Uptown To Do List - Week of Feb 10, 2025
An ever changing list of things to do above the park
Hello and Happy Monday - hope everyone is staying warm! We are going straight into events today - restaurant reviews will be back next week!
HAPPENINGS
Tomorrow, Tuesday, February 11th, join CRUX LGBTQIA+ Climbing for one of their twice monthly indoor rock climbs, which they host on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month at Movement Harlem. Ahem, climbing from 7-9pm, followed by food, drink and socializing after 9pm, as it should be. The full details, including cost ($15 for nonmembers of Movement), can be found here.
On Thursday, February 13th at 6:30pm, the Harlem Chamber Players will be performing a FREE concert at the Schomberg Center (515 Malcolm X at West 135th Street) in connection with Black History Month. Event details are here, but those in the know (that’s us), know that you should register even though it isn’t required, because registration gives you a 15-30 minute headstart on getting a seat, which is a big deal because these events can get pretty packed.
Head on up to Inwood Hill Park this Saturday, February 15th at 10am to join some Urban Park Rangers on a Bald Eagle Watch. Winter is a great time to see them in NYC parks and the Inwood Hill Park team is a great team to guide you. The event is FREE. Everyone will meet at 10am at Payson Park House in Inwood Hill Park (at the corner of Dyckman and Payson). Learn more here if you’re interested.
Zollar Systems, the eponymous band of trumpeter James Zollar, will be performing (for FREE) a mix of groove music and straight ahead bebop on Saturday, February 15th from 4-6 at the National Jazz Museum. Obviously, if your name were Zollar, you would also have started a band called Zollar Systems. But you didn’t, so the only way to see such a band is to RSVP here. (And then show up at the National Jazz Museum—58 West 129th Street, between 5th Avenue and Malcolm X—at the anointed hour.)
If for some reason you can’t get up to the National Jazz Museum, or really awesome jazz isn’t your thing, consider spending Saturday, February 15th starting at 8 at Comedy Night at Alke Cafe (1838 Adam Clayton Powell at West 111th Street). For the old timers, this is the old Cantina location. Advance tix are $15 and you can get them here.
DID YOU KNOW?
From 1895 until 1914, the area now known as Highbridge Park was then known as “Harlem’s Coney Island,” and was reachable via the Third Avenue Trolley line (which has become the M101). The amusement park had fortune tellers, three roller coasters, two ferris wheels, nine saloons (NINE!), a pony track, hotels, a casino, five shooting galleries (because why stop at four), and a tunnel boat ride. Unfortunately, the park was ultimately the victim of arson and then some neighborhood opposition due to its noise and crime issues and so it never fully recovered and eventually closed down when its leases expired in 1914. Wikipedia has a surprisingly complete history of Fort George Amusement Park, which you can check out here.