Welcome to The Harlem Eye - The Harlem Eye: Beat on the Street

Harlem offers many insights and rewards. Through movement and sound, spirit and faith, joy and loss the village and its players reveal much to the Harlem eye that’s truly watching!

In looking to select a title for this supplementary blog to Harlem One Stop‘s calendar of uptown activities we thought of many tags, hoping to provoke in a word or two, a sense of imagery and thought. Evocative titles like window and view, glance and snapshot… came and went. Finally, inspired by an image of an eye created by the artist, Sister Gertrude Morgan (above top) and its inscription… “there’s an all seeing eye watching you,” I contemplated, Harlem Eye, and googled to see if the title belonged to anyone. Two items appeared. One took me to a page that listed people who had passed away in 2003. There, hightlighted in a profile on Marvin Smith (above bottom) were the words, Harlem eye. Marvin, along with his twin brother Morgan had been legendary Harlem photographers, and as a feisty 90 year old, he’d also been a friend and neighbor, providing amusingly insightful stories on Harlem’s history and culture. The other item found was a rambling thesis containing a line that ended… “much as of the harlem eye.”

With that combination of hits I felt the rush that comes when a Harlemite whispers, “what’s the number?” and their local barber or newsstand vendor replys by announcing the winning combo they’ve long been seeking! What’s the title?… The Harlem Eye.

As Harlem One Stop explores Harlem and Upper Manhattan we hope to use The Harlem Eye as a point of focus, a virtual snapshot of the community, its people, history and activities. To start, we’re posting several commentaries that have appeared earlier on Harlem One Stop and others published under different banners by Harlem One Stop staff. We hope you will enjoy these postings and we look forward to your comments, suggestions and readership as we continue to add more. – The Harlem Eye / Harlem One Stop