About The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce and HARLEM WEEK:
The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce (GHCC) originally incorporated in 1886 as the Harlem Board of Trade, is the oldest continual business organization in upper Manhattan. The Chamber is now in its 3rd millennium of continued services to the Upper Manhattan area in general and the New York region in particular.
The Chamber has served as an anchor of continued stability bridging the periods of urban neglect to the future of urban prosperity. The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce has in the past thirty years particularly focused on the renaissance and revitalization of upper Manhattan.
Today, the mission of the Chamber is to improve the quality of life for all of our residents, as well as to develop and attract quality business and professional services.
The Chamber continues to attract an ever-growing local, regional, national and international support base, ranging from single proprietors to Fortune 500 corporations.
The members consist of those who wish to contribute to and thrive from Harlem's world-renowned vitality and recognition as a worldwide tourist, entertainment, sports, arts, cultural, educational, historic, religious and health services destination of international diversity.
The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce has for the past four decades played a significant role in the revitalization of Harlem and in making Harlem a key tourism destination. Thirty-four years ago, the Chamber created a one-day, HARLEM DAY celebration which has developed and grown to become "HARLEM WEEK". In recent years, HARLEM WEEK attracted in excess of three and a half million people to its four week celebration which focused on Jazz, sports, cultural events, theatre, movie festivals, economic development, business fairs and expositions, carnivals, gospel festivals, nightclub and restaurant special events, etc.
The Chamber's major development is focused on the Striver's Center area located between 130th & 141st Streets from 5th to St. Nicholas Avenues. This development project concentrates on small businesses, boutiques, restaurants, mixed-use residential-commercial developments, health services and educational institutions as its target. The Striver's Center Development Project has gone a long way to provide a major anchor for Upper Manhattan's second Harlem Renaissance.
The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce is proud of its accomplishments to date, achieved through commitment, support, direct involvement and contributions of its caring and informed Chamber membership base which now exceeds one thousand, nine hundred (1900) members.
Tracing the evolution of HARLEM WEEK, now thirty four years old (1974), is very simple -- it began as HARLEM DAY, a one-day tribute that was so astonishingly and unexpectedly successful that more days were needed to showcase the community's rich economic, political and cultural history, to say nothing of the current, ever increasing artistic talent in Harlem. Above all, HARLEM DAY -- in its unique way -- was a day of encouragement and fellowship for New Yorkers in general and Harlemites in particular, many of whom had struggled for some years to see a positive future for Urban America.
Like many great ventures, it took only a small group of concerned residents to come together to bring about change. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. once asked, when discussing the issue of self-determination and spiritual rejuvenation: "What's in your hand?" One of the most potent weapons in the hands of these aroused residents was their understanding of the power of culture to bring about change. There was nothing new about this approach; the local populace and their comrades during the Harlem Renaissance discovered the utility of communications, unity and the arts in their fight against racism and discrimination. The Harlem partisans of the seventies who created HARLEM WEEK were just as perspicacious, turning instinctively to the cultural strength that was seeping from every nook and cranny, from Sugar Hill to East Harlem. Their mission was to put Harlem back at the forefront of urban, cultural, ethnic, educational, political, recreational and religious leadership, and as you can see from the previous years of bounty, HARLEM WEEK has carved out a remarkable niche in the nation's major listings of annual happenings.
Each year HARLEM WEEK produces new activities highlighting another of the many positive and relevant aspects of the African-American, Latino, Caribbean-American, and European-American cultures of Harlem. In fact, in the same way that Black History Month is celebrated for more than four weeks, HARLEM WEEK is more than a week, with many key events celebrated quite joyously throughout all of August and beyond. And thanks to the unforgettable appearance of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe at HARLEM WEEK, and the appearance of Nelson Mandela soon after his historic election to the Presidency of South Africa, HARLEM WEEK has gone on to acquire international cachet.
Over the course of 34 years, HARLEM WEEK has become one of America's largest cultural celebrations. Each year, we attract millions of individuals to Harlem, the world's most famous neighborhood to share our traditions, new trends, and that incomparable joie de vivre, which is nothing more than Harlem style.
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