The issue is with the presence of AA culture, it's basically not there. I was in Edgewater with my Rican folk like last year and was was there damn near moment we wasn't sleeping, everywhere in that bytch. I like NY but AA culture, not the people is pretty much non existent. The soul food is terrible, the dialect that would be universal damn every other AA community in the country ain't there, no sort of pride, I didn't see many AA flags if any, ect.
So you were in Edgewater, NJ, staying with Puerto Ricans, and based on that you concluded AA culture is nonexistent in New York City, across the bridge. The entire city? Okay.
NYC is too big for you to just hit up a few areas in passing and be able to make a sweeping statement that "AA culture is not present." I'm guessing you went to highly gentrified parts of town, hit up spots based on yelp reviews. The best spots are either small neighborhood ones light on ambience or in the home of a friend... experiences that are difficult to have as an outsider. I think that's the same in any city, soul food restaurants that I've been to in places like Chicago/Atlanta haven't been as good as home cooked meals I've had with friends, regardless of the location.
You really think there's a universal "black dialectic" in America... are you black? You're starting to make me wonder. you think an AA dude from LA sounds like an AA dude from Chicago? Really? AAs might not have southern drawls in NYC, but they don't in Philly either. In the old school black families with roots in Central Harlem, Bed Stuy, the Bronx, you still hear a lot of the Carolinas. It seems like your criteria for authentic AA is the recency of the Great Migration to an urban center, which is kind of hilarious and arbitrary.