Welcome To Harlem — Attraction in New York

My family and I joined the Harlem Renaissance tour which I found online looking for things to do while in NYC. My son recently learned about this topic in school in 8th grade and did a history day presentation on Duke Ellington. I thought it would be interesting to bring some of the history to life by means of the tour.

The meeting place was the lovely home of a lovely woman. This was one of my favorite parts of the tour. Once we stepped out, our guide, Debbie, pointed out many buildings in the local vicinity having a connection to the time period. She was great with facts of the building materials and dates of the buildings. We went to the lobby of the Apollo Theater, but were not given access to viewing the auditorium, which was disappointing. We need to be able to see things like that to bring the history more up close and personal. I have a lot of pictures of buildings from the street, but that's really it picture-wise.

We went to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. We got to see part of the inside of this building - specifically a tile mural on the floor. Debbie read a poem but Langston Hughes here, and I really felt like that was the only time the personal history of the Renaissance came through for me. I read on a plaque that Langston Hughes's ashes are buried under the floor of the tile mural. It was interesting seeing his final resting place.

Debbie mentioned she has seen a lot of the people central to the Renaissance in person, so that made for interesting storytelling. It would have been cool to hear a song from the time period or something like that, to see an outfit from the time period, etc.

Debbie pointed out where a speech writer for MLK Jr. lived, and also pointed out a location for a hotel from the "green book". The area is filled with so much history!

We finished the tour at a delicious buffet restaurant where everything was so good. The corn bread was delicious. So were they candied yams. Everything was just so good.

Debbie did a fabulous job leading a group of people, and keeping us all together. No easy task. She responded with empathy to the needs of the group and took really good care of us.

We saw a few hard to see things on the tour related to poverty.

It was a lot of walking, and we weren't able to see everything originally part of the tour because of the heat.

I bought a cute skirt from a nice store on the tour. The shopowner/keeper was super nice.

All in all it was a great tour. I went home and requested a ton of books on the Harlem Renaissance from my library, so it sparked an interest. In a follow-up email, one of the lovely women involved with Welcome to Harlem reached out and offered to help me with book titles which was really sweet. I hope this review helps you decide to take this tour. It will probably be even better when you...

I cried all the time from such a strong emotion, and of course I had a lot of fun in the whole situation. I was able to perceive the pure intentions of your tradition through a sincere and powerful singing in the real environment where it all originated. Coming from Italy, it obviously happened to see beautiful gospel concerts here too from time to time, but experiencing such a splendid live performance in a real church in Harlem with the original local artists is unmatched, there is a kind of inspiration different, more authentic. It's true that this is a concert, so not a whole service, but it was a musical and absolutely great experience for us that moved the spirit, with a lot of positive groove. Also, every person I've asked information or curiosities before and after the show has been open, awesome, and encouraging to feel a little bit more near to this incredible culture/support the community. Thank you and...

My husband, best friend (from Georgia) and I had the great good fortune of taking a walking tour with Carolyn last Saturday, 4/18/2015. It was a wonderful experience! Well worth the cost (and frankly, she should charge more for the amount of time and information that she offers to her clients).

Carolyn was knowledgeable, fun and obviously loves showing and teaching people about Harlem's rich history. Seeing Harlem through her eyes (even though we've been Harlemites for a few years) was an amazing experience. All of us thoroughly enjoyed learning things about the architecture, interesting people, neighborhoods; and, about how the area is changing and what is being done to preserve the area in the face of rapid change and gentrification.) I hope to take the tour again with Carolyn for the part of the tour that goes south of 125th (we opted to go north...