Sugar Hill (Manhattan)

Sugar Hill is a neighborhood of Central Harlem in New York City borough of Manhattan.

Location

Sugar Hill is located in the northern part of Hamilton Heights district. It extends from 145th Street to 155th Street in the south to the north and from the Edgecombe Avenue to the east to Amsterdam Avenue on the west.

History

The name Sugar Hill came up in the 1920s, when this area a preferred residential area with town houses for wealthy African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance was. The name should be the " sweet life " ( sweet life ) emphasize in Harlem. Here, for BWEB Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Duke Ellington settled.

Langston Hughes wrote about the relative prosperity in Sugar Hill, in comparison to the rest of Harlem in his essay Down and Under in Harlem, which was published in The New Republic in 1944: " If you are white and read this, you should not see it as a matter of course, that all of Harlem is a slum. That's not it. There are large residential buildings on the hill, Sugar Hill, and up at City College - beautiful houses with high rents, elevators and doormen where Canada Lee lives and WC Handy and George S. Schuyler and Walter White's, where colored families their babies in private kindergartens to accommodate and visited their offspring the Ethical Culture School "( original: ". If you are white and are reading this vignette, do not take it for granted did all of Harlem is a slum It Is not There are big apartment houses. . up on the hill, Sugar Hill, and up by City College - nice high -rent houses with elevators and doormen, Canada where Lee lives, and WC Handy, and the George S. Schuyler, and the Walter Whites, where colored families sending Their babies to private kindergarden and Their youngsters to Ethical Culture School ").

Sugar Hill was explained by the Landmarks Preservation Commission of the City of New York to the historic district ( Historic District ) in 2000. At the national level, the historical value of this area is noted by passing it as a National Historic Place Registered.

Sugar Hill and music

The names of the rap group The Sugarhill Gang and the rap label Sugar Hill Records is a tribute to the district. Even the rapper AZ refers to the quarter in his song Sugar Hill on the album Doe or Die. In addition, Sugar Hill is also mentioned in the lyrics of jazz standards Take the "A" Train by Billy Strayhorn.

Sugar Hill in the movie

The U.S. thriller Sugar Hill by Leon Ichaso from 1994 makes reference to the district.