Many tourists visit New York City for the classic sights, like the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, but more and more tourists are choosing to experience other aspects of the Big Apple. Rising high on the popularity list for visitors are tours of Harlem, where they learn the history and culture of this area of the city, from its Dutch origins to its modern-day Renaissance. One of the favorite components of the Harlem tours are visits to Gospel services, complete with singing choirs.
Scour the net and you'll find that the ARC Gospel Choir receives rave reviews from tourists from around the world, not only because of the amazing voices and performance of the singers, but also because of the choir's origins. ARC stands for Addicts Rehabilitation Center. It was started as part of the Manhattan Christian Reform Church and is the oldest drug-free treatment program center in the state of New York. Immediately after its creation, the center wished to become denomination-free, but it also needed to raise a good deal of money to purchase a headquarters and to finance its programs.
The ARC Gospel Choir was created specifically for that purpose. Concerts would be held for a price and money was raised to help thousands of drug addicts reclaim their lives. The "Hour of Power at the ARC Gospel Choir in New York City, NY" is the weekly, intense, concert that the choir performs, which is always attended by a large number of foreign tourists. A cappella singing, stirring gospel music and dramatic sermons serve to both transmit the Center's message, as well as leave lasting impressions of Harlem in the minds of visitors. Recordings of the choir on CD are often sold at the Hour of Power.
