Maria Granville bought a five-story brownstone in Harlem in 2010, spent nine years renovating it, and since 2019 has run part of it as a gallery where other people’s work hangs on her walls.
Granville is 69 and was born and raised in the neighbourhood. She is the owner of the townhouse that holds Home to Harlem and the Artfullwalls Gallery, she founded Madisyn Consulting in 1990, and in 1997 she launched a website also called Home to Harlem. The website had a commercial purpose and she is direct about it. “The idea was to give people an opportunity or at least a reference so they would get off of the bus and spend some money,” she said.
The building is the part that took time. She bought it in 2010 and finished the renovation in 2019, the same year she first connected with the curators Ernani Silva and Minna Dunn. The space has run three-month showcases over the last seven years. It does not look like a venue, which is deliberate even if she says nothing else is. “I think it looks more like a home,” she said. “It’s a very neighborhood kind of environment.”
She is clear about why she is still there. “I refuse to move, even during the time other people would have,” she said. “I always loved Harlem. I love being here.”
Asked why she keeps the space going, she gave a reason that had nothing to do with the property. “I would say we have to maintain it because people have told me that it’s necessary and they are glad we are here,” she said. “I just feel I have to help a sister out. I think if we all did that, maybe we would all be well.”
The name comes from Claude McKay’s 1928 novel Home to Harlem. The gallery is on hiatus, and she expects it to reopen around Black History Month in 2027, with Silva returning as curator.
She does not claim a grand design. “Nothing is deliberate. Everything I do is just organic,” she said.
