.com. La Marina, 348 Dyckman; lamarinanyc.com.
5. Serengeti Teas and Spices, 2292 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; serengetiteasandspices.com. Lee Lee’s Baked Goods, 283 West 118th Street; leeleesrugelach.com.
6. Bébénoir, 2164 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; bebenoir.com. Adja Khady Food Distributor, 243 West 116th Street, 212-933-0374.
7. Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 West 125th Street; studiomuseum.org. Billie’s Black, 271 West 119th Street; billiesblack.com. El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue; elmuseo.org. La Fonda Boricua, 169 East 106th Street; fondaboricua.com.
8. Morris-Jumel Mansion, 65 Jumel Terrace; morrisjumel.org. Jumel Terrace Books, 426 West 160th Street; jumelterracebooks.com.
9. Minton’s, 206 West 118th Street; mintonsharlem.com.
10. Bier International, 2099 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; bierinternational.com. 67 Orange Street, 2082 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; 67orangestreet.com. Red Rooster, 310 Lenox Avenue; redroosterharlem.com.
11. Harlem Heritage Tours, 104 Malcolm X Boulevard; harlemheritage.com. Convent Avenue Baptist Church, 420 West 145th; conventchurch.org.
12. Lido, 2168 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; lidoharlem.com.
13. The Cloisters, 99 Margaret Corbin Drive; metmuseum.org.
LODGINGS
The 124-room Aloft Harlem (2296 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; aloftharlem.com), from Starwood’s boutique Aloft brand, is as slick and modern as you would expect. Not bad for uptown’s only major hotel. From $149.
One of the many bed-and-breakfast-style operations that have sprung up in the area, the Harlem Flophouse (242 West 123rd Street; harlemflophouse.com) has meticulously restored rooms in an 1890s brownstone. Note: shared bathrooms. From $100.
1. Inwood Hill Park.
2. La Condesa, 3508 Broadway; lacondesanyc.com.
3. Margot Restaurant, 3822 Broadway, 212-781-8494.
4. Apt. 78, 4447 Broadway, apt78.com. La Marina, 348 Dyckman; lamarinanyc.com.
5. Serengeti Teas and Spices, 2292 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; serengetiteasandspices.com. Lee Lee’s Baked Goods, 283 West 118th Street; leeleesrugelach.com.
6. Bébénoir, 2164 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; bebenoir.com. Adja Khady Food Distributor, 243 West 116th Street, 212-933-0374.
7. Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 West 125th Street; studiomuseum.org. Billie’s Black, 271 West 119th Street; billiesblack.com. El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue; elmuseo.org. La Fonda Boricua, 169 East 106th Street; fondaboricua.com.
8. Morris-Jumel Mansion, 65 Jumel Terrace; morrisjumel.org. Jumel Terrace Books, 426 West 160th Street; jumelterracebooks.com.
9. Minton’s, 206 West 118th Street; mintonsharlem.com.
10. Bier International, 2099 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; bierinternational.com. 67 Orange Street, 2082 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; 67orangestreet.com. Red Rooster, 310 Lenox Avenue; redroosterharlem.com.
11. Harlem Heritage Tours, 104 Malcolm X Boulevard; harlemheritage.com. Convent Avenue Baptist Church, 420 West 145th; conventchurch.org.
12. Lido, 2168 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; lidoharlem.com.
13. The Cloisters, 99 Margaret Corbin Drive; metmuseum.org.
LODGINGS
The 124-room Aloft Harlem (2296 Frederick Douglass Boulevard; aloftharlem.com), from Starwood’s boutique Aloft brand, is as slick and modern as you would expect. Not bad for uptown’s only major hotel. From $149.
One of the many bed-and-breakfast-style operations that have sprung up in the area, the Harlem Flophouse (242 West 123rd Street; harlemflophouse.com) has meticulously restored rooms in an 1890s brownstone. Note: shared bathrooms. From $100.
