Harlem Gospel global capital black Harlem neighborhood of New York. Is north of the island of Manhattan, Central Park just where it ends.
Until recently, this was not a very advisable for tourists, but thanks to rehabilitation has become the neighborhood is really quiet and interesting area to get lost and walk the streets.
Harlem View a larger map
was our first day in New York, so drawing was Sunday, we went to visit the neighborhood and attend a gospel Masses recommended that both the forums and guides. We
subway to the 125th Street station, dedicated to Martin Luther King, the great defender and promoter of the rights for black citizens in the U.S.. Leaving the subway
seems incredible that follow in New York, life goes much slower than a mile beyond the buildings in a few cases over 4 floors and is predominantly African-American race.
We had very clear the exact location of any of the tourist spots of Harlem's Apollo Theatre where they performed, among others, the Jackson Five, Ella Fitzgerald and James Brown, and the headquarters of the YMCA , so we decided to let our feet that we guide him through the streets of this neighborhood.
we had targeted only the direction of 3 churches where we could attend Mass gospel, but none of them was the well-known Abyssinian Baptist Church, as it is too jammed with tourists trips and decided to choose a more "authentic."
We walked aimlessly for a while, until about the start time of the Mass gospel, so we asked for one of the churches we had scored an older woman who looks their finest and certainly addresses Mass in another of the over one hundred churches that are in Harlem.
About
guides us in the direction we should follow, so within minutes we reached the door of the "Greater Central Baptist Church." It was not that he had brought any runs, but as we find that we were looking for and this was about the mass start, try your luck and enter.
When we arrived, we met a group of English and we mingle with them to enter. During the Mass we heard that have come with a trip that cost them $ 40. "What a steal" think, how easy it is to come by subway, walk, and enter any of the many churches that populate the streets Harlem.
The gospel church is interesting, but nothing we have not seen in the movies. People are very neat and continuing with fervor to the pastor who sweat the fat drop right in November to take its toll on the consciences of the faithful, who will respond with phrases like "Oh God!", "JesusChrist!" Or "yes!" While raise their hands, all enlivened with music, clapping and even dancing.
All this has a little (or a lot) to show, something that Americans have in their blood, and in fact when we had an hour of Mass, "invited" all tourists to leave the church because it would begin the second part of the Mass, "or maybe it was just that moment when you actually began the actual ceremony? We'll never know.
I leave these four videos from various parts of the Mass to give you an idea and help you decide whether you wish to attend the Mass gospel or not, but my recommendation is that if you're not going to go in and very tight time you live an experience that for better or for worse certainly not leave you indifferent.
After chatting at the door of the church on the show we had just witnessed, we continue our path instinctive the streets of Harlem, while the English group who have shared with us will start mass bus.
This neighborhood is to wander on foot and observe people in their day to day, and for that we must get off the tourist routes. I do not need tours we organize the visit.
As I said before I felt insecure at any time but on the contrary, I found an area much more welcoming and humane than the masses of concrete and glass from midtown Manhattan.
As we went in late November 2008, was very recently Obama's victory, and if at the heart of Manhattan had hundreds of references to the new president, imagine the African American neighborhood in the city.
All shops, restaurants and hotels were decorated with images of Obama and even sold calendars, shirts, badges and a host of electoral merchandising.
walked by the Malcolm X Boulevard, which gives name the famous defender of human rights and in which we find sights such as the restaurant Sylvia's Soul Food and the historic Lenox Lounge jazz club.
From here, walk to the area through the Columbia University Morningside Park, from which there are good views across the Harlem.
Once in the university area, we met hundreds of students in the streets near the university that come and go from colleges or buy fruits and vegetables in the stalls of Broadway up to 116th Street.
Nearby, we went to see the cathedral St. John the Divine, the largest neo-Gothic building in the world and that is still unfinished. For a while we could not enter, so if one day return to this city and I have secured a visit.
For this area and we had nothing to do, so we took the metro at the 116 st. - Columbia University station bound for Columbus Circle.
