At the end of the 19th century New York saw the arrival of thousands of blacks fleeing discrimination in the southern states. This new immigrant population moved to Harlem where rents were more accessible and because they were rejected from other Manhattan neighborhoods.

The presence of blacks in Harlem was to provoke the rebirth of the neighborhood in the 1920s and 1950s with the emergence of African-American culture in the arts, especially in music, but also in painting and literature. Among the most remarkable artists in Harlem were musicians Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie, poet Langston Hughes and painters Archibald Motley and Aaron Douglas. 

Harlem was soon to become known as one of the top jazz venues with famous halls such as the Apollo Theater . These clubs featured jazz performances by some of the world's greatest jazz artists.

Later, the neighborhood became one of the centres of the struggle for equal civil rights, as Harlem has long been and remains a place where African-Americans are concentrated.

 After several decades of crisis and decay, Harlem is now transforming itself into a dynamic and attractive neighbourhood.