New 'Harlem' TV Series Reps The Neighborhood Proudly

HARLEM, NY — Harlem is no stranger to being represented on the big screen: films like "Across 110th Street" and "Malcolm X," TV series like "Luke Cage" and "Godfather of Harlem."

But rarely has that setting been so explicit as in the new TV series aptly titled "Harlem." The show's first season premiered on Amazon Prime Video last week, winning favorable reviews thus far.

Here are some basic facts about the show.

Who made it, and who's in it?

"Harlem" was created by Tracy Oliver, the writer known for works like the 2017 film "Girls Trip" and 2019's "Little."

Its central characters are Camille, Quinn, Angie and Tye — four young women who met while attending New York University and have moved uptown to Harlem as they enter their thirties.

The four leads are portrayed by Meagan Good, Grace Byers, Shoniqua Shandai and Jerrie Johnson. And there other recognizable faces: Whoopi Goldberg plays a supporting role as Dr. Elise Pruitt, a Columbia University faculty member.

Oliver conceived of the show after realizing that "there just wasn't a lot of like Black female friendship stories on the air, and those have always been my favorite," she told Entertainment Weekly.

Many early reviews have likened the series to "Sex and the City," which Oliver acknowledged as an influence.

Did they film it in Harlem?

Yes. In fact, the show was responsible for a brief controversy earlier this year, when an ad for a new restaurant called Chalmette Fusion Bistro appeared in the windows of Ponty Bistro on Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard — complete with a photo of white diners and a slogan reading "The New Face of Harlem."

The seemingly tone-deaf poster caused an immediate stir on social media — only dispelled after Ponty Bistro's chef explained that the poster was fake, having been put up while the series filmed on the block in February.

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"Not only that the shows producers have been working with the 139th st block association and compensating the surrounding restaurants and neighbors for this shoot," the restaurant wrote. "They have been absolutely wonderful in supporting and giving back to the community and they have helped us stay afloat during these unprecedented times."

According to a review in IndieWire, one episode centers on a supporting character "returning from Europe with his fiancee, Mira ... to open a white-owned restaurant in the gentrifying Harlem" — a plot that resembles the real-life controversy.

Is anything else out now that was filmed in Harlem?

Confusingly, another series with a nearly identical premise was being produced in Harlem at the same time as this one, as the Curious Uptowner reported. That show, "Run the World," centers around a group of Black women who "live and play in Harlem," and premiered on Starz in May.

Then there's the new film adaptation of "West Side Story," directed by Steven Spielberg, which gets its wide release Friday. That movie was seen shooting in Central Harlem in July 2019, lining St. Nicholas Avenue with vintage cars, temporarily transforming storefronts and filling sidewalks with extras "dressed in saddle shoes, fedoras, and retro floral dresses," as Untapped New York reported.

Other dance scenes were filmed on East 131st Street between Fifth and Lenox avenues that same month, according to the New York Post, and further south, on West 107th Street, according to Gothamist. The adaptation has won rave reviews thus far.