Explore the real-world places that appear in Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Upper West Side Brownstone, Central Park, The New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building, Harlem High School (inspired by real Harlem schools), Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) and 9 more.
West 78th Street, between Columbus & Amsterdam — Home of the Matthews family
The novel opens in this brownstone on Christmas Eve, where sixteen-year-old Iris hosts a family dinner that becomes a reckoning. Iris's mother, Aya, and her grandmother, Dede, arrive for what should be a celebration, but tensions erupt as family secrets are unveiled. The intimate dinner table conversation where Iris reveals her teenage pregnancy and the identity of the father, a boy named Ty'Shawn, becomes the emotional center of the novel. This space represents the safe haven that is shattered by generational trauma and revelation.
The Upper West Side became a prestigious residential neighborhood in the late 19th century, with brownstones and townhouses constructed throughout the 1880s-1900s. The area has long been home to middle and upper-class African American families, particularly since the mid-20th century when it became a cultural hub for Black intellectuals, artists, and professionals.
The Upper West Side remains one of Manhattan's most desirable neighborhoods. Historic brownstones like the one in the novel are private residences, many occupied by families and converted into multi-unit apartments. The tree-lined streets retain their 19th-century charm and are among New York's most expensive real estate.
West 79th to West 83rd Street entrances — Gathering place and refuge
Central Park serves as an important setting where characters find solace and reflection. Aya walks through the park to process the weight of her past and her relationship with her daughter Iris. The park represents both escape and continuity in the novel—a green space where the characters can breathe outside the confines of their apartment and their complicated family dynamics. Dede remembers walks through these same paths decades earlier, connecting generations through a shared geography.
Central Park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and opened to the public in 1858. It was created as a democratic space for all New Yorkers, though during its early decades it was largely inaccessible to poor and Black communities. By the mid-20th century, it had become a gathering place for diverse New Yorkers.
Central Park remains one of the world's most visited urban parks, with 42 million annual visitors. The park offers meadows, lakes, playgrounds, theaters, and cultural institutions. The area around West 79th-83rd Street includes the Delacorte Theater and naturalistic landscape areas.
Visit: Central Park (park)
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street — Knowledge, history, and archival memory
The library appears as a place where Iris researches history and finds refuge in learning. It represents the intellectual world that Aya and Dede value, and the kind of knowledge and self-discovery that becomes crucial for understanding the family's past. The grand reading rooms symbolize the pursuit of understanding one's own history—genealogical, personal, and cultural—which is central to the novel's exploration of generational legacy.
The Schwarzman Building, originally named the New York Public Library Main Branch, opened in 1911. Designed by architects Carrère & Hastings, it has served as one of America's most important research libraries and cultural icons. The building's iconic stone lions have watched over Fifth Avenue for over a century.
The Schwarzman Building remains a working research library and New York City landmark. The iconic facade with its stepped entrance and the famous lions (nicknamed 'Leo Astor' and 'Leo Lenox') is instantly recognizable. Visitors can tour the building, attend exhibitions, and access collections in the reading rooms.
Visit: The New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building (library)
Upper Manhattan — Iris's educational setting and social world
Iris attends high school in Harlem where she navigates adolescence, friendships, and the early stirrings of her relationship with Ty'Shawn. The school represents the world beyond her family home, where she develops identity independent of her parents' history. It is at school where she begins to understand her own desires and makes the choices that reshape her family's trajectory. The school setting grounds the novel in the lived experience of Black teenagers in contemporary New York City.
Harlem's schools have long served as educational institutions for African American students, with a complex history of segregation, disinvestment, and resilience. By the 2000s, Harlem schools had become central to educational debates about equity and reform in New York City.
Harlem's public schools continue to serve the neighborhood's students. The area includes several high schools and middle schools that have undergone various reforms and restructurings. Many are engaged in efforts to improve educational outcomes and support student success.
Harlem's main north-south artery — Historic Black cultural corridor
Lenox Avenue runs through Harlem and represents the historical Black neighborhood that frames the novel's setting. Characters walk these streets, navigate the community, and exist within the rich cultural and social fabric of contemporary Harlem. The avenue's presence grounds the story in a specific geography—Harlem—that carries its own historical weight and contemporary vibrancy. The boulevard connects the intimate family drama to the larger neighborhood community.
Lenox Avenue (renamed Malcolm X Boulevard in 1987) became the heart of Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance (1920s-1930s). It was lined with theaters, speakeasies, and cultural institutions. The avenue remained a center of Black cultural life through the Civil Rights era and into the contemporary period.
Malcolm X Boulevard continues as one of Harlem's main thoroughfares, lined with restaurants, shops, cultural institutions, and historic sites. The avenue retains its significance as a cultural and commercial corridor, though it has experienced gentrification and demographic changes in recent decades.
Visit: Malcolm X Boulevard / Harlem (landmark)
127 West 127th Street — Contemporary Black art and cultural memory
The museum represents the world of Black artistic expression and cultural preservation that shapes the intellectual and aesthetic values Aya and Dede pass down to Iris. Art, beauty, and cultural legacy are central to the novel's exploration of Black identity and family history. The museum embodies the kind of spaces where history is actively preserved and celebrated, mirroring the novel's own project of examining family history and generational continuity.
The Studio Museum in Harlem was founded in 1968 as a community-focused art institution dedicated to artists of African descent. It emerged during the Black Arts Movement and became a vital space for contemporary Black artists and cultural dialogue.
The Studio Museum in Harlem is one of the foremost institutions dedicated to Black contemporary art. The museum relocated to a new building designed by David Adjaye in 2021. It features rotating exhibitions, artist residencies, and community programs, serving as a cultural anchor in Harlem.
Visit: The Studio Museum in Harlem (museum)
West 110th to 125th Street, between Amsterdam & Morningside — Intellectual and spiritual center
Morningside Heights represents the intellectual upper echelon that Aya reaches—the world of Columbia University and higher education. Her pursuit of graduate education and professional ambition situates her within this privileged academic space, creating tension with her roots and her family's history. The neighborhood embodies the aspirational trajectory that shapes Aya's decisions and her complicated relationship with her past.
Morningside Heights emerged as an intellectual and cultural district in the late 19th century with the construction of Columbia University and other institutions. The neighborhood became a hub of Black intellectual and cultural life, including the presence of African American scholars and artists at Columbia and surrounding institutions.
Morningside Heights remains centered around Columbia University and other educational and religious institutions. The neighborhood has historic churches, academic buildings, and residential areas. It continues to be a site of intellectual activity and community engagement, though it has faced ongoing gentrification.
Visit: Morningside Heights / Columbia University area (historic site)
515 Malcolm X Boulevard at 135th Street — Archive of Black history and culture
The Schomburg Center represents institutional memory and historical documentation—the kind of archival thinking that is crucial to understanding family history and genealogy. For characters seeking to understand their past, such institutions offer resources and frameworks for making sense of personal and collective history. The center embodies the project the novel itself undertakes: recovering and examining the histories that shape families and communities.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture was founded in 1925 by Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, a Puerto Rican-Cuban Black historian and activist. It became part of the New York Public Library in 1940 and has grown into one of the world's most significant repositories of materials on Black history and culture.
The Schomburg Center continues as a research library, exhibition space, and cultural institution. It houses millions of items documenting Black history and culture globally. The center offers exhibitions, archival research services, public programs, and serves scholars, students, and community members.
Visit: The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (museum)
253 West 125th Street — Harlem's legendary performance venue
The Apollo Theater stands as an iconic symbol of Harlem's cultural legacy and Black artistic expression. Though not explicitly featured as a scene location, the theater's presence in Harlem's landscape represents the world of performance, music, and entertainment that has long defined Black cultural life. The Apollo embodies the kind of artistic possibility and cultural richness that informs the novel's exploration of identity, beauty, and legacy.
The Apollo Theater opened in 1934 and became the most famous venue for Black performers in America. It launched the careers of countless artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin. The Apollo became synonymous with excellence in Black entertainment.
The Apollo Theater remains a working performance venue and Harlem landmark. It hosts concerts, comedy shows, and cultural events. The theater underwent renovation in the 2010s and continues to be a major cultural institution and tourist destination in Harlem.
Visit: Apollo Theater (theater)
West 79th to 83rd Street along Hudson River — Natural refuge and contemplation
Riverside Park provides another landscape of urban refuge where characters navigate their internal conflicts and family relationships. The park's proximity to the Upper West Side home makes it an accessible space for walking, thinking, and finding solace. The Hudson River vista and green space offer counterpoint to the emotional intensity of the family drama unfolding within enclosed domestic spaces.
Riverside Park was designed as part of the 1868 Master Plan for Manhattan's parks. The park was developed between 1872 and the early 1900s along the Hudson River waterfront. It became a major recreational space for Upper West Side residents.
Riverside Park extends from Battery Park to the George Washington Bridge along the Hudson River. The area around West 79th-83rd Street includes the Boat Basin, playgrounds, and riverside paths. The park has undergone recent improvements and remains a popular recreational space.
Visit: Riverside Park (park)
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street — Visual arts and cultural engagement
The Met represents the world of fine arts and cultural sophistication that values intellectual and aesthetic engagement. For a family like the Matthews—educated, cultured, ambitious—museums are spaces of aspiration and identity-formation. The museum setting reflects the world Aya has constructed for herself through education and cultural participation, a world that coexists uneasily with family secrets and intergenerational pain.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 and is one of the world's largest art museums. The Breuer building, originally designed by Marcel Breuer, opened as the Whitney Museum in 1966 and later became a satellite space for the Met.
The Met maintains its position as one of the world's premier art museums, with the main building on Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street housing encyclopedic collections. The Breuer location on Madison Avenue hosts rotating exhibitions. The museum remains a major cultural institution and tourist destination.
Visit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (museum)
120 East 100th Street — Site of intellectual pursuit and aspirational advancement
Teachers College represents the educational institution where Aya might pursue graduate study as part of her intellectual and professional trajectory. The setting embodies the world of higher education and credentialed expertise that drives Aya's ambitions and shapes her decisions about her life path. It is through such institutions that she attempts to transcend her past and build a future separate from her family's history.
Teachers College was founded in 1887 and became one of America's most prestigious schools of education. Located near Columbia University, it has trained generations of educators and has been deeply involved in educational reform and research.
Teachers College continues as a leading graduate school of education at Columbia University. The campus includes academic buildings, residential facilities, and community spaces. It remains a center for education research and teacher training.
116th Street & Broadway — Institutional prestige and intergenerational aspiration
Columbia University represents institutional access and the promise of upward mobility. Aya's educational path and the family's relationship to education and credentialed success are intimately connected to what such institutions represent. The university embodies both opportunity and the complicated ways that ambition can create distance between family members and historical generations.
Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King's College. The modern campus was developed in Morningside Heights beginning in 1897. The university has been central to New York intellectual and cultural life, with particular significance in African American intellectual history.
Columbia University remains one of the world's leading research institutions. The campus spans blocks in Morningside Heights with academic buildings, libraries, dormitories, and community spaces. The university continues to be a major institutional presence in the neighborhood.
Visit: Columbia University (historic site)
Philadelphia — Dede's past and origins as a source of family narrative
While the novel is primarily set in New York, references to Dede's past in Philadelphia inform the family history that Aya carries and that shapes her decisions. Dede's life in Philadelphia and her journey north represent the Great Migration narrative and the intergenerational trauma that haunts the family. The distant city represents an origin point for family secrets and the complicated relationship between past and present.
Philadelphia has been a major center of African American life and culture since the colonial period. The Great Migration brought hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the South to northern cities including Philadelphia during the 20th century. Philadelphia's Black Belt became a thriving community but also a site of residential segregation and economic inequality.
Philadelphia remains a major city with significant African American cultural and historical sites. The city has museums, historic sites, and neighborhoods connected to Black history and the Great Migration.
More by Jacqueline Woodson: All Jacqueline Woodson books
More novels set in New York City: Browse all New York City books on Map A Story
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