Overshadowed by the fame of Harlem and the wealth of the Upper East
Side, East Harlem is rarely noted as a historical enclave.
However, from the early 1800s through today, East Harlem has welcomed
wave after wave of immigrants struggling for a place in the nation's
most famous city. African Americans, Irish, Germans, European Jews,
Italians, Scandinavians, Puerto Ricans, and Latinos are among the ethnic
groups who have shaped this neighborhood, bringing with them their
religious, social, and culinary traditions. East Harlem is the first
volume to tell this neighborhood's history through images. Photographs
of the iron, stone, and rubber factories, the tenements, the 100th
Street community, famous politicians such as Fiorella LaGuardia, the
Second and Third Avenue elevated subways, St. Cecilia's, and many other
subjects capture East Harlem's past in one memorable collection.