Harlem is, once again, in full Renaissance mode. There’s a celebrity chef slinging elevated fried chicken and oxtail stew on 125th and Lenox. There’s a new Starwood hotel staging live jazz in its mixologically inclined bar. There’s even a city-funded effort to turn long-suffering La Marqueta into an uptown version of the Essex Street Market. Of course, longtime Harlemites have seen waves of gentrification before: in the late nineties, during the great brownstone gold rush and its quintupling of median home prices; and in the early- and mid-aughts, with the arrival of Bill Clinton. The truth is, Harlem is in a state of constant evolution, and many of the new businesses are actually updated (or, some might say, yuppified) versions of existing institutions. Here, we survey the mostly friendly neighborhood rivalries. We also provide Adam Platt’s review of the year’s buzziest restaurant opening, a price-check of available apartments, and a chat with the crowd at Harlem’s most convivial new hangout.

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