Harlem

Wide boulevards like Malcolm X, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Frederick Douglass are lined with brownstones and prewar apartment buildings, and the Mount Morris Park and Strivers' Row historic districts hold some of the finest rowhouses in the city. Corbel & Stoop's walk-ups here are Mount Morris House, Strivers Walk and The Lenox.

Dining, shopping and entertainment

125th Street is the main commercial corridor, home to the Apollo Theater, whose Amateur Night has run since the 1930s, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Malcolm X Boulevard have filled with restaurants, wine bars and cafés. Jacob Soul Food Restaurant is a 2-minute walk, 787 Coffee is 3 minutes away and Sylvia's, a soul food institution, is about 5 minutes on foot. Shrine, around 7 minutes away, hosts live music nightly.

The Schomburg Center on Malcolm X Boulevard, a research library of the New York Public Library, offers exhibitions and talks open to the public.

Parks and the outdoors

Marcus Garvey Park, at the heart of the Mount Morris district, has an amphitheater, a pool and the cast-iron fire watchtower on its rocky summit. St. Nicholas Park climbs the ridge toward City College, and Jackie Robinson Park runs along Edgecombe Avenue. Central Park's northern end, with the Harlem Meer and the Conservatory Garden, is a short walk south.

Getting around

Express service is everywhere: the 2/3 stop at 125 St and 135 St, the A/B/C/D at 125 St on St. Nicholas Avenue and the 4/5/6 at 125 St on Lexington Avenue. The A reaches Midtown in about 10 minutes. Metro-North's Harlem-125th Street station connects to Grand Central and the northern suburbs.