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While in his two-room suite, with treetop views, a narrow bed, a shower, books, work tables, photographs and other belongings, Hughes produced a book-length poem, an autobiography, newspaper columns, lyrics, anthologies and many other writings.

"Having that base - that house - was very important to the last 20 years of his life," said Arnold Rampersad, who wrote a two-volume biography of the Harlem Renaissance writer.

Now, four decades after Hughes last drew inspiration from the house and from his muse, Harlem, a musician, a music producer and a music executive are transforming the brownstone into performance and gallery space, recording studios and an overall incubator of creativity for musicians, poets and other artists - all while paying homage to the literary giant.

"We don't want to be stuck in trying to recreate the past," said Shon "Chance" Miller, 29, president and creative director of the organization for which the three are seeking nonprofit status. "We're trying to respect and take from what was done before and incorporate that into what we're doing today."

On what would have been Hughes' 105th birthday on Feb. 1, Miller, along with Marc Cary, a pianist and president of Cary Out Productions, and Jana Herzen, president of Motema Records, opened the three-storey, 138-year-old brownstone's doors to new events and possibilities.

The street-level - the living and dining rooms and kitchen when Hughes lived in the house - has been redesigned into an intimate performance parlour with seating and standing space for about 60. It has a $150,000 Fazioli piano and, at the rear of the space, a glass case displays Hughes' books, which visitors can buy.

Up the staircase, past walls adorned with Hughes memorabilia, where Hughes' surrogate parents, "Uncle" Emerson and "Aunt" Toy Harper, once slept, are recording studios for jazz and hip-hop and other projects.

Motema Records occupies Hughes' old third-floor workroom. "June, Jazz and Cognac at Hughes House," a festival of Motema artists, took place last month.

Until recently, the Hughes House Youth Ensemble was playing every Sunday afternoon, organizers said, although scheduled events at the house can be erratic.

There's an open mike night twice a month hosted by poet La Bruja and talk of a film series and camera installations to stream events live on the Internet.

"It's very inspirational," Miller said of working in the house. "The creative energy and spirit that runs through here, it's the X factor."

Miller, who said he first learned about the Harlem Renaissance and its most famous writer in the sixth grade in Connecticut, was inspired by the 1920s cultural movement to start writing.

Last year, Miller and Cary, who both live in Harlem, began collaborating. They started searching for studio space. They were shooting a video for a song called "A Dream Deferred," which borrows from Hughes' poem "Harlem," when Miller got a call to check out a potential space.

"This place was just beat down," Miller recalled. But he was stunned when he looked at the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission plaque on the front exterior and saw that the home was once owned by Hughes. The building received landmark status in 1981.

Miller said he signed a five-year lease with the current owner, Dr. Beverly Prince Davis, who has owned the house since 1999.

Emerson Harper bought the house in 1947, likely with royalties Hughes received for writing the lyrics to the Kurt Weill Broadway musical "Street Scene," according to Rampersad and property records. Harper's and Hughes' names appeared on the deed, records show.

These days, the muffled sounds of jazz again can be heard wafting from the Italianate-style brownstone, just as it could during Hughes' time. At that time, the music usually came from "Uncle" Emerson's piano.

During the last week of July of 1948, the three moved into the brownstone from the Harpers' Harlem apartment. Hughes was 46. By fall, they began taking in roomers - a student photographer, an art professor, a bus driver - in hopes of having the property pay for itself, according to Rampersad's "The Life of Langston Hughes, Volume II: 1941-1967."

Hughes was born in Joplin, Mo., but lived with his grandmother in Kansas and later with his mother and stepfather in Ohio, where he graduated from high school. He loved Harlem from the moment he set eyes on it in 1921, when he arrived in the city to attend Columbia University. (He eventually graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.) It was around this time that he wrote one of his most famous poems, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers":

I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world

and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. ...

The doorbell at 20 E. 127th St. rang regularly. Poets, writers and others from around the world, particularly Africa, dropped by, often unannounced, to ask a favour, propose a collaboration or simply have a good time.

Hughes, who was 5 feet, 4 inches, loved children. He kept a one-square-metre garden near the front steps of the brownstone of nasturtiums, asters and marigolds. He called it "Our Block's Children's Garden" and gave neighbourhood children responsibility for watering and weeding.

The garden is gone but the Boston Ivy planted at Hughes' request still covers the house for several months of the year.

"He loved children and he liked the idea of being around neighbourhood children and their respect and affection for him," Rampersad said in an interview from California, adding that Hughes often sat to read in Harlem's public library - in the children's section.

"Hughes would never dream of leaving. It was impossible."

From 1925 until he died in 1967 following surgery for an enlarged prostate, Hughes was able to live on his writing, though not always lavishly. But his move to the Harlem brownstone seemed to have ignited a "burst of creative activity," Rampersad said.

It was there that he completed some of his best-known work, including the book-length poem "Montage of a Dream Deferred"; an autobiography, "I Wonder as I Wander"; and countless Chicago Defender newspaper columns.

He usually rose around noon, wrote letters, read mail, attended appointments later in the day. He wrote until about dawn, and as most people were awaking, Hughes was on his way to sleep.

Shon Miller estimates the group has spent a combined $80,000 on renovations, with more needed.

The sounds of change - concrete mixers and hammers - are everywhere in Harlem, where one can barely take a few steps without seeing a brownstone under renovation or a million dollar luxury condo rising. Miller and his partners are optimistic their plans for the Hughes House will pan out and fit whatever shape the famous neighbourhood takes.

They boast they can "create, market and perform" whole projects beneath the same roof where Hughes toiled for years.

"It's one thing to have the proper equipment," Miller said. "It's another when there's a certain feeling, vibe and history and it adds to the creative spirit. I think everyone has felt it."

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ALONG Frederick Douglass Boulevard at West 116th Street, sepia-skinned women parade by swathed in richly colored fabric from West Africa, home still fresh in their minds and dear to their hearts. Young men swagger around in oversize shirts and low-slung jeans, chatting in Senegalese French.

Beatrice De Gea for The New York Times On West 116th Street, touches of a home thousands of miles away.

Beatrice De Gea for The New York Times

Nine blocks away looms the historic Apollo Theater, where busloads of tourists regularly unload for a nostalgic glimpse of Harlem’s storied days. Yet increasingly every year, a decidedly foreign feel prevails on this particular stretch of Harlem — Le Petit Senegal, as it is often called. Young men sell sweet-smelling incense, and middle-aged women with plaited hair plead in urgent West African accents, “Hair braiding, miss?” Giddy, clamorous children make the crowds part as they dash by, all braids and knees and laughter.

In the five-year period ending in 2005, the number of African-born immigrants living in central Harlem increased by two-thirds, to about 6,500, nearly a sixth of them from French-speaking Senegal. Along with soft drinks and toothpaste, bodegas and delis carry items like an African bleaching cream used to lighten the skin, a malted milk beverage called Nestle Milo that is popular in West Africa, and cans of egusi, melon seeds that are the base of a pungent soup laden with vegetables.

For a first-generation Ghanaian-American who has settled in Harlem, as many West Africans have, the sights and sounds of home are everywhere.

They are in the features of men and women on the streets — the cheek cuts, made soon after birth, signifying the tribe to which they belong — and in the disapproving sucking sounds that women make at misbehaving children.

They are at Les Ambassades, a Senegalese bakery and bistro near West 117th Street that attracts a pan-African clientele, a place where Nigerians debate politics while Ghanaians trade impressions of the Black Stars, the national Ghanaian soccer team.

And they can be found at AG Fashion, a tiny tailor shop on St. Nicholas Avenue near 120th Street that is crammed with pinstripe suits as well as outfits fashioned from bright African cloth. Customers are buzzed in by AG himself, a Senegalese immigrant. When a garment that has been ordered is not ready, eyes roll. But it is hard to be really annoyed; customers are accustomed to the more languorous “African time.”

A customer inspects the alterations on her Dolce & Gabbana dress, then decides to stop by a street vendor on West 125th Street to buy pure shea butter, a moisturizer. This will be a gift for an African mother, now settled in Ohio. The mother hasn’t been to Ghana in a while, so this will be a piece of home.

Photo by Louren Bates for HW 

Today was the opening of the new Fed Ex/Kinko's store in Harlem on 125th Street at Adam Powell Jr. Avenue. The store offers all the services one could expect from the combination of two quality brands. The Fed Ex/Kinko's store marks again the new business surge that continues to speak to the new renaissance that is Harlem in the 21st century. The store opening was organized by Harlem PR man Cornelius Ricks and his team.

The rock group once had its headquarters in the penthouse and allegedly fully enjoyed its roof deck and gorgeous views of Central Park.

You'd also gain an iota of real estate history as earlier ownership included the legendary Benjamin Duhl, as well as Stephen L. Green, whose REIT sold out in April of 2005 to current sellers APF Realty for $60.2 million.

Those investors could double their money if the bids due in August to Queen of Skyscrapers Darcy Stacom, at CB Richard Ellis, hold to current estimates.

Swanke Hayden Connell Architects designed the new 21-story Harlem Park project for Vornado Realty Trust as a 600,000-foot office tower with 72,000 feet of retail on the corner of 125th Street. and Park Avenue.

The long-awaited development, conceptualized by a predecessor developer, would be the first of its stature in Harlem in 30 years.

New York Observer publisher and real estate scion Jared Kushner has hired Massey Knakal Realty Advisors to market some of his Kushner Companies' Northern Manhattan holdings.

The Uptown 500 Portfolio actually has 496 residential apartments and two retail units spread across 24 walk-up buildings in Washington Heights, Hamilton Heights, Central Harlem, East Harlem, and Inwood.

Shimon Shkury at Massey Knakal is heading the sales team, which expects to achieve north of $70 million for the package.

Long before Scarface inspired countless rappers' dreams of money and power, Miami—with its balmy weather, checkered history, and touch of Mediterranean lassitude—was the destination for sun-kissed wealth and glamour. Attempting to bring some of that beachy appeal to this city is the Hudson River Café (697 West 133rd Street), which opened its doors a little more than eight weeks ago in far, far West Harlem—thankfully not yet known as WeHa.

Entering the enormous bilevel bar and restaurant feels like stepping onto a yacht. The all-white ground floor houses a sleek bar and a scattering of tables. A dark wood staircase descends dramatically from the ceiling to connect to the upper-level dining room for those in search of more intimate seating. The place aims for the louche charm of a South Beach club: think Ocean Drive transported to Twelfth Avenue. Unfortunately, during a recent visit in a smothering heat wave, the place was in desperate need of some spice. The staff was immaculately turned out in white button-downs and long black aprons, but seemed seriously inexperienced. At the bar, Blue Point Ales ($6) were tasty, but a Mount Gay and tonic ($8) was suspiciously clear. When we complained, the barkeep seemed befuddled: "Oh, I thought you said Grey Goose. Do you want to drink it anyway?" Uh, no. As if in compensation, the next version was practically all rum and no tonic. No complaints this time.

The spot's real draw is the spacious front patio (also two levels), which conveniently has its own bar. There's no waiting to flag down a harried server.

Sitting at tables beneath salmon-colored umbrellas, intrepid diners braved the humidity, ordering dishes like Buffalo Shrimp ($12) from the seafood-centric menu and leaning their faces into the faint wisp of a breeze. The soundtrack of smooth jazz and r&b made it seem like Crockett and Tubbs were going to show up any minute. A waiter, asked for cocktail advice, warned against the Sweet Cotton Club ($8), a vodka-Frangelico concoction. "I'm embarrassed it's on the menu," he confessed, and then pointed to the 1921 Meat Packing District Mojito ($10), a deceptively innocent-tasting but potent alternative.

Despite being located practically in the river, the café's view was limited by the Henry Hudson Parkway and Amtrak rails, which run disconcertingly close to the upper deck. The crowd grew as the night progressed, as older couples who had lingered over dessert moved on and ceded the evening to a younger, thirstier crowd that didn't care about the muggy air and lack of private yachts or cavorting model-types. It wasn't hard to imagine a table of ladies who looked more like Mo'Nique than Beyoncé putting down their white wines, pushing their chairs aside, and clearing space for a dance floor; while, at another table, a group of middle-aged guys in their summer best-—tank tops and basketball shorts—chatted over beers. Maybe later the two groups would converge. Given a few more weeks to smooth out the remaining kinks—the prices on the wine list shoot from reasonable to astronomical without much middle ground—the place could be the beginning of Miami-to-Harlem invasion

The usual mix of celebrities and wiseguys were mingling at Rao’s on Monday night when Sonny Grasso entered with an entourage that included a young black man dressed in a brown flight suit.

Robert Sullivan/AFP - Getty Images

Barrington Irving, 23, on June 27, at Opa-Locka Airport near Miami, after a 97-day solo flight around the world in a single-engine plane.

You could hear a diamond brooch drop as the entourage made its way to their table amid the fortunate diners who had managed to get a table at Rao’s, the East Harlem restaurant legendary for its exclusivity. The men and women in suits and skirts paused, their forks lowered and their eyebrows raised. “Who’s that?” asked a man in a silk shirt sitting at a back table beneath an autographed photo of Jerry Lewis. “Where’s he from?”

A few minutes later, Mr. Grasso, one of the two real-life cops depicted in the movie “The French Connection,” held a drink high over his head, and asked everyone — including Conan O’Brien, who was seated at a nearby table — to join him in a toast to Barrington Irving, a 23-year-old pilot from Miami Gardens, Fla.

Mr. Irving, a senior majoring in aeronautical science at Florida Memorial University, completed a solo flight around the world in a single-engine plane last month to become the youngest and first black pilot to accomplish that feat.

“My plane had no radar and no de-icing equipment,” said Mr. Irving, enjoying a plate filled with chicken and roasted peppers shortly after the Rao’s crowd welcomed him back to earth with a warm ovation. “It was just me up there, alone, flying on gut instinct — pretty much the way Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart did it.”

Sitting in the cockpit of a Columbia 400 he named Inspiration — “because that’s what I want to be to younger people,” he said — Mr. Irving began his journey on March 23 from Opa-Locka Airport near Miami, and ended there on June 27, 96 days, 150 hours (of flight time) and 26,800 miles later.

The trip, which cost roughly a million dollars, was rejected by more than 50 different sponsors whom Mr. Irving began approaching about two and a half years ago.

“At the time, I had just a little over 600 hours of flight experience,” he said. “So people thought I was both too young and too inexperienced.”

But eventually, sponsors began accepting and donating money and aircraft parts.

From Florida, Mr. Irving headed to Ohio and Farmingdale, N.Y., and continued to Newfoundland, the Azores, Madrid, Rome, Athens, Cairo, and through sandstorms to get to Dubai.

Mr. Irving, who said he grew lonely and frustrated for long stretches, refueled his plane and his spirits after each landing by communicating with fans over a Web site, www.experienceaviation.org.

“People were asking me everything from how I was able to go to the bathroom while flying to what it was like to fly over ancient ruins in Greece and Italy,” he said. “Their enthusiasm kept me going.”

So he pointed Inspiration’s nose toward India, trying to avoid thumping monsoons, which followed the course all the way to Bangkok and Hong Kong.

He reached Japan, where skies began to brighten, then turned for home, dealing with poor visibility and high, shifting winds when crossing the North Pacific en route to Anchorage, Alaska.

“I got nervous because I began to experience turbulence,” he said. “I saw cloud formations I had never seen before.”

He made his way to Seattle, then Denver and Houston, and Mobile, Ala. — where he stopped to meet the engineers who built his TSIO 550, 310-horsepower engine — before flying back to Florida.

When Mr. Irving was done with his main course at Rao’s, he picked at a piece of cheesecake and discussed his place in history.

“It’s humbling, especially in this day and age, when a lot of young black men are getting caught up in the wrong things,” said Mr. Irving, who was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and grew up in Miami. “I feel blessed that I had a chance to maybe inspire kids out there, black or white, to become pilots or engineers or air traffic controllers, or to make a positive impact in any other area of life.”