Harlem

Strivers Row By Kevin Baker HarperCollins, 550 pp., $26.95 The late fiction writer Andre Dubus II once remarked to me that a novel asks a question, the answer to which is both yes and no. "Answer yes, and you're dealing with a sentimental writer," said Dubus. "No, and you're talking about a limited writer. " In "Strivers Row," the final installment of Kevin Baker's "City of God" trilogy, readers will discover an ambitious, cinematic tale, although hindered in its effect by a writer reluctant to formulate the appropriate question.

First Baptist's organ has a new home. On Easter Sunday, the Globe brought you the story of a Jamaica Plain church in the midst of an unlikely resurrection after a devastating fire in 2005. Despite its tiny congregation, First Baptist found the funds to rebuild. It also found a replacement for its magnificent, 1859 pipe organ - the parish's pride and joy. A church in Harlem donated a similar behemoth of an instrument, and the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation agreed to house the organ's countless pieces in the shuttered Blessed Sacrament Church nearby until First Baptist was...

NEW YORK - Senator Hillary Clinton accepted the endorsement of an influential Harlem clergyman yesterday, while praising Senator Barack Obama, her chief rival for the Democratic nomination for president. "I have the highest regard and admiration for my friend and colleague Senator Barack Obama," Clinton said outside Harlem's historic Abyssinian Baptist Church. "He is an extraordinary human being with enormous gifts and many contributions to our country and to the world.

NEW YORK - In the 1980s and '90s, the New York City Department of Sanitation gave Una Mulzac as many as 50 summonses - she did not count them because she had no intention of paying them - for refusing to sweep 18 inches into the street in front of her bookstore. "There's nothing wrong with being a street sweeper," she told the New York Amsterdam News in 1995. "It's simply not the profession I have chosen. " Ms. Mulzac's profession was selling books at Liberation Bookstore, a Harlem landmark that for four decades specialized in materials promoting black identity and black...

Dine with the fishes We've eaten on the tops of high buildings. We've dined in grotto-like basements. We've eaten al fresco, in restaurant kitchens, in wine cellars. But an underwater restaurant that features going eye-to-eye with tropical fish and barracudas -- now that's unusual. The Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa opened its tiny restaurant (it seats 12 diners) in April. Ithaa, meaning "pearl" in the local Dhivehi language, offers spectacular underwater views of colorful fish, sharks, and other sealife in the surrounding coral reefs through curved, transparent acrylic walls.

NEW YORK - In the 1980s and '90s, the New York City Department of Sanitation gave Una Mulzac as many as 50 summonses - she did not count them because she had no intention of paying them - for refusing to sweep 18 inches into the street in front of her bookstore. "There's nothing wrong with being a street sweeper," she told the New York Amsterdam News in 1995. "It's simply not the profession I have chosen. " Ms. Mulzac's profession was selling books at Liberation Bookstore, a Harlem landmark that for four decades specialized in...

NEW YORK - Standing in front of the Harlem building where Bill Clinton has his postpresidential office, Audrey Quantano said she has supported the former president and Senator Hillary Clinton "for a very long time. " But now, Quantano can't decide between Clinton and Barack Obama. "I'm split right now," she said. "I've got my list of pros and cons with both of them. " New York's Democratic presidential primary, part of Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, was once considered a cakewalk for Clinton, who has represented New York in the Senate since 2001.

NEW YORK -- When Mayor Michael Bloomberg picked up the endorsement of an influential black minister at a Harlem restaurant last month, the diners there appeared to be ordinary people whose pancakes and coffee just happened to be interrupted by a campaign event. But several were actually volunteers for the campaign -- even though one of them told a reporter she had no idea the mayor would be there that morning. She and another volunteer were quoted in news stories as though they were Bloomberg supporters casually observing the event, not...

First Baptist's organ has a new home. On Easter Sunday, the Globe brought you the story of a Jamaica Plain church in the midst of an unlikely resurrection after a devastating fire in 2005. Despite its tiny congregation, First Baptist found the funds to rebuild. It also found a replacement for its magnificent, 1859 pipe organ - the parish's pride and joy. A church in Harlem donated a similar behemoth of an instrument, and the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation agreed to house the organ's countless pieces in the shuttered Blessed Sacrament Church nearby until...

In the Ralph Ellison essay from which Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts’s book, “Harlem is Nowhere,’’ takes its title, “nowhere’’ is a precursor to madness. Ellison writes: “The phrase ‘I’m nowhere,’ expresses the feeling borne in upon many negroes that they have no stable, recognized place in society. One’s identity drifts in a capricious reality in which even the most commonly held assumptions are questionable.’’ It is this Harlem that Rhodes-Pitts explores, the Harlem in which the instability of common assumptions results in equal parts beauty and chaos.

THOUGHTS WITHOUT CIGARETTES: A Memoir By Oscar Hijuelos Gotham, 367 pp., $27.50 Like God in the proverb, Oscar Hijuelos writes straight with crooked lines. His memoir of confused identity between his Cuban heritage and the tough world of the streets outside his family’s New York tenement is awkwardly worded and organized, and at times plain ungrammatical. Even the occasional Spanish phrase makes a mistake or two. Yet what comes through is complex and moving. Its very roughness is that of a real voice and troubled presence.

The cookie taxed the imagination. Would it be cooked through? And how many calories are in a fist-sized hunk of dark chocolate speckled with peanut butter chips anyway? Yes, to the first question. A slight crisp on the outside yields an ever-so-gooey center. As for the second, no matter. Hefting the dense ounces to our lips practically counts as exercise. We’re munching and moaning on a bench outside of Levain Bakery, the new uptown outpost of a longtime Upper West Side favorite.

In the Ralph Ellison essay from which Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts’s book, “Harlem is Nowhere,’’ takes its title, “nowhere’’ is a precursor to madness. Ellison writes: “The phrase ‘I’m nowhere,’ expresses the feeling borne in upon many negroes that they have no stable, recognized place in society. One’s identity drifts in a capricious reality in which even the most commonly held assumptions are questionable.’’ It is this Harlem that Rhodes-Pitts explores, the Harlem in which the instability of common assumptions results in equal parts beauty and chaos.

Harlem has Boy Scouts troops, one of them is 759. Jake Boritt and Justin Szlasa have made a genial documentary — “759: Boy Scouts of Harlem’’ — that follows Troop 759 to a camp in the rural New York hinterlands, where the expected activities are performed. The object is for the four scouts in the troop to work on becoming Eagle Scouts, the most elusive goal in scouting. They’re smart and, for the most part, interested in scouting. Keith Dozier, a bright, rotund 11-year-old, occupies most of the film’s attention.

NEW YORK - Roy DeCarava, a photographer whose black and white images captured Harlem’s everyday life and the jazz greats who performed there, has died. He was 89. Mr. DeCarava died in Manhattan of natural causes on Tuesday, said his daughter, Susan DeCarava. He had been teaching an advance photography course at Hunter College, where he joined the faculty in 1975. Born in Harlem, Mr. DeCarava was considered to be among the first to give serious photographic attention to the black experience in America.

Jazz Marcus Roberts New Orleans Meets Harlem, Vol. 1 J-Master ESSENTIAL "New Orleans Blues" Where has Marcus Roberts been? One of jazz's hippest pianists, he's been off the radar for eight years, teaching at Florida State University. Now he's finally putting out another album that imparts a few lessons while swinging like crazy. Living up to its name, the album demonstrates how New Orleans music influenced jazz from Harlem. Roberts's trio - which includes bassist Roland Guerin and drummer Jason Marsalis - puts new twists on 11...

NEW YORK -- Even in death, James Brown can move a crowd. Thousands of people danced and sang in the streets outside the Apollo Theater yesterday in raucous celebration of the music legend's life as his body was displayed to the public on the stage where he made his 1956 debut. Music thumped from storefronts and portable stereos. Brown's wails and growls even blasted inside the auditorium as fans marched quietly, single-file past his open gold coffin. Brown lay resplendent in a blue suit, white gloves, and silver shoes.

Harlem has Boy Scouts troops, one of them is 759. Jake Boritt and Justin Szlasa have made a genial documentary — “759: Boy Scouts of Harlem’’ — that follows Troop 759 to a camp in the rural New York hinterlands, where the expected activities are performed. The object is for the four scouts in the troop to work on becoming Eagle Scouts, the most elusive goal in scouting. They’re smart and, for the most part, interested in scouting. Keith Dozier, a bright, rotund 11-year-old, occupies most of the film’s attention.

NEW YORK - Senator Hillary Clinton accepted the endorsement of an influential Harlem clergyman yesterday, while praising Senator Barack Obama, her chief rival for the Democratic nomination for president. "I have the highest regard and admiration for my friend and colleague Senator Barack Obama," Clinton said outside Harlem's historic Abyssinian Baptist Church. "He is an extraordinary human being with enormous gifts and many contributions to our country and to the world.

NEW YORK - Standing in front of the Harlem building where Bill Clinton has his postpresidential office, Audrey Quantano said she has supported the former president and Senator Hillary Clinton "for a very long time. " But now, Quantano can't decide between Clinton and Barack Obama. "I'm split right now," she said. "I've got my list of pros and cons with both of them. " New York's Democratic presidential primary, part of Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, was once considered a cakewalk for Clinton, who has represented New York in the Senate since 2001.