Introduction

From my thirteenth-floor office window at Columbia University, the highest peak of the Morningside Heights neighborhood, you can catch a panoramic glimpse of Harlem. I am always struck by the concentration of myriad towering red brick apartment buildings. Intermittent patches of greenery break the monotony. But, despite the overabundance of similar seemingly unimaginative mammoth structures, one cannot truly get a feel for Harlem from up so high. Nor can one actually see how much Harlem has changed; today’s overhead view probably looks a lot like the one from a decade ago. After all, at its core, Harlem is and always has been a residential community.