Patsy's Pizzeria opened in this location in East Harlem on First Avenue in 1933 and over their nearly century of operation, the pizzeria has become famous for their brick, coal-fired oven which produces a unique texture and flavor for their thin-crust slices. When Pasquale "Patsy" Lanceri opened the restaurant, East Harlem was still heavily populated by Italian immigrants and their descendants. Lanceri's widow, Carmella sold the restaurant in 1991 to Frank Brija, an Albanian immigrant from Kosovo. They may have been the first restaurant in New York to sell pizza by the slice.
This historic New York building was completed in 1923 and served as the home of the Italian Savings Bank. The building was later old in 1942 and became a funeral home, and while the signage for the bank was removed at that time, the building's history serves as a reminder of an era when East Harlem contained a high concentration of Italian immigrants. The signage for Italian Savings Bank has been removed along with two stories of windows under the archway. The building now holds the R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home and is part of the East Harlem Historic District, listed in the National Register in 2019.
The Art Deco style, buff brick building at the corner of 158 E. 115th Street and Lexington Avenue opened in June 1937 as the East Harlem Health Center. The health center was the first city-owned and city-built health center in Manhattan. It was authorized by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1935 and funded by Washington's New Deal Public Works Association. Originally two stories tall with a rooftop playground, two more stories have been added, recessed on top of the roof, as well as a two-story addition on the corner with Lexington Avenue. The building is part of the 90-acre East Harlem Historic District, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.
The six-story warehouse at 207 E. 119th St. was built in 1895 for Richard Webber, a butcher, for storing refrigerated meat. The meatpacking building was part of a former complex including a commercial slaughterhouse and retail space. The brick and stone Renaissance Revival building was the tallest in the complex and is part of the East Harlem Historic District, covering about 90 acres and listed in the National Register in 2019. The Webber Packing House became a New York City Landmark in 2018. The building's front windows are now bricked in and the building contains Ferguson Plumbing Supplies, accessed from a side parking lot on the adjacent lot.
Constructed from 1891 to 1893, the Harlem Courthouse is red brick building on a brownstone base designed in the Gothic/ Romanesque Revival style of architecture. The building was first used by the Municipal and Magistrate's courts and includes 40 jail cells that have been abandoned since 1940 but rank as the oldest remaining jail cells in the city. Two murals were painted on the interior walls of a courtroom in 1938. The Harlem Courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1980) and is a New York City Landmark (1967). The building now houses the Harlem Community Justice Center, with Family, Housing, and Civil Courts.
The plaza with benches behind the iron fence on the north side of E. 120th Street, halfway between Lexington and Third Avenues, is a New York City Park called Harlem Art Park. The eastern portion of the park, directly south of the Harlem Courthouse, used to be used as a recreational area by those housed in the temporary jail cells in the courthouse; the City of New York acquired the land in 1929 and intended to create a public bath but didn't. The city's Parks Department acquired jurisdiction over this part of the park in 1945. The former road to the west of the courthouse and the park, Sylvan Place, was closed in the 1980s; half of the Sylvan Place footprint was added to the park in 1992.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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Take a walk through the former "Little Italy" neighborhood of East Harlem, starting at a place serving pizza since 1933, and past a former bank, health center, former meat packing warehouse, courthouse, and end at a city park that celebrates local art.
