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Uptown Links: women are taking over Harlem one business at a time, from restaurants to boxing gyms


• Boxing trainer Reese Scott just opened Women's World of Boxing, New York's first all-women's boxing gym, and it's in East Harlem. "It's daunting going into a boxing gym," Scott told Eyewitness News. "They don't feel comfortable. If I don't feel comfortable, I'm not staying. That's any woman. So I knew early on it would be a challenge." (Photo: Instagram/@wwboxnyc)

• Restaurants are booming in Harlem, and women are leading the charge: according to Crain's New York, a third of the neighborhood's top eateries are now owned by women (in the city at large, it's 1 in 10).

Rachael Ray Every Day throws the spotlight on 8 women who are conquering the male-dominated food world, and one of them is the utterly inspirational Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez, who runs East Harlem's Hot Bread Kitchen. The nonprofit teaches low-income women bread-baking skills to help them find jobs in the food industry.

• Tsion Cafe's Beejhy Barhany gets a profile in JTA. “I’m a proud Ethiopian, a proud Jew, a proud black female living in Harlem, so all of that is part of me,” she said. “I celebrate all of that.”

• Did you know that Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, was one of three advisers who helped the National Portrait Gallery choose the artists for the Obama portraits unveiled earlier this week? And, yes, both painters–Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley–are alumni of the museum.

• Read New York magazine's clear-eyed review of the powerful LaToya Ruby Frazier show at Gavin Brown's enterprise, which deals in part with the Flint water crisis, then go see the exhibit yourself.

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