Harlem Week 2024 Is Now More Than 7 Days Long — Huzzah!

Drop me off in Harlem!

This is the ecstatic call of all those who knew the classic 1933 Duke Ellington song of that name—later recordings with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong on vocals are also great—and it’s also the call of everyone who knows that, more than seven days after it started, Harlem Week is still happening.

How’s that, one might ask? Just how long is this so-called Harlem Week anyway?

Happily, the 50th anniversary of the event— which actually began life as a mere Harlem Day in back in the struggle year of 1974, runs from August 3 through August 18th— a whopping sixteen days long!

Now that is the kind of inflation anyone can get behind.

This past weekend, Saturday August 10 and Sunday August 11, thousands of Harlemites, other New Yorkers and tourists headed delighted in two of this year signature events: the Percy Sutton 5K Run and the Great Day In Harlem concert.

The run—or walk—is an exceptionally fun run. The course began at St Nicholas Park and W. 135th Street, heading uptown—and uphill!— past Jackie Robinson Park to W. 155th Street. From here, the runners turned around and headed back down St. Nicholas to W. 141st St. where they turned right and charged—or slogged—their way up to Convent Avenue. From here, it’s an inspiring zig-zag back to the perimeter of St. Nicholas Park, which runners rushed down to W. 127th St. fore making their triumphant gallop to the finish line at W. 138th Street—whew!

In total there were 5,035 finishers. Dominating the men’s field was 29-year-old Ethiopian now living in New York, Sisay Fekadu Berhanu, who broke the tape in 14:40, a breezy 4:40 mile pace. In the women’s race, Amelwork Fikadu Bosho—likewise an Ethiopian now in New York—took first place in a time of 16:51, a 5:26 mile pace.

Also among the competitors, one of NYPD’s top cops, First Deputy Commissioner Tania Kinsella. Not just a passionate runner herself, Kinsella, via the New York Road Runners Run for the Future program, is a mentor to aspiring high school athletes as well.

Speaking to AMNY, Kinsella explained, “They wanted me to help other young girls reach their running milestones, and I was all in,” the 44-year-old Staten Island resident said. “Running and mentoring are my two favorite things in the world, besides being a mother.”

On Sunday, A Great Day in Harlem took over Riverside Drive near the Ulysses S. Grant National Memorial on Riverside Drive, colloquially known as “Grant’s Tomb.” Filled with music, vendors, exhibits, the name references a famous 1958 group portrait of 57 eminent jazz musicians (and some local children) by photographer Art Kame. Taken outside 17 East 126th Street for Esquire magazine, the photo is the subject of a book and documentary, both highly recommended.

For those who know, the event’s location on Riverside Drive brings to mind the single greatest Harlem movie there ever made—and ever likely to be made: 1971’s Cotton Comes to Harlem, the film directing debut of the great Black actor and activist, Ossie Davis.

Adapted from Chester Himes’ 1965 novel of the same name, and co-starring Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques as Black NYPD detectives Graved Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, Cotton is an Afrocentric political action cop thriller comedy musical satire like no other—and it also includes one of the 1970s greatest chase scenes, Riverside Drive included. Look out!

For more information visit Harlemweek.com.