Harlem Heights

The Battle of Harlem Heights was fought in the New York and New Jersey campaign of the American Revolutionary War. The action took place in what is now the Morningside Heights and west Harlem neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City on September 16, 1776. Hamilton Heights is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It lies between Morningside Heights to the south and Washington Heights to the north. It is the westerly part of Harlem. It contains the neighborhood of Sugar Hill. Sugar Hill is a neighborhood in the northern part of Hamilton Heights, which itself is a sub-neighborhood of Harlem, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The neighborhood is defined by 155th Street to the north, 145th Street to the south, Edgecombe Avenue to the east, and Amsterdam Avenue to the west. The name originated in the 1920s, when the area became a popular place to live for wealthy African Americans.
Named to identify the "sweet life" in Harlem, it was a popular residential area of rowhouses for wealthy African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance, including W.E.B. Dubois, Thurgood Marshall, Adam Clayton Powell, and Duke Ellington. Langston Hughes wrote about its relative affluence in relation to Harlem in his essay "Down and Under in Harlem" published in the The New Republic in 1944.
"Harlem Heights" is BET's new show that premieres at 10 pm on Monday nights. It is a docudrama, and latest addition to reality television, BETs Harlem Heights attempts to capture the hopes and aspirations of young buppie 20-30 somethings, they are the post intergrationist children that now occupied this vibrant community. Have we truly arrived, that now the post intergrationist children can engage themselves in the same type of mindless hedonism, and errant behavior as the white counterparts in the Hills
Dubbed as insight to the young, black, and fabulous crowd, the setting is in Harlem, New York and follows real friends through their professional and social ups and downs. Of particular interest is Brooke Crittenden, Kanyé West’s ex-fiancée. Feeling like she needed to lend a voice to her experience as ‘the other half to a famous person’, B.E.T. president Loretha Jones assures us that Harlem Heights is not The Hills.
The cast includes a lifestyle editor for the basketball publication Dime magazine, an aspiring actress, a fashionista, a young man contemplating a career in politics and even a young dad. It is a group of friends moving out of college and into the working world.
“This show isn’t ‘The Hills,” said BET president Loretha Jones. “The cast was friends before, so their relationships are natural and they allowed us to follow them in such a way that they were unconcerned with the cameras being there, and let us capture the real interactions.”
Jones also said that unlike some other reality shows about twentysomethings, “Harlem Heights” would explore not only emotional drama, but also professional drama and the excitement and celebrations of last year’s historical election night. After watching BET devolving into an outlet for soft-core porn disguised as music videos, I will give Harlem Heights a second viewing.