List of people from Harlem

This is a list of people from Harlem in New York City.

The early period (pre-1920)

 * John James Audubon – naturalist
 * Richard Croker – Tammany Hall politician, lived at 26 Mount Morris Park West
 * James Reese Europe – musician, credited with inventing jazz; 67 West 133rd Street
 * Thomas Gilroy – New York mayor
 * Alexander Hamilton – politician; lived in Harlem at the end of his life
 * Hubert Harrison – "The Father of Harlem Radicalism"
 * Scott Joplin – pianist and composer; lived at 133 West 138th Street in 1916, then at 163 West 131st Street until his death in 1917; had a studio at 160 West 133rd Street
 * Alfred Henry Lewis – cowboy author
 * Vincent James McMahon – founder of the World Wide Wrestling Federation
 * Paul Meltsner – WPA era painter and muralist; grew up in Harlem
 * Thomas Nast – artist
 * Philip A. Payton Jr. – real estate entrepreneur; lived at 13 West 131st Street
 * Norman Rockwell – lived as a child at 789 St. Nicholas Avenue
 * Norman Thomas – radical activist
 * Daniel Tiemann – New York mayor
 * Robert Van Wyck – New York mayor
 * Cornelius Van Wyck Lawrence – New York mayor

Jewish, Italian, Irish Harlem (circa 1900–30)

 * Sholem Aleichem – writer, 110 Lenox Avenue
 * Moe Berg (1902–1972) – Major League Baseball catcher; spy
 * Milton Berle – comedian and actor, born in a five-story walkup at 68 West 118th Street
 * Fanny Brice – actress, houses at West 128th Street and West 118th Street
 * Art Buchwald – writer
 * Bennett Cerf – publisher, was born on May 25, 1898, at 68 West 118th Street, the same address as Milton Berle's
 * Morris Raphael Cohen – philosopher, 498 West 135th Street
 * Milt Gabler – record producer, responsible for many innovations in the recording industry of the 20th century
 * George and Ira Gershwin - composers, grew up in Harlem; lived at 108 West 111th and other addresses. George wrote his first hit song, "Swanee", at his home at 520 W. 144 Street in 1919. The pair were living at 501 Cathedral Parkway in 1924, and it was in this apartment that George wrote "Rhapsody in Blue."
 * Oscar Hammerstein I – inventor and theatrical entrepreneur; lived at 333 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Oscar Hammerstein II – writer and theatrical producer, addresses on East 116th Street and 112th Street
 * Lorenz Hart – lyricist half of the Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart, 59 West 119th Street
 * Harry Houdini – magician; lived at 278 West 113th Street from 1904 until his death in 1926
 * Frank Hussey – Olympian, 129th Street
 * Burt Lancaster – Oscar-winning actor and producer
 * Seymour Martin Lipset – political sociologist, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and Hazel Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University
 * Ignazio Lupo – counterfeiter, gangster
 * Marx Brothers – comedians, 239 East 114th Street
 * Arthur Miller – playwright, 45 West 110th Street
 * Giuseppe Morello – gangster, 323 East 107th Street
 * Belle Moskowitz – political advisor to New York Governor and 1928 presidential candidate Al Smith
 * Al Pacino – Academy Award-winning actor
 * Charlie Pilkington – three-time New York champion boxer; East 102nd Street
 * Ed Sullivan – Broadway & Sports columnist, host of the long-running televised Sunday evening variety show; East 114th Street
 * David Rappaport – fashion manufacturer, designer and painter
 * Richard Rodgers – composer, 3 West 120th Street
 * Yossele Rosenblatt – celebrated cantor
 * Henry Roth – writer, 108 East 119th Street
 * Jessie Sampter – poet
 * John Sanford, born Julian Lawrence Shapiro – screenwriter and author who wrote 24 books
 * Arthur Sulzberger – publisher of the New York Times
 * Henrietta Szold – founder of Hadassah
 * Vincent and Ciro Terranova – gangsters, 352 East 116th Street

The Harlem Renaissance and World War II (1920–1945)

 * Louis Armstrong – bandleader and trumpet player
 * Count Basie – bandleader and pianist; lived at 555 Edgecombe Avenue
 * George Wilson Becton – religious cult leader
 * Julius Bledsoe – singer; lived at 409 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Arna Bontemps – writer
 * William Stanley Braithwaite – poet and essayist; lived at 409 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Eunice Carter – New York state judge; lived at 409 Edgecombe Avenue
 * John Henrik Clarke – editor of Freedomways Magazine and of several books; professor; moved to Harlem in 1933
 * Lady Bird Cleveland (1926-2015) – artist
 * Collyer brothers – compulsive hoarders; lived in a townhouse at 128th Street and Fifth Avenue in Harlem their entire adult lives
 * Countee Cullen – poet
 * Lillian Harris Dean – entrepreneur known as "Pigfoot Mary"
 * Aaron Douglas – painter; lived at 409 Edgecombe Avenue
 * W. E. B. Du Bois – activist, writer; lived at 409 Edgecombe
 * Duke Ellington – composer, pianist and bandleader; lived on Riverside Drive and at 555 Edgecombe
 * Father Divine – religious leader, lived in several locations in Harlem, including on Astor Row, and maintained offices at 20 West 115th Street
 * Rudolph Fisher – writer
 * Marcus Garvey – political figure, Pan-Africanist; home at 235 West 131st Street
 * Billy Higgins (1888–1937), stage comedian, songwriter, and singer
 * Charles Manuel "Sweet Daddy" Grace – evangelist, born in Cape Verde Islands but became prominent in Harlem in the 1920s
 * Lionel Hampton – jazz musician; lived in Harlem through World War II and for some years thereafter
 * Hubert Harrison – "the father of Harlem Radicalism"
 * Leonard Harper – Harlem Renaissance producer, stager, and choreographer
 * Coleman Hawkins – musician, saxophone player; lived at 555 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Billie Holiday – singer; lived with her mother at 108 West 139th Street
 * Casper Holstein – gangster
 * Lena Horne – singer and actress; lived at 555 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Langston Hughes – writer
 * Zora Neale Hurston – writer
 * Bumpy Johnson – gangster; lived in Lenox Terrace at 132nd Street and Lenox Avenue near the end of his life
 * James P. Johnson – pianist
 * James Weldon Johnson – author, activist, composer; lived at 187 West 135th Street
 * Donald Jones – actor and dancer born in Harlem but moved to the Netherlands
 * Fiorello La Guardia – New York mayor, from East Harlem
 * Alain Locke – editor
 * Joe Louis – boxer; lived at 555 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Claude McKay – poet and novelist; born in Jamaica but moved to Harlem and wrote the famous novel Home to Harlem, West 131st Street
 * Florence Mills – entertainer
 * Adam Clayton Powell Sr. – religious, civic leader
 * A. Philip Randolph – activist, labor organizer
 * Paul Robeson – singer and actor; lived at 555 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Bill "Bojangles" Robinson – dancer; lived on Strivers' Row
 * James Herman Robinson – pastor of the Church of the Master on 122nd Street, founder of Operation Crossroads Africa, a forerunner of the Peace Corps
 * Stephanie St. Clair – criminal leader; lived at 409 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Willie "The Lion" Smith – pianist
 * Wallace Thurman – writer
 * Jean Toomer – writer
 * James Van Der Zee – photographer
 * Madam C.J. Walker – philanthropist and tycoon
 * A'Lelia Walker – socialite and businesswoman
 * Fats Waller – pianist, born at 107 West 134th Street
 * Ethel Waters – singer, actress; born in Chester, Pennsylvania
 * Margot Webb - professional dancer
 * Walter Francis White – civil rights leader
 * Bert Williams – vaudeville performer; born in Antigua; died in 1922, near the start of the Harlem Renaissance
 * Mary Lou Williams – pianist; lived at 63 Hamilton Terrace
 * Lillian "Billie" Yarbo – comedienne, dancer, singer

Famous after World War II

 * Miles Aiken – basketball player
 * Fiona Apple – singer-songwriter and pianist, raised in Morningside Gardens
 * James Baldwin – novelist; lived at 131st Street and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. (then called "Seventh Avenue")
 * Amiri Baraka, born LeRoi Jones – dancer, poet, activist
 * Patricia Bath, ophthalmologist, inventor, humanitarian, and academic
 * Romare Bearden – artist, primarily working in collage
 * Harry Belafonte – calypso musician
 * Claude Brown – novelist, wrote Manchild in the Promised Land
 * Ron Brown – U.S. Secretary of Commerce, grew up in the Hotel Theresa
 * Kareem Campbell – pro skateboarder
 * George Carlin – comedian; 121st Street between Amsterdam and Broadway
 * Jimmy Castor – R&B/funk bandleader
 * Dr. Kenneth Clark – psychologist and activist; lived at 555 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Pat Cleveland – model
 * Evelyn Cunningham – civil-rights-era journalist and aide to Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York
 * Jules Dassin – film director
 * Benjamin J. Davis – New York City councilman, ultimately sent to jail for violations of the Smith Act
 * Ossie Davis – actor and director; lived in Harlem in the late 1930s and mid-1940s
 * Sammy Davis Jr. – entertainer, actor, member of Rat Pack, born in Harlem Hospital in 1925
 * Roy DeCarava – photographer, born in Harlem in 1919
 * Wanda De Jesus – actress
 * David Dinkins – Mayor of New York; lived in the Riverton Houses
 * Ralph Ellison – novelist, wrote Invisible Man, about a man who moves from the deep south to Harlem; lived at 730 Riverside Drive in Harlem
 * Erik Estrada – actor, from East Harlem
 * Donald Faison – actor
 * Jack Geiger – physician, co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility; lived with Canada Lee for a year at 555 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Herbert Gentry – abstract expressionist painter, lived at 126th street and Amsterdam Avenue, 1940s
 * Althea Gibson – professional tennis player; lived at 115 West 143rd Street
 * Oscar Hammerstein II – writer and theatrical producer
 * W. C. Handy – composer and bandleader; lived on Strivers' Row in Harlem towards the end of his life
 * Benny Harris – musician, trumpet
 * Lorenz Hart – lyricist
 * Johnny Hartman – vocalist; born in Louisiana, grew up in Chicago, moved to Harlem's Sugar Hill in 1950s
 * Evan Hunter, aka Ed McBain – author, grew up in East Harlem
 * Roy Innis – head of the Congress of Racial Equality; lived in Harlem but ultimately moved to Brooklyn
 * June Jordan – Caribbean American poet, novelist, journalist, biographer, dramatist, teacher
 * JTG – WWE wrestler
 * Ben E. King – soul singer and former lead tenor of The Drifters, best known for the song, "Stand By Me"
 * Canada Lee – actor; lived at 555 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Frank Lucas – drug dealer
 * Frankie Lymon – lead tenor of The Teenagers, best known for the song "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"
 * Malcolm X – preacher, revolutionary
 * Earl Manigault – basketball player
 * Thurgood Marshall – Supreme Court justice; lived at 409 Edgecombe Avenue
 * Carl McCall – New York State senator, and Comptroller of New York State
 * Jackie McLean – musician, alto saxophone * Arthur Miller – playwright, was married to Marilyn Monroe
 * Hal Miller – actor (Sesame Street, Law & Order, etc.); also painter, singer, poet, lyricist, lived at 152nd Street & Macombs Place in the 1950s, born in Harlem
 * Moby – musician, born in Harlem
 * Joe Morton – actor, born in Harlem
 * Edward Mosberg (1926-2022) - Polish-American Holocaust survivor, educator, and philanthropist
 * Alice Neel – artist; lived in East Harlem
 * Eleanor Holmes Norton – head of the Commission of Human Rights for New York City, now non-voting Delegate from the District of Columbia to the United States House of Representatives
 * Elaine Parker – community organizer and activist, Chairperson of Harlem C.O.R.E. Director of the Manhattan Borough President's Office, Special Assistant to the City Council President City of NY
 * Gordon Parks – film director and photographer
 * Basil Paterson – New York state senator, New York City deputy mayor for labor relations, Vice-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee
 * Fannie Pennington Harlem Civil Rights Foot Soldier
 * Samuel Pierce – Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; lived in the Riverton Houses
 * Adam Clayton Powell Jr. – politician
 * Bud Powell – musician, pianist
 * Tito Puente, Sr. – musician, Spanish Harlem
 * Gene Anthony Ray – dancer and actor
 * Ving Rhames – actor
 * Brandon 'Scoop B' Robinson, NBA analyst
 * Sugar Ray Robinson – boxer, entrepreneur; moved to Harlem at age 12
 * Sonny Rollins – musician, tenor saxophone
 * Steve Rossi – comedian, former manager for Howard Stern
 * Henry Roth – novelist
 * J. D. Salinger – novelist; lived at 3681 Broadway until he was nine years old
 * Isabel Sanford – actress; co-star of The Jeffersons
 * Hazel Scott – pianist, wife of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., first African-American woman with her own television show
 * Nina Simone – singer; lived, for a time, in Duke Ellington's old house in Harlem
 * Thomas Sowell – professional economist and author
 * Billy Strayhorn – jazz composer, arranger
 * Percy Sutton – Borough President of Manhattan: "If I were offered a million dollars, I wouldn't leave Harlem."
 * Billy Taylor – jazz pianist; lived in the Riverton Houses
 * Clarice Taylor – actress on the Cosby Show
 * Conrad Tillard (born 1964) - politician, Baptist minister, radio host, author, and civil rights activist
 * Samuel E Vázquez – abstract expressionist painter
 * Dinah Washington – "Queen of the Blues"; born in Alabama but became famous when she lived in Harlem
 * Roy Wilkins – civil rights leader; lived at 409 Edgecombe
 * Billy Dee Williams – actor
 * Louis T. Wright – physician, chairman of the board of the NAACP
 * Morrie Yohai – rabbi, inventor of Cheez Doodles

Rap, hip hop, R&B and reality

 * 40 Cal – rapper
 * ASAP Ferg – rapper ASAP Mob
 * ASAP Rocky – rapper from Harlem (member of ASAP Mob)
 * Bodega Bamz - rapper, actor
 * Azealia Banks – rapper, singer, lyricist
 * Stuart Bascombe - singer, songwriter, producer and actor
 * Leroy Burgess - Musician, singer, songwriter and producer
 * Big L – rapper
 * Black Ivory - R&B vocal group
 * Black Rob – rapper from Spanish Harlem
 * Cam'ron – rapper (owner of Diplomat Records) (Dipset)
 * Cannibal Ox – rap duo
 * Crash Crew – old-school rap group
 * Yaya DaCosta – America's Next Top Model contestant/model
 * Damon Dash – Co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records
 * DJ Hollywood – VH-1 hip hop honoree; rap/hip-hop pioneer
 * DJ Red Alert – DJ, hip hop pioneer
 * Kool Moe Dee – old-school rapper and one-third of the Treacherous Three
 * Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock – rap duo best known for their hit "It Takes Two"
 * Dave East – rapper (Mass Appeal Records)
 * Famous Dex – rapper
 * Fatman Scoop – Grammy and MTV Award winner; radio personality; reality TV star
 * The Fearless Four – pioneer rap group
 * Doug E. Fresh – '80s rapper, runs a waffle house in Harlem
 * Spoonie Gee – pioneer rapper
 * Ebony Haith – America's Next Top Model contestant, model
 * Charles Hamilton – rapper
 * Ilacoin – hip hop artist, creator of the "Pause" game
 * Freddie Jackson – singer
 * Jim Jones – rapper (co-CEO of Diplomat Records) (Dipset)
 * Joe Budden – rapper, media personality, host of The Joe Budden Podcast
 * Kareem "Biggs" Burke - co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records
 * Kelis – R&B singer and songwriter
 * Rayne Storm – rapper, producer (Digiindie)
 * Puff Daddy – rapper, businessman, founder of Bad Boy Records
 * Freekey Zekey – rapper (owner, CEO of 730 Dips Records)
 * Immortal Technique – rapper
 * Kurtis Blow – rapper
 * Lil Mama – rapper; judge of America's Best Dance Crew
 * Biz Markie – rapper, disc jockey owns a Waffle House
 * Mase – rapper
 * Jae Millz – rapper
 * P-Star – rapper, singer, actress
 * Q-Tip – rapper, producer (A Tribe Called Quest)
 * Russell Patterson - singer, songwriter, producer and actor
 * Teddy Riley – producer, artist
 * Tupac Shakur - rapper
 * Carl Hancock Rux – writer, performer
 * Juelz Santana – rapper (owner, CEO of Skull Gang Records)
 * Bre Scullark – America's Next Top Model contestant, model
 * Smoke DZA – rapper
 * Dani Stevenson – singer
 * Keith Sweat – singer
 * Teyana Taylor – singer and rapper signed to Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music label
 * Treacherous Three – old-school rap group
 * T-Rex – battle rapper (member Of Dot Mob)
 * Vado – rapper (We The Best Records)
 * JR Writer – rapper (Dipset member)
 * Sheck Wes - rapper
 * Dave Wooley - director, producer, author and entrepreneur

21st-century residents

 * Bob Dylan - owned a brownstone on Striver’s Row from 1980’s until year 2000. The townhouse is located at 265 West 139th Street and it sold in 2018 for $3.7M
 * Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – basketball player, moved into a Mount Morris brownstone at 30 West 120th Street in September 2006
 * Lorraine Adams – writer and journalist
 * Maya Angelou – poet and author, owned a home on 120th Street in Mount Morris Park district
 * Angela Bassett – Emmy and Academy Award-nominated, and Golden Globe-winning actress
 * Keith David – actor and singer
 * Charlotte d'Amboise – actress and dancer
 * Jonathan Franzen – author; lived on 125th Street when he wrote his book The Corrections
 * Daphne Frias – activist
 * Marcia Gay Harden – Oscar-winning actress
 * Edward W. Hardy – Composer, musician and producer
 * Neil Patrick Harris – actor; lives near Morningside Park when not in Los Angeles
 * Rashidah Ismaili, writer
 * Jeff L. Lieberman – film director
 * Terrance Mann – actor and dancer
 * Cameron Mathison – actor on All My Children and contestant on Dancing with the Stars, 136 West 130th Street
 * S. Epatha Merkerson – actress
 * Harold "Hal" Miller – actor ("Gordon" on Sesame Street), lived on 152nd Street & Macombs Place, before going to live and work in China, India and throughout Europe
 * Mandy Patinkin – actor
 * Adam Clayton Powell IV – New York City Council member
 * Richard Price – author and screenwriter
 * Marcus Samuelsson – chef and restaurateur; lived in duplex near Frederick Douglass Boulevard
 * Miz Cracker - Drag Queen
 * Akhnaten Spencer-El – Olympic fencer
 * Stephen Spinella – Tony Award-winning actor
 * Joel Steinberg – killed his adopted daughter; moved to Harlem after his 2004 release from prison
 * Khalid Yasin – born in Harlem; raised in Brooklyn; teacher and lecturer of Islam
 * Oscar Peñas – composer and jazz guitarist – born in Barcelona, Spain; moved from Clinton Hill, Brooklyn to Hamilton Height, Harlem in 2018
 * Alysia Reiner - American actress and producer, best known for playing Natalie "Fig" Figueroa in the Netflix comedy drama series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019), for which she won a Screen Actors Guild Award for her role as part of the ensemble cast
 * Haile King-Rubie – artist born and active in Harlem

Representatives

 * Inez Dickens - New York City Council
 * Robert Jackson – New York City council
 * David Paterson – New York State Governor
 * Bill Perkins – New York State Senator
 * Adam Clayton Powell IV – New York State Assembly
 * Charles B. Rangel – United States House of Representatives, lives in Lenox Terrace at 132nd Street and Lenox Avenue
 * José M. Serrano – New York State Senate
 * Keith L.T. Wright – New York State Assembly