Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto Hardcover – January 1, 2013

The book is full of very interesting pictures. I found the book too slanted towards the East side of Harlem. It did not due justice to many of the wonderful areas between 110th Street to 155th Street from Adam C. Powell Boulevard to Morningside Avenue. It was amazing to me that you could have a book on Harlem and not include a picture or mention the importance of the Abyissian Baptist Church, or Convent Avenue Baptist Church on the Harlem community. In all fairness to Mr. Vergara, I think it is very unrealistic to find a photographer that would be able to cover all the important structures and people in Harlem. The book only gets three stars because it is not broad enough in it's depiction of what Harlem, both East and West was like between 1970-the present. If you are interested in what East Harlem was like back in the 70's you might like this book, but if you want a wider range of Harlem you will be disappointed.

I grew up in Harlem and have seen it changed. Some for the good and some for the not so good. This book captures the history of when slumlords rule and crack ravage and when gentrification came and raped and stayed to what you see at present.

Great book! Great pics!

Great book

Great book, not dense, mostly photographs of all the changes in Harlem.

I live in Harlem. This is on my coffee table.

The book was very disappointing. I thought that the pictures and text would present a sort of mixture of the old Harlem and the newgentrifying areas. Instead, the book was just full of clichéd pictures of Harlem residents and basically very, very few pictures of the changing areas. it was as if this book was some kind of high school project; it was s light on content, I was mad after reading it. The book was a real waste of money and time to read the text. It is not even worth putting on a coffee table since if would make the other books look profane. it is hard to believe that the author was a McArthur fellow. The book should be given away since it lacks real content. You get no understanding of the changes going on in Harlem as well as some of the types of new residents.Do not waste good money buying this worthless book.Stanley Mcintosh

I really like images of NYC from the 70s when it was a shambolic mess. I saw some photos by Vergara of Harlem in the 70s and loved them - a young man with a large Afro sitting on the back of a huge 60s car, a horse and car ambling along the street, and the cover photo of young men playing amongst the rubble of buildings. Unfortunately those photos make up about the first 10 pages of the book. The other 100+ pages are of Harlem post-2000 which has no character and zero interest for me. The photos look like any modern American inner city.The few photos from the 60s/70s at the start of the book are so much more interesting - the clothes, the style, the attitudes, the innocence, the things for sale, the prices in the windows etc; they are much more captivating.The front cover is misleading - if you want a photo journal of the streets of modern Harlem, fine, this is your book. Otherwise, look elsewhere. I returned the book.

great cd