Harlem
Americannoun
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a section of New York City, in the NE part of Manhattan.
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a tidal river in New York City, between the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, which, with Spuyten Duyvil Creek, connects the Hudson and East rivers. 8 miles (13 km) long.
noun
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During the 1920s, Harlem was the site of a great upsurge in black literature, music, and theater known as the Harlem Renaissance.
Mostly populated by African-Americans, Harlem has long been a center of black culture.
The area now contains a large Puerto Rican population and, after a period of economic decay, has experienced a revitalization.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
After the deaths of their parents, the aging bluebloods holed up in their stately Harlem rowhouse, once a picture of Gilded Age polish, and became a public curiosity.
From Salon ● Jul. 23, 2026
Love the evocation of Harlem as a place with a cool interconnected community.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
The sources of the outbreak were later identified as cooling towers at Harlem Hospital and the nearby site of the city's new public health laboratory.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
But five grocers are already within a two-block radius of that proposed Harlem store, with 10 more within five blocks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 17, 2026
To make matters worse, riots erupted in the summer of 1964 in Harlem and Rochester, followed by a series of uprisings that swept the nation following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
