-
El Barrio Music Center: Interview with Reinaldo Melendez
-
Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington Lynn Kilgore Hendy, daughter of Rev. Dr. Thomas Kilgore Jr., speaks about her father's involvement in the 1963 March on Washington and celebrates an historic marker added to the march's headquarters at 170 W 130th Street in Harlem.
-
Interview with Franco the Great Jerome Haferd and Mikaila Meurer, with Anthony Carrion, interview Franco the Great AKA Franco Gaskin.
Franco the Great (born Frankin Gaskin; 1928) is a street artist based in Manhattan, New York City. He was born and raised in Panama, and is fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and English. Franco the Great is also referred to as the "Harlem Picasso".
He earned notoriety by painting storefront security gates in West Harlem neighborhoods. Original pieces of Franco's are found today on 125th Street surrounding the Apollo Theater (between Frederick Douglass Blvd. and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd). Franco's murals on security gates are only viewable when the gates of the stores are closed.
Franco's murals have contributed to making Harlem a tourist destination. His work can also be found inside businesses across United States, France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Canada, Spain, Brazil, the Caribbean Islands, Senegal, and elsewhere!
-
PMCI on Urban U [CUNY TV] Segment begins at 0:13:15 and continues until 0:18:50.
Urban U is a CUNY-TV magazine show about CUNY students, faculty, alumni, and programs. The stories highlight the quality and rewards of a CUNY education, one that enables people to achieve great things. As the world’s largest urban university with 24 campuses spread across New York City’s five boroughs, CUNY is as rich and diverse as the City itself. With a history of over 100 years, the university scope of Urban U stories is immense.
Urban U will inform, inspire and engage viewers by reporting on the relevant happenings within the CUNY system, but also by exploring the achievements of its body of students, faculty and alumni.
In this episode, Urban U checks out the "Generative Histories" Exhibit at Spitzer School of Architecture, showcasing the work of the Place, Memory & Culture Incubator
-
Antoine Roney [Lecture] Philadelphia-born saxophonist Antoine Roney has been a distinctive voice in jazz for over four decades. After studying with Jackie McLean at the Hartt School of Music, he worked with a long line of greats including Clifford Jordan, Donald Byrd, Rashied Ali, Arthur Taylor, Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, and his late brother, Wallace Roney. An accomplished bandleader with several albums to his name, he is also the father of rising jazz star Kojo Roney, who often features in his trio.
-
Jerome W. Haferd [Lecture] Jerome W. Haferd is a New York–based licensed architect, public artist, and educator, known for his deep engagement with re-centering marginalized histories in Harlem's built environment.
-
Elleza Kelley [Lecture] Elleza Kelley is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies and English with expertise in black geographies, and radical spatial practices that explore the intersections of literature, art, and place.
-
k. kennedy Whiters: (un) Redact the Facts [Lecture] kennedy is a preservation architect, published writer, and guest speaker. She is the founder of wrkSHäp I kiloWatt, a historic preservation, and owner's representation. It is home to Black in Historic Preservation, Beyond Integrity in (X), and (un) Redact the Facts. kennedy has been featured by the Advisory Council of Historic Preservation. kennedy is also the founder of New York architecture firm studio KW Architecture, PLLC.
-
Kazembe Balagun [Lecture] Kazembe Balagun is a writer, cultural critic, and outreach coordinator at the Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem. His work focuses on the intersection of Black radical thought, cinema, and community organizing.
-
Imani Rashid [Lecture] Imani Rashid is an entrepreneur, teacher, visionary, event planner, Godmother to many, leader, Yoruba Priestess, mentor, friend and sister to others and a founding member of Salsa Soul Sisters (the oldest Black lesbian organization in the United States). Imani has dedicated her life to enriching and expanding the education of young children using the principles of Kwanza and creative practices such as drumming and aviation. Imani founded the Yoruba Cultural Center of New York City in Harlem in 1990 to gather Afro-diasporic people, primarily of the NJ-NY-CT area, to share history, language, divination, songs and dances of the Orishas, and the cosmology of the Yoruba People of Southwest Nigeria. The Yoruba Cultural Center closed in 1993, but its community-building and impacts have been lasting, and the center will resume its Saturday Night Lecture Series on Saturday, February 15, 2025.
-
Glenn Hunter [Lecture] Glenn Hunter is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Harlem Cultural Archives, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit historical society dedicated to gathering important oral history from the Harlem community. To date, the organization has conducted videotaped interviews with nearly 200 accomplished Harlem residents. Glenn is a career educator specializing in math and information technology. In addition to his role as an Adjunct Lecturer at Baruch College, Glenn is a dedicated community organizer and advocate.
-
Emily Holloway & Amber Jamilla Musser [Lecture & Discussion] The Place Memory and Culture Incubator at Spitzer is pleased to invite all students, faculty, staff, and guests to the upcoming Presentation & Discussion / Q&A featuring Amber Jamilla Musser and Emily Holloway and moderated by jah elyse sayers.
This event will be held in person at the Spitzer School of Architecture, first floor, Sciame Auditorium (Room 107) and will occur this Thursday April 10th, 2025 at noon.
Amber Jamilla Musser is a professor of English and Africana studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. She writes and researches at the intersections of race, sexuality, and aesthetics. In addition to writing art reviews for The Brooklyn Rail. She has published widely in queer studies, black feminism, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. She is the author of Sensational Flesh: Race, Power, and Masochism (NYU Press, 2014), Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance (NYU Press,
2018), and Between Shadows and Noise: Sensation, Situatedness, and the Undisciplined (Duke University Press, 2024).
Emily Holloway, PhD, is the Associate Managing Editor of Urban Affairs Review and a postdoctoral fellow at Drexel University. Her book project, “Domino in the Longue Durée: Racial Capitalism and the Urban Question,” reconstructs the prehistory of the Domino Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, through the site’s connections to the Caribbean sugar plantation complex. She has a PhD in Geography from Clark University and a master’s degree in urban policy from Hunter College. She has worked with several different community development and urban research institutes in New York City and Philadelphia, including the Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative, the Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center, and the Urban Heritage Project at the University of Pennsylvania.
-
Najha Zigbi-Johnson [Lecture] Najha Zigbi-Johnson is a writer, educator, and cultural organizer. Her Harlem-based practice sits at intersections of the built environment, contemporary Black art, and social movement history. She is the editor of "Mapping Malcolm," a publication that brings together artists, transnational community leaders, and scholars who explore the politics of Black space-making.
-
Interview with Melody Capote jah elyse sayers interviews Melody Capote (executive director, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute) in Melody's office at CCCADI on September 3, 2025.
-
Presentation slides: "Archiving 101" workshop These slides guided a workshop meant to introduce participants to archiving and identify their own needs and next steps to care for their personal archives. The workshop was presented by Lester Liu and jah elyse sayers of the Place, Memory & Culture Incubator on November 15, 2025.
-
Flyers for "Sou Sou! Saturdays: Crafting Memory, Building Legacy"
-
Crafting Memory, Building Legacy: Photo Album
-
Vendor Mentor Final Assignment for Exchange As Spatial Practice
-
Tag You're It! Final Assignment for Exchange As Spatial Practice
-
Storefront for Vendors Final Assignment Exchange As Spatial Practice
-
Interview with Glenn Hunter jah elyse sayers interviews Glenn Hunter, co-executive director of Harlem Cultural Archives Historical Society and lifelong Harlemite. He talks about his life growing up in Harlem and the community that made him who he is today.
-
Interview with Lynn Kilgore Hendy jah elyse sayers interviews Lynn Elda Kilgore Hendy (treasurer, Save Harlem Now!) in the Hendy home on August 12, 2025. Lynn Kilgore Hendy is a retired television advertising sales and account manager, and local television ratings expert. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. At age one, Lynn moved from North Carolina to New York City, when her father, the Reverend Dr. Thomas Kilgore, Jr., was called to pastor the Friendship Baptist Church in Harlem. Lynn was greatly influenced by her father’s strong advocacy for civil rights and African American history. Since 1986, she and her family have owned and lived in a Harlem limestone townhouse, built in 1901.
-
Syllabus: Yards, Yards, Yards Advanced Studio Fall 2024
-
125th Street Elevation Midterm Project for Generative Histories Harlem Pt. 1
-
125th Street Model Midterm Project for Generative Histories Harlem Pt.1