Start your day with breakfast at Des Ambassades. Roger and I
can be found here most Sunday mornings, waiting for our laundry to dry. Everything on the menu is delicious, but for
breakfast, I’d especially recommend the almond croissant, which I like to say
is made with unicorn blood (it’s actually almond paste), and which is the best
croissant I’ve ever eaten (even better than croissants I’ve had in France), with a
coffee of your choosing. They also have
really delicious Senegalese dishes for dinner, and some truly amazing crème brûlée
for dessert. Once you’ve enjoyed your
croissant, you’ll find you’re right in the middle of things, and that you can
walk in nearly any direction and find something interesting to do.
If you walk west, you’ll find Morningside Park, which is small, but
has a few playgrounds, a duck pond, basketball courts, and some baseball
fields. If you walk up the steep stairs,
you’ll find yourself in Columbia
territory. The campus is lovely, and
worth a visit. The Butler
Library there often has exhibits up, and they’re usually interesting and
free. On Sundays, they have a small
farmer’s market with some great booths.
You can also stop by the Cathedral
of St. John the Divine, one of the largest churches in the world, and also
a work in progress since 1888. There are
also peacocks in the backyard! If you’re
in this area and ready for lunch, I’d recommend stopping at Toast or Mel’s Burger for lunch. Both have great burgers and strong beer
selections at reasonable prices. Other
great lunch places include: Blockhead’s,
Dosa Cart, and Roti Roll.
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Cathedral of St. John the Divine |
If you’d rather head south, you’ll find yourself passing Le
Petit Senegal on 116th St.
If you’re interested in trying
Senegalese food, there are a few good restaurants here to try, along with the Malcolm
Shabazz outdoor market, where you can buy West African cloth and
goods. If you continue south, you’ll run
into Frederick
Douglass Circle, which has a nice plaza surrounding a statue of Frederick
Douglass, featuring traditional African American quilt designs in its paving
pattern. complex colored paving pattern that alludes to traditional African
American quilt designs. You can hop over
to Larry’s Freewheeling and
rent a bicycle here if you’d like to explore more of Central Park. If you’d rather continue on foot, though, you
can explore the northern tip of the park and Harlem Meer, a really lovely pond and the Charles
A. Dana Discovery Center, where you can borrow a fishing pole in the
summer. The Lasker
Pool and Ice Rink is also relatively close, if you’d like to take a swim or
go ice skating. If all that activity
gets you hungry, I’d recommend stopping at Maoz,
a falafel chain that I think is really fantastic, on the bank of the pond. You can also head back north a bit to Amy Ruth’s, which has some of the
best southern food in Harlem (if you go, get
their Kool-Aid of the day!), or Zoma, an
Ethiopian restaurant with great platters to split.
Charles A. Dana Discovery Center |
After lunch, you should head north, where you’ll pass “Swing
Low,” one of my favorite sculptures in all of New York.
A statue of Harriet Tubman by Alison Saar (who you might remember from
our trip to New Orleans), it’s facing south instead of north because Saar
wanted it to stand as a reminder not of Tubman’s first journey north, but all
the journeys she made south, where she risked her freedom to help others. Keep heading north, and you’ll find yourself
on 125th St,
the most famous street in Harlem. Here, you’ll find plenty of people selling
various things on the street, along with a number of higher-end chain
stores. Drop by the Studio Museum, which has
been featuring artists of African descent since 1968 and is open for free on
the first Friday of every month.
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"Swing Low," by Alison Saar |
At dinner-time, you’ll have several options for your
meal. The most obvious is Red Rooster, where Marcus Samuelsson
serves up traditional southern food with a Swedish and Ethiopian flair. It’s
gotten a lot of publicity, and I’ll be honest: it isn’t my absolute favorite
restaurant in New York,
but it’s strong and if you’re interested, definitely worth checking out. Sylvia’s
is next door, and though I’ve wanted to go for several years, I’ve still never
tried it. Likewise, Maison Harlem is supposed to be great, but I haven’t
had a chance to go yet. Corner Social, just across the street, has a
good selection of American-fare, and Bad
Horse Pizza, just a bit south, has fantastic brick-oven pizza in a calm,
casual setting.
In the evening, you can also take in a show at the National Black Theatre or the Apollo Theater, a Harlem
tradition. If you’re in the mood for
bowling, Harlem Lanes is right around the
corner, as is the Magic
Johnson Movie Theater, which I can tell you from personal experience is
always an interesting spot to take in a movie.
In the evenings in the summer, there’s usually a concert at Marcus Garvey Park,
and it’s almost always worth taking in.
There are a number of good bars in the area, including Shrine, 1020, Harlem Tavern, and Bier International.
And, when you’re ready to tuck-in for the evening, I’d
recommend A-Loft,
which is a really nice hotel at an affordable price, and centrally located near
several subways and the M60 bus from LaGuardia.
I hope you'll come visit soon, and when you do, give me a call!
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