"In the history of New York, the significance of the name Harlem has changed from Dutch to Irish to Jewish to Negro."
~ James Wheldon Johnson, Civil rights activist
Harlem, New York, was a two square mile area between 8th and 5th avenue, stretching from 125th to 145th street. In the late 1800s, Harlem was considered a middle and upper class white neighborhood. That all changed in the after the 1910s, when the Black Migration really took off and the North drew African Americans like bees to honey.