Arrive Magazine - January/February, 2012

later told my friend Anuja Madar, a guidebook editor who moved here t wo years ago, about the frequent interruptions, she responded matter-of-factly, “Living in the city, you develop a bubble around you that keeps you from interacting with other people around you, but in Harlem I find that the bubble is either nonexistent or easily burst, and that allows you to experience the neighborhood—and its people— to the fullest.”

Bringing It Back Home From the Studio Museum, it’s another short stroll over to Adam Clayton Powell and then to Frederick Douglass Boulevard, both of which are home to many of the neighborhood’s new bars, bistros and shops, such as Nectar Wine Bar, Swing and Harlem Vintage. If you want to explore Harlem beyond the few blocks you can get to in an afternoon on foot, stop in at MODSquad Cycles on Douglass and rent a bike for the day. Owner Danielle Tully or any of the other staff will help you chart a course of the neighborhood’s highlights, along with good routes through nearby Central Park.

“If you blink
your eye
something
changes.”

That Harlem bubble bursts again down the street at Bier International, where I run into Red Rooster’s Chef Samuelsson, who’s relaxing with friends before heading back to man the kitchen for the evening. Samuelsson lives a few blocks from here and is famous for personally dragging friends from downtown to Harlem by any means necessary. On the day we met, the friends around his table had been lured by a game of tennis, but he tells me that he also likes to take people on tours of what he calls “old Harlem”—bars with blue drinks and a vibe that hasn’t changed in 40 years, and corner takeout joints where you can grab a meal before watching NBA players play secret pickup games at Rucker Park.

“125th Street, the Apollo, this
block—they’re all just scratching
the surface,” Samuelsson says.
“There’s so much more to Harlem
than you can find in one day.”
For the one day I have, though,
this stroll is enough. After down-
ing a weissbier poured from the
tap at Bier, I walk up a few blocks
toward 125th and take the A train
in the less exciting direction.

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