• Jumel Terrace Books

    Revolutionary & Colonial Washington Heights, Harlem, Africa, West Indies, Art, Myth, History & Literature: Slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Theology, Military, Labor, Civil Rights, Negritude, Black Power.

"An Oasis for the Unrestrained Pursuit of Knowledge"
*************And a "Nugget" in the Rubbish*************

Uptown's only bookshop specializing in local history, African & American. The shop on 160th Street, open by appointment or serendipity, faces the Morris-Jumel Mansion, the headquarters of George Washington during 1776’s Battle of Harlem Heights, & our stock addresses its significance in 18th & 20th century Revolutionary American history.

As Sugar Hill, the neighborhood has retained its reputation as the intellectual & artistic home of Black America. Jumel Terrace Books follows in the tradition of bookstores serving the community since George Young’s Book Exchange opened in 1920. Before Black Studies entered college curriculums in 1968, shops like Lewis Micheaux’s House of Common Sense & Home of Proper Propaganda & Richard B Moore’s Frederick Douglass Book Center were important sources of education, aspiration & inspiration. As did our predecessors, we buy & sell very good books on our subjects.

Jumel Terrace Books - Blog

“Legends are…mere nests into which invention lays credulity.” Judith Gleason. New African Literature at Jumel Terrace Books

This month we’re featuring new stock from the library of the late Judith Gleason, PhD., the first Anglo-American Olorisha initiated into Santeria. An anthropologist who became attracted to the religion while researching Candomble in Brazil, Pierre Verger is thought to be the inspiration for her novel, Agõtĩme (NY: Grossman, a NYTimes Book of the Year in 1970), an […]

Bruce Weber & David Bailey: The Private Library for Nokia

Grand Guy Bruce Weber brought fash’ legend David Bailey about this afternoon, the hottest day of the year, to take pictures around the house with not-yet-on- the-market very yellow Nokia cell phone/cameras.  They’re shooting the commercial that will premiere this fall.  We’ve Vreeland in common and had a lively reminiscence.  Needless to say, it was […]

Harlem’s Sugar Hill Stretches Its Borders

 LANA BORTOLOT for The Wall Street Journal Mark Abramson for The Wall Street Journal                                               Sylvan Terrace in Sugar Hill In a city where neighborhood borders are often staunchly defended, many in Sugar Hill, the […]