• Let the city hear your voice: next week (April 7-15) is your once-a-year chance to vote in your community's participatory budgeting. In Upper Manhattan, Districts 7 and 10 (headed by Council Members Mark Levine and Ydanis Rodriguez, respectively) are inviting locals to decide how at least $1 million of the public budget gets spent in each of their areas (Central Harlem's District 8 and East Harlem's District 9 currently don't participate). Check out which parks, schools, libraries and public housing are on your community's list, then vote!
• The New York Times stopped by South Harlem for its weekly "Living In" column on local real estate trends. While many members of the community continue to fight back against the much-maligned nickname the real estate industry gave to the area, property values keep climbing. Brian Benjamin, the state senator who represents the neighborhood, had this to say: “You don’t want abandoned brownstones and vacant lots and the rest of it. But at the same time, there’s a character you don’t want to lose. And that’s the rub.”
• The Gray Lady also dug up some amazing pictures to accompany this article about the loss of the building that once housed St. Nick's Pub. So much great history–did you know St. Nick's had been the longest-running jazz club in Harlem before it closed in 2011? Lena Horne and Miles Davis were just some of the jazz giants that passed through.
• Harlem-based Sushi Inoue is opening its second location across from Lincoln Center.
• Here are a few more tidbits about Top Chef runner-up Adrienne Cheatham's pop-up dining series, "Sunday Best" (the first one is this weekend at Ginny's Supper Club, but it's already sold out).
• An upscale residential project is coming to the South Bronx, right next to the Harlem River.
• A generous soul shared his joint on a train somewhere in Harlem this past weekend, and it was captured on video. “I got the train lit!” he was quoted as saying. “Only in New York! Only in Harlem!” Indeed.
