Notables of Harlem - Recommended Books
Baker, Kevin. The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City. New York: Knopf, 2024. This recent history of professional baseball in New York up to 1945 will soon be followed by a companion book covering the later years. It gives baseball in Harlem rightful attention. Baker also writes compelling historical fiction, and his Strivers Row is a most worthy read.
Brooks, Tim. Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890–1919. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004. Early musical recordings are the subject here in detail like no other book.
Dunlap, David W. From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan’s Houses of Worship. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Dunlap stated that he tried to find every house of worship in Manhattan, past and present. With simple histories of each, this book is fun to peruse and extremely helpful.
Fletcher, Tom. 100 Years of the Negro in Show Business. New York: Da Capo Press, 1984. Have fun with all that Fletcher remembers from vaudeville to the 1950s.
Freeland, David. Automats, Taxi Dances, and Vaudeville: Excavating Manhattan’s Lost Places of Leisure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Freeland dives deep into some very interesting places of entertainment.
Greenidge, Kerri K. The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family. New York: Liveright Publishing, 2022. Read about this incredibly interesting family and all their important connections.
James, Davida Siwisha. Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2003. This is a wonderful portrait of Harlem’s upscale neighborhood.
Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Pulitzer Prize winning historian Lewis has rendered the best work on the Harlem Renaissance.
McGruder, Kevin. Philip Payton: The Father of Harlem. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2021. This long-overdue biography is essential to understanding Harlem history.
Reed, Bill. Brains as Well as Feet: The Leonard Reed Story. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media, 2015. A biography of a lesser-known notable behind the scenes as connected with other notables.
Spady, Matthew. The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot: Audubon Park and the Families Who Shaped It. New York: Empire State Editions, 2020. This is the superb and definitive history of Audubon Park.
Stearns, Marshall, and Jean Stearns. Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994. This enjoyable read is the bible of dance for the period when Harlem evolved.
Washington, Eric K. Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal. New York: Liveright Publishing, 2019. This page-turner and award winning book recounts the story of the boss of the Grand Central terminal baggage handlers and how he mentored many of them into successful lives.
Whitmire, Ethelene. Regina Anderson Andrews, Harlem Renaissance Librarian. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014. One of the best inspiring biographies of an accomplished woman detailing the challenges faced by African Americans.
Notables of Manhattan's Upper West Side, Bloomingdale-Morningside Heights - Recommended Books
Amory, Cleveland, Editor-in-Chief. Celebrity Register: An Irreverent Compendium of American Quotable Notables. Harper & Row, 1963.
The City of New York, Official Directory, aka The Green Book. Various years.
Dau's New York Blue Book. Various years.
de Bary, Wm. Theodore. Living Legacies at Columbia. Columbia University, 2006.
Dolkart, Andrew S. Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture & Development. Columbia University Press, 1998.
Dunlap, David W. On Broadway: A Journey Uptown Over Time. Rizzoli International, 1990.
Dunlap, David. From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan's Houses of Worship. Columbia University Press, 2004.
Leadon, Fran. Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles. W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.
Lyford, Joseph P. The Airtight Cage: A Study of New York's West Side. Harper Colophon, 1968.
McCaughey, Robert. A College of Her Own: The History of Barnard. Columbia University Press, 2020.
McCaughey, Robert. A Lever Long Enough: A History of Columbia's School of Engineering and Applied Science Since 1894. Columbia University Press, 2014.
McCaughey, Robert. Stand Columbia: A History of Columbia University in the City of New York, 1754 - 2004. Columbia University Press, 2003.
Morgan, Bill. The Beat Generation in New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac's City. City Lights Books, 1997.
Mott, Hopper Striker. The New York of Yesterday: A Descriptive Narrative of Old Bloomingdale. G. P. Putnam's Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1908.
Russell, William Logie. The New York Hospital: A History of the Psychiatric Service, 1771 -1936. Columbia University Press, 1945.
Salwen, Peter. Upper West Side Story: A History and Guide. Abbeville Press, 1989.
Shelley, Thomas J. Upper West Side Catholics: Liberal Catholicism in a Conservative Archdiocese. Empire State Editions, Fordham University Press, 2020.
Susi, Michael V. Postcard History Series, Columbia University and Morningside Heights. Arcadia Publishing, 2007.
Susi, Michael V. Postcard History Series, The Upper West Side. Arcadia Publishing, 2009.
Wakin, Daniel J. The Man with the Sawed-Off Leg and Other Tales of a New York City Block. Arcade Publishing, 2018.
Wilson, Rufus Rockwell. New York in Literature: The Story Told in the Landmarks of Town and Country. Primavera Press, 1947.