Celebrating the 47th annual Harlem Week

HARLEM, Manhattan --- New Yorkers hit up Manhattan's streets on Sunday for the kick off to the 47th annual Harlem Week.

There was impromptu dancing as exhibits and vendors set up. The sounds of the Sing Harlem Choir filled the streets. Marco Nobles, the second vice chair of Harlem Week, said the event was about sharing the neighborhood with the world.

“Harlem Week is a celebration of our community,” Nobles said.

Linda Armstrong, the arts and entertainment editor for Harlem News, reminded the community to support Black performers on Broadway.

“This issue has all the Black actors in all the Broadway shows and it also has the fact that there are 10 black playwrights on Broadway with 11 Black shows,” Armstrong said.

There were also COVID-19 vaccination stations set up to try increase vaccination rates among communities of color in New York City.

“We have to take care of the hesitancy in black and brown communities. It’s the right thing to do," Marci McCall, director of outreach for NYC for the NYStateofHealth, said. “I tell people I had a sore arm for about an hour."

For others, the day in Harlem was a chance to celebrate their history and their culture.

"My ancestors go back to the 1850s when Harlem was farmland,” Cherokee Black, a Harlem native who now lives on the Upper West Side, told PIX11 News. “And I’m a native. There’s a lot in this community, it’s the Black community."

Adele Reilly has been coming to this celebration fir more than three decades.

“I love the culture, the food, the people,” Reilly said. “Harlem week is great."