Brixton Village's Harlem Neighbourhood
For the week of our Brixton X Harlem Festival Brixton Village will take you through the sights, sounds and influences of The Brixton X Harlem festival and Twinning.
Throughout its neighbourhood of Market Row and Granville Arcade, you will see, hear, taste and celebrate Iconic Harlem; from landmarks and architecture to food, music and business history across the Village:
A Harlem Brownestone Stoop – built inhouse and hand painted by our artist in residence – Layla Andrews. Look out for a life size Harlem stoop within the market. “New Yorkers can thank the Dutch settlers of the 17th century for the stoop arguably the city’s most iconic and beloved architectural feature. As architectural styles changed, the New York City stoop changed as well. The short stoops on Federal Style houses from the early 19th century fell out of favour as brownstones, with their high, straight, ornate stoops—took over the streets of Manhattan (Harlem) and Brooklyn”.
The Boulevard Takeover – All 6 avenues in Granville Arcade will be renamed in celebration:
- 125th Street
- Lenox Avenue
- Malcom X Boulevard
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard
- Samuel J Battle Plaza
- Marcus Garvey Boulevard
The Block 1971 – Romare Bearden. The Block is a tribute to Harlem, a neighbourhood in New York City that nurtured both the life and work of artist Romare Bearden. In 1940 he established his first studio in Harlem, at 306 West 125th Street, in the same building as the artist Jacob Lawrence and the poet novelist Claude McKay. During the 1940s Bearden was active in the Harlem cultural community as part of the informal artists’ organization known as the 306 Group and as a member of the Harlem Artists Guild. Each of the six panels of The Block presents an aspect of life in Harlem, depicting such neighbourhood institutions as the Evangelical church, the barbershop, and the corner grocery store.
Brixton Village will install a life-size version of ‘The Block’ (currently displayed at the Met Museum in New York) within the Markets.