Harlem

Carl Redding opened this on Mother's Day 1999 and named it for his grandmother Amy Ruth Moore Bass, who taught him to cook in Alabama. The chicken and waffle platters are named after people, and the one carrying Al Sharpton's name is there because Redding worked at his National Action Network.

Monday to Thursday 11:30am to 9:30pm, Friday and Saturday 11am to 10:30pm, Sunday 11am to 9:30pm

Dawn Crosby Harris-Martine, a career New York City educator, has run this children's bookshop and toy store on West 120th Street since 1999. Books, educational toys, games and dolls fill a storefront the neighborhood raised money to save when the rent threatened it in 2021. She is usually behind the counter.

Wed and Thu, noon to 7pm. Fri to Sun, 10am to 8pm. Closed Mon and Tue

Kevin Bradford, Kim Harris and Stacey Lee opened this in June 2018 and it was the first entirely Black-owned craft beer bar in Harlem. The taps lean local and the place is small enough that you end up talking to whoever is next to you. It sits directly across Adam Clayton Powell from the Shrine.

Wed and Thu, 3pm to 11pm. Fri, 3pm to midnight. Sat, 1pm to 11pm. Sun, 1pm to 9pm. Closed Mon and Tue

Alvin Lee Smalls found a rugelach recipe while working the bakery at New York-Presbyterian in 1964 and spent six months getting his own version right. He has been selling it in Harlem ever since and he is still the one baking. The sweet potato pie is worth the walk on its own.

Limited and irregular. Listings show Wednesday 11am to 7pm and Sunday noon to 5pm, and the other days could not be confirmed. Call before you walk over

The Frederick Douglass Boulevard branch of the cookie bakery Connie McDonald and Pam Weekes started on the Upper West Side in 1995. The cookies come out of the oven the size of a fist and are sold warm at the counter. There is a line most of the day and it clears at the pace of the register.

Mon to Wed, 7am to 9pm. Thu to Sun, 7am to 10pm

Open on Edgecombe Avenue since 2014, pulling Intelligentsia and pouring Kilogram tea, with pastries brought in from local bakers each morning. It sits at the foot of the Sugar Hill bluff where Edgecombe meets 141st. People work here for hours and nobody hurries them.

Mon to Fri, 7am to 5pm. Sat and Sun, 8am to 5pm

The park sits on a rock outcrop that Fifth Avenue had to divide around, and at the top of it stands the Harlem Fire Watchtower, cast in 1856 and the last structure of its kind left in the city. Parks took the tower apart in 2014, sent it out of state and put it back in December 2019 after a $7.9 million rebuild. Urban Park Rangers unlock the gate and walk people up on selected days.

Park open daily, 6am to 1am. Watchtower access only on scheduled Urban Park Ranger tours

Arturo Schomburg's collection became a New York Public Library division in 1925 and the building at 135th and Malcolm X has been the anchor of it since. The exhibition galleries are free and open to anyone who walks in off the street. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2017 and is marking its hundredth year.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. Closed Sun. Individual research divisions keep their own hours

It started as a bakery on the corner of Lenox and 120th and turned into a full Italian kitchen with a glass of wine attached. The sidewalk seating was among the first in Harlem and it is still the reason people sit there. There is jazz on Sunday nights.

Sun to Thu, 10am to 10pm. Fri and Sat, 10am to 11pm

The museum spent seven years in temporary quarters while its new building went up on the same block of 125th Street, and it opened the doors there on November 15, 2025. Seven floors by Adjaye Associates, with a ground floor that reads as part of the sidewalk. Admission is a suggested amount rather than a fixed price, and Sunday is free.

Wed, Thu and Sun, 11am to 6pm. Fri and Sat, 11am to 9pm. Closed Mon and Tue

Sylvia Woods opened this on Lenox Avenue in 1962 and her family still runs it. Smothered chicken and candied yams come out of the same kitchen they always have. A band plays through the Saturday jazz brunch and the Sunday gospel brunch, from half past twelve to four.

Mon, Tue and Sun, 11am to 8pm. Wed to Sat, 11am to 10pm