otheruses
[Theater.jpg|thumb|right|375px|The [[Apollo Theater] on 125th Street; the Hotel Theresa]] is visible in the background.
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African American cultural and business center. Harlem was a village independent of New York City until 1873, and has been defined by a series of boom and bust cycles, with significant ethnic shifts accompanying each bust. Originally a farming village best known as the site of Revolutionary War battles, it collapsed around 1850 and was occupied by Irish squatters. It revived after being incorporated into New York City and boomed with the introduction of efficient public transit to lower Manhattan. Too many houses were built, and the market cracked twice -- first in the mid 1890s, and again in 1904. Jews, Italians, and other ethnic groups moved into the neighborhood in large numbers and, after the 1904 crash, black residents arrived en masse.

It was this last group that would define Harlem in public consciousness. In the 1920s and 1930s, the neighborhood was the locus of the "Harlem Renaissance," an outpouring of artistic and professional skill without precedent in the American black community. However, starting with the Great Depression and especially after World War II, rates of crime and poverty increased significantly, and the neighborhood became essentially synonymous with these and other social ills.