The north end of Central Park around the Harlem Meer is one of its most beautiful vistas, but because of the large, obtrusive Lasker Rink and Pool, it is currently disconnected from the North Woods below it, as well as the rest of the park. To better connect the area, the Central Park Conservancy and the City of New York today revealed a $150 million project to build a new pool and rink that will bring year-round recreation, as well as integrate into the surrounding landscape and restore lost pedestrian connections.

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Listing images by Rise Media; courtesy of Compass

By day, Ron Dominguez worked as a doorman at some of the Upper East Side’s finest addresses—including 1040 Fifth Avenue, the building Jackie Kennedy Onassis called home. At his home in Harlem, he focused on his passion: collecting pop-surrealist art. “I don’t know any other doorman that happens to be a psychotic art collector,” he told the Wall Street Journal in 2014. “I was hustling a full-time job in one [building] and part-time in two others to support my art habit.” After a long career, Dominguez is moving to Cuba—the country his family fled in 1971—and his two-bedroom apartment is now on the market for $1.275 million, art not included.

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Rendering by FXCollaborative

A Harlem church looking to rezone part of Central Park North revealed plans this week to incorporate a music school and cultural center to its proposal for a 33-story residential tower. During a City Planning Commission hearing on Wednesday, La Hermosa Christian Church and FXCollaborative presented their design for the apartment building and the three-story community facility space. Congregants and church officials say the building at 5 West 110th Street is deteriorating, with many of its spaces unusable and inaccessible. “The project that we’re proposing means the survival of our church,” La Hermosa Pastor Dan Feliciano told the commissioners.

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Image © Frank Oudeman; courtesy of Columbia University

A new food hall is slated to open at Columbia University’s Manhattanville campus next year. It doesn’t have a name yet but it will be helmed by chef Franklin Becker—known for his fast-casual lunch chain, Little Beet—and will service Columbia students as well as the general public. Food options may include everything from Southern cuisine to Sicilian-style pizza to Spanish tapas, according to early reports from the Wall Street Journal. Speaking to the Journal, Becker said that bringing in a range of independent vendors—versus national food chains—will raise the bar for campus food.

Here’s what we know so far

Image of Maya Angelou via Wiki Commons; listing images courtesy of Warburg Realty

In 2001, one year before Maya Angelou purchased her personal residence—an elegant brownstone in the Mount Morris Park Historic District—the late author and activist bought an investment property about 10 blocks away at 29 East 129th Street for only $275,000. During the years in which she resided in New York, she served as landlord of the three-family East Harlem property, comprised of a garden level duplex and two full-floor one-bedroom apartments. Angelou’s estate maintained the property following her death in 2014 and sold the residence to the current owner in 2016 for $1.98 million. The townhouse was most recently listed for $2.65 million in February 2018. A few price chops later, it finally found a new owner and closed for $2.3 million, as the New York Post reported.

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Rendering courtesy of Empire State Development

New York’s first civil rights museum will soon land in Harlem, as the city pushes forward with a new $260 million development near the Adam Clayton Powell office building on 125th Street. Empire State Development is planning a 17-story mixed-use building that, in addition to the museum, will house the headquarters of civil rights nonprofit National Urban League (which was founded in the neighborhood in 1910 and currently has offices downtown), office space (including below-market-rate for Harlem-based nonprofits), retail, and 170 affordable apartments targeted to New Yorkers making 30-80 percent of the area median income.

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Photo via Flickr cc

Just three blocks north of bustling 125th Street, a brand new all-affordable building known as the Frederick has just opened the lottery for 59 of its 75 units. Ranging from $562/month studios to $2,158/month three-bedrooms, the mixed-income apartments are available to households earning 40, 50, 60, and 110 percent of the area median income. In addition to being right near local landmarks such as the Apollo and the Red Rooster, the 15-story building at 2395 Frederick Douglass Boulevard is just a block away from St. Nicholas Park and a few blocks from the A, C, B, and D trains.

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Dorrance Brooks Square Historic District, St. Marks United Methodist Church. Image courtesy of NY State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

Gov. Andrew  Cuomo announced on Friday that the New York State Board for Historic Preservation has recommended adding 18 properties, resources, and districts to the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The new nominations include the Upper West Side home of author and civil rights activist James Baldwin, the Dorrance Brooks Square Historic District and the former 32nd Precinct Station House complex in Harlem, and the Fourth Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn in addition to 14 other nominated places throughout the state.

Find out how New York continues to recognize varied historic places