Author: Dollars & Sense

One hundred years ago, northern Manhattan experienced one of the most important cultural flowerings in American history. African Americans who fled the subjugation and racism of the South and migrated to Harlem gave birth to The Harlem Renaissance, a period of art, music and political action that re-shaped African American identity in the United States for the next century. With the Harlem Renaissance, the local community, including churches and black-owned businesses, thrived. Today, the neighborhood that fostered generations of African American families and traditions has become a target of gentrification. As brownstones are replaced by luxury condominiums, and local businesses give way to national chains, families and community organizations are being priced out of the neighborhood, even as some residents are fighting hard to preserve Harlem’s history and identity. In this package of stories, Dollars & Sense explores the history and legacy of Harlem, as well as the people and institutions that are on the forefront of the struggle to maintain Harlem’s African American soul. We invite you to immerse yourself in the articles, photos, documentaries and podcasts that illustrate the story of Harlem then and now, as well as the community’s hopes for Harlem’s future, 100 years after the Harlem Renaissance. To learn more about the project and read acknowledgements of the many people who helped make this package possible, click here. *During the editing process, New York was hit by COVID-19 and Dollars & Sense, along with Baruch College, had to shut down physical meetings. Over the last few weeks we communicated, edited and published this package remotely, with each of us quarantined in our apartments.

About this Project

For more than 40 years, Dollars & Sense has been publishing the very best of Baruch College’s student journalism. Our student journalists meet every week to workshop ideas on how to tell New York stories in new and compelling ways. Being New Yorkers, our aim is to always report stories from our home and keep honest representation as the cornerstone of what we deliver. This year, the 100th anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance gave us an opportunity to focus on New York’s history as well as its future. We began in October 2019 when we met with archivists at The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to gather research and ideas. As a National Historic Landmark devoted to the preservation of materials that tell the story of the African-American experience and the African Diaspora, the center provided a rich trove of documents and photographs. When we initially met with Maira Liriano, Associate Chief Librarian, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, and her colleagues, Cheryl Beredo,  Curator – Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, Tammi Lawson, Curator – Art & Artifacts Division Shola Lynch, Curator – Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division and Michael Mery, Acting Curator – Photographs and Prints Division, we were greeted warmly and introduced to a generous display of photographs, archival prints, manuscripts and literature. With the enthusiastic support of the Schomburg Center, we began.

Over the next few months, our team of student journalists, some of whom have never set foot in Harlem before, attended events marking the 100th anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance, visited its cultural institutions and churches, knocked on doors, and tirelessly worked on building connections in, and knowledge about, the neighborhood. We did a documentary on the i, Too Arts Collective, a non-profit organization, about its struggle to maintain its location in The Langston Hughes House. We reported on musicians, music educators and performance artists who believe in the sounds of Harlem. We wrote about The Harlem Writers Guild, a legendary staple of the multigenerational Harlem literary community. We also set out to examine how Harlem is being affected by New York’s rapidly changing economy and demographics. With the spread of gentrification, we thought it would be important to tell the story of one long-time Harlemite’s fight against foreclosure, as well as a group of individuals who worry that “their” Harlem is slipping away. This package was conceived and developed by student journalists out of a love for both journalism and New York City, and as part of a mission to tell the Harlem story. *During the editing process in mid-March 2020, New York City was hit severely by COVID-19. Dollars & Sense, along with Baruch College, shut down physical meetings. Over the next several weeks,  we communicated virtually, edited and published this package from our respective homes.

Acknowledgements

This package would not have been possible without the help of Maira Liriano and her many colleagues at the Schomburg Center who welcomed us so warmly and provided the foundation for our stories. We also want to thank: –Mo Beasly for serving as a guide to some of our student journalists. –Kendolyn Walker of the i, Too Arts Collective for trusting our student journalists with telling their story, and for inviting us to An Ode to Langston. –Profs. Andrea Gabor, Vera Haller and Emily Johnson for their help and advice in the planning and editing of these stories. Most importantly, we would like to give a sincere thank you to the people of Harlem for giving us their time, their stories and for allowing us to be an extension of their voices. Kenneth Sousie, Editor-in-Chief of Dollars & Sense.

Article by Katherine E. Hernandez and Fatima Manier. Photos by Fatima Manier.

At the 125^th Street subway station on Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, the walls of the train platform hold the mosaic work of Faith Ringgold, Harlem-born artist. The first panel of Ringgold’s “Flying Home: Harlem Heroes and Heroines,” depicts W.E.B Dubois holding aloft a copy of The Crisis and soaring over the historic Harlem office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which for years stood just a few blocks away on the corner of West 125^th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard.

During its early years, the NAACP became the nation’s preeminent force for black advocacy and political leadership, leading the battle against lynching during the 1920s and school segregation following World War II, and championing civil rights during the 1960s—all efforts coordinated from its headquarters in New York City. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the organization moved its headquarters to Baltimore.

“In New York, the NAACP has been synonymous with power,” said Hazel N. Dukes, former President of the NAACP and current president of the organization’s New York State Conference Branch. “We have grown from civil rights protesting to advocacy.”

But does the New York Branch of the NAACP still play a vital role in Black advocacy?

 

As part of our exploration of the Harlem Renaissance, we decided to visit the NAACP’s historic neighborhood office to find out more about its role in the New Negro Movement, an early 20^th century black political movement, and its connection to current black grassroots organizing in modern-day Harlem. So, imagine our surprise to find a demolition notice and scaffolding at the 144 West 125^th Street, where Harlem’s historic New York branch office had rented space from the Studio Museum of Harlem.

At this point, our story took an unexpected turn from an effort to understand the political legacy of the NAACP and the New Negro Movement, to a search for the NAACP itself–not just in Harlem, but nationwide. Our quest revealed an organization hampered by bureaucracy and struggling to maintain community engagement and relevance in the face of nimbler groups like Black Lives Matter, which has attracted younger members and led battles such as the fight against police brutality.

“The challenge is being nimble enough to operate on the street level,” said Cornell William Brooks, former president and CEO of the NAACP, while emphasizing his respect and longstanding support of the NAACP. “The bureaucratic institution needs to be radically modernized. If you’re not seeing the NAACP on TV every day, you’ve got a problem.”

One of the nation’s oldest and most widely recognized civil rights organizations, the NAACP was founded in New York City in 1909, by several leading African Americans, including DuBois; Ida B. Wells, an investigative journalist; Archibald Grimké, a lawyer and journalist; as well as some white activists. It was at the NAACP’s Harlem office that DuBois created The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP and one of the nation’s oldest black publications. The group’s first signature effort was its support of the 1918 anti-lynching Bill, which grew out of years battling, and drawing attention to, widespread lynchings in the South. Decades of advocacy followed, including the NAACP’s leadership in the fight for desegregation and the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case argued before the Supreme Court by Thurgood Marshall, who was later appointed to the Supreme Court.

That legacy, we found, has all but disappeared in Harlem. The 125^th Street office was quietly demolished in the fall of 2019, and the absence of the organization’s New York branch went unnoticed by the surrounding Harlem community. When we contacted the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, several blocks away on Malcolm X Boulevard, we found that the library had no record of the office relocating, according to Associate Chief Librarian Maira Liriano.

So, we set out to find the NAACP’s representatives elsewhere in New York. Learning that there are 15 official NAACP branches in the five boroughs of New York City, of which the Harlem branch was the first, and 56 branches through the state, we were hopeful about speaking to a representative. The task turned out to be daunting.

We began with an email, via NAACP’s “Find Your Local Unit” page, which still listed the demolished site as the organization’s Harlem office. Next, on Jan. 10, we emailed Anthony Harmon, president of the Harlem office; we never received a response.

So, we tried calling, several times. The listed number for the Harlem  office rang, but no one ever picked up. As we pursued this story through different channels, we made a note to call this number again in hopes of receiving a call back or response.

 Without an office address to visit or an official website outside of the NAACP’s main page, we decided to reach out to the NAACP’s Mid-Manhattan Branch, led by Geoffrey Eaton. Unlike the Harlem office, Mid-Manhattan has an individual website with its own email address and phone number; the website lists its office location at 207 West 96th Street. When we phoned the number for the Mid-Manhattan branch, we discovered from the voicemail greeting that the branch office had moved to a WeWork space at 500 7th Avenue–another address that is not listed on the NAACP webpage.

Several calls and emails again went unanswered, including an email to Eaton’s personal email address, which we obtained from another Dollars & Sense editor.

We then contacted a Baruch College English professor who specializes in the print culture of Harlem, and who lives in the Lenox Terrace complex in Harlem.

“I think they’re still present in the Harlem community,” said Richardson. “It just requires a little bit of bureaucracy some of the time. It does take sending the letters, sending the emails, contacting the different members from the NAACP.”

After our conversation with Richardson, we spent another week making calls and sending emails. We attempted to contact the National Press Secretary at the NAACP headquarters in Maryland; the Mid-Manhattan Branch once more; the NAACP New York State Conference, at 44 Wall St. in Manhattan; and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund at 40 Rector St. in Manhattan. We received no response from any of the offices.

The tide turned in our favor on Feb. 20, when we sent an email to Cornell Brooks, the former NAACP president. He responded the same day.

“Help me Lord,” said Brooks when we recounted the lack of communication we had received from the various branches and offices. “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Brooks was President and CEO of the NAACP from May 2014 until June 2017, when he was ousted from his position by the NAACP Board of Directors. His tenure as NAACP president began shortly before the 2014 fatal shooting of Michael Brown, Jr., an unarmed 18 year old, by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., when Black Lives Matter became the face of the protest movement against the nation’s spate of police shootings. Today’s struggle between an activist Black Lives Matter movement and a more bureaucratic NAACP reflects a years-long debate within the NAACP over its strategy.

“The national branches need to be in the field; the CEO needs to be present alongside the community; people need to see you in the fight,” said Brooks over a Zoom call on Feb. 26.

Under Brooks, the NAACP took an active role following Brown’s shooting, including in organizing behind-the-scenes negotiations among witnesses and officials. Yet, Ferguson revealed the rift between younger grassroots organizations like Black Lives Matter, which favor activism, and the more bureaucratic strategy favored by the NAACP’s older leadership—a rift that dates back to at the 1960s and tensions between some NAACP leaders and Martin Luther King, Jr. over tactics during the Civil Rights movement (as well as among the NAACP and the then-new Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.)

Shortly before his ouster, in January 2017, Brooks and several other NAACP members were arrested for trespassing during an organized sit-in at the Mobile, Ala., office of then-Senator Jeff Sessions, in protest over his nomination for Attorney General by President Trump.

In May 2017, the NAACP’s Board of Directors issued a statement announcing its “new direction, focus, and accountability” that required “the right plan and the right leadership.” The NAACP voted not to renew Brooks’ contract. The Board Chairman, Leon W. Russell and Vice-Chairman, Derrick Johnson, held the interim position after Brooks finished his term in June 2017, before Johnson was unanimously elected as President and CEO in October later that year.

Brooks argues that striking the right balance between the bureaucracy and activism is what has enabled the NAACP to endure.

Brooks connected us to the NAACP’s current leadership, putting us in contact with Hazel N. Dukes, former president of the NAACP and current head of the NAACP New York State Conference. We had attempted to contact Dukes’s office at the beginning of our journey, but received no response until after Brooks’s introduction.

We met with Dukes on March 5 at the New York State Conference office located at 44 Wall St., two months after our initial email in January. Dukes, who completed her tenure as president of the NAACP in 1992, is one of four women to have served as president of the NAACP.

Dukes confirmed that individual NAACP local chapters work independently from one another, relying on the National and Conferences branches as the central point of communication among them.

However, Dukes pushed back against our suggestion that the NAACP may have become too bureaucratic and that youth movements like Black Lives Matter have taken on a greater leadership role in recent conflicts, such as the battle against police brutality. “You can’t find who’s in charge,” Dukes said with respect to Black Lives Matter.

Dukes said she respects and upholds the need for a bureaucratic side to the organization that helps to coordinate the community work the organization does. The morning of our interview, she explained, Dukes held a meeting at the downtown offices of the New York State Conference with other New York branches, including the elusive Mid-Manhattan branch, to discuss the NAACP’s plans to increase African-American participation in the 2020 Census. African Americans are chronically under counted; in Central North Harlem, for example, less than 60 percent of African Americans completed the 2010 census.

Dukes also provided us with an answer to one of our most perplexing questions: What happened to the NAACP’s Harlem office? It moved further uptown to 2738 8^th Ave., between West 145^th & 146^th streets, according to Duke—though she never explained the reason for the move.

After our meeting with Dukes, we called the number for the new offices of the Harlem office. We received no response.

Before we could visit the new Harlem office location, Mayor DeBlasio announced the city’s shelter-in-place notice.

We recently emailed Dukes again to ask how the NAACP was adjusting its strategy for getting out the census count in New York City during the COVID-19 lockdown, but have not yet received a response.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article by Aurora Ferrer. Photos and video by Aurora Ferrer and Kenneth Sousie

Between a row of tenements in the middle of West 137th Street, flanked by Lenox Avenue to the east and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard to the west, Mother African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church, New York City’s first black church, is showing signs of the wear and tear. Approaching the once elegant neo-Gothic church, which was completed nearly a century ago in 1925, visitors are greeted by unsightly aluminum accordion gates that are locked to prevent access to three sets of grand, bright red double doors. The building’s once pristine stone façade is stained. 

Founded in 1796 by former slaves, many who migrated from the South to lower Manhattan, the church has served as a beacon of African American liberation and as a community anchor. It was a pivotal stop on the Underground Railroad, a meeting place for abolitionists including Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass. It also served as both a forum and refuge for black artists and intellectuals who were unwelcome at most white institutions during the Harlem Renaissance. Among them were sociologist, scholar and co-founder of the NAACP, W.E.B. Du Bois; actor and singer Paul Robeson (whose brother, Dr. Benjamin C. Robeson, was one of the church’s pastors); novelist, poet and playwright Langston Hughes; singer Marion Anderson; and educator and Civil Rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. Throughout the 20th century, major Civil Rights organizations, including the NAACP, held their meetings there. 

In the 1970s, the church opened the James Varick Community Center, named after its founder who was an abolitionist, educator, one of the first ordained African Americans in New York and the church’s first bishop. It provided daycare, mental health care, after-school programs, and education for women who experienced homelessness. The community center property was sold in 2015—a victim of dramatic recent demographic shifts in Harlem. 

Indeed, Mother Zion is facing an increasingly gentrified Harlem, which has seen many of its middle-class and poor black population pushed out of the neighborhood. Empty pews, and until recently, the absence of young people, especially, have raised questions about the church’s ability to preserve its traditions and rich history. 

Now, a millennial senior pastor is taking a page from the church’s storied past and is pursuing an activist approach to reviving Mother Zion’s fortunes. 

The Rev. Malcolm J. Byrd, 36, a liberation theologian who was appointed last June, infuses sermons and events with a focus on what he calls a “new renaissance” for the black community of Harlem. Byrd emphasizes political, economic and social justice issues and the restoration of the “black excellence” the neighborhood enjoyed during the first Harlem Renaissance. 

One of the goals Byrd has prioritized is educating the public about the profound significance of Mother Zion. The church has a museum in the basement that holds rare documents and photographs documenting the church’s history, as well as a crypt for Varick. Byrd has recently done interviews with media outlets like WPIX 11 and BronxNet. LastDecember, he commemorated the 223rd anniversary of the church’s founding during a sermon, with Reverend Al Sharpton as a guest speaker. 

Byrd has also participated in protests against the destruction of the neighborhood’s unprotected historical properties. “Harlem is the most under-landmarked neighborhood in all of New York City, in all of the five boroughs,” he said. “Places like Lenox Terrace, the first modern apartment building, built in 1958, for the black middle-class in Harlem still have not received protected status from the NYC Landmarks Commission.” He names the Lafayette Theater and the Regency Ballroom, both once on Seventh Avenue (renamed Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard)—now lined with luxury apartment buildings and condominiums—as institutions torn down because of their lack of landmark status. 

Byrd sees the problems as double pronged: the interests of real estate developers have been prioritized over preserving the community’s history and there are no black people on the Landmarks Commission. “My new push now is to landmark our most vulnerable spaces here in this community, but also push (Mayor Bill) de Blasio to put a black person on the Landmarks Commission, all the black history in this city, not one person of African descent on the Landmarks Commission.” Byrd believes the lack of cultural connection to Harlem by members of the commission makes them indifferent to preserving its history. 

The most recent battle is brewing over Lenox Terrace, which developers are trying to expand by adding five high-rise luxury apartment buildings and retail spaces. The Olnick Organization, the developers of the project, have made requests to have the property re-zoned to accommodate their plans, and have been met with resistance by its current tenants and city representatives who believe this will destabilize longtime residents. Byrd believes there should be more affordable housing provided for the people of Harlem, like 99 year-old lifelong Mother Zion member Katherine Nichson. “I’m fighting any housing in this community that the average person who’s lived here for the last 40 years cannot afford to move into. If Miss Katherine Nichson, who’s been in this neighborhood for 99 years, can’t afford to live in it I’m blocking it, you know what I mean? It’s simple as that.” As of Feb. 26, the City Council rejected the re-zoning request. 

Byrd who was born on Long Island and grew up in the Midwest and the South, and graduated from Livingstone College, a Christian-based HBCU in North Carolina, is especially proud of Mother Zion’s history of activism. Black members of the John Street Methodist Church in lower Manhattan founded the Free African Society in 1794, and covertly had abolitionist meetings under the guise of prayer meetings. “We began as an anti-slavery institution and became a church,” Byrd said. The church “was actually known as the grand depot of the Underground Railroad,” he added, with approximately 700 to 800 escaped, former slaves passing through the church’s network, including Tubman, Truth and Douglass. 

Byrd sees parallels between the injustice and dehumanization black people faced centuries ago and the current traumas the black community endures today. One of those is “Stop and Frisk,” the discriminatory policy that allowed police in New York City to detain and search black and Latino people randomly, and was expanded by former mayor Michael Bloomberg, who recently campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination. 

“To be racially profiled by police because of an edict from the mayor, that’s stuff we were dealing with in New York 200 years ago,” he said. Looking at church artifacts, which also included documents from the 18th and 19th centuries, he continued, “There’s manumission papers right there—why did a person have to carry their freedom papers? Profiling.” Recognizing the similarities of how black people were policed during the era of slavery and now, he said, “Stop and frisk was a new way to determine who was free and who was enslaved.” 

Mother Zion’s edifice itself is a symbol of flourishing “black excellence” during the Harlem Renaissance. It was designed by one of the first registered black architects in the country, George W. Foster, Jr. The property, the sixth and final location of the church, was purchased in a scheme developed by Philip A. Payton, Jr., owner of the Afro American Realty, a company that bought Harlem properties from their then-white owners, at the turn of the 20th century, rented them to African Americans and helped transform Harlem into a black neighborhood. Payton, on behalf of Mother Zion, whose church was located in a smaller building a block away on West 136th Street at the time, obtained the site, which sold for about $25,000, by using a white woman to pose as its buyer, since the owners of the original property wouldn’t sell to black people. Afterwards, the woman immediately transferred ownership to the church.  

Inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois’s philosophy of placing emphasis on intellectual expansiveness, Byrd said church leaders wanted to build a space that could work as an “auditorium—not so much a church—to give our people our own Carnegie Hall.” During an era of nationwide legal segregation, “We didn’t have to go through a side entrance, we didn’t have to be told, ‘you can’t come in because you’re negro.’ This was our own cathedral of dignity for black people who most certainly, desperately needed it.” 

 

 

The New York Age, a prominent black newspaper at the time, heralded the newly built church’s inaugural Sept. 20, 1925 service with the headline, “Thousands of Worshippers Take Part In Dedication of Mother Zion’s New and Magnificent House of Worship, 137th St.” The article stated The New York Times estimated over 7,000 worshippers were in attendance. 

The church’s activism extended to members, like Katherine Nichson, who has worshipped there since she was an infant, and is a living testament to the activist history of Mother Zion. She remembers when trolley cars ran down Seventh Avenue, and recalls gathering other neighborhood kids to attend church on Sundays. A lifelong activist, she often squared off with New York City’s Department of Education throughout the mid- to late-20th century in order to improve the quality of education the children in her community were receiving. She said she fought to have an Intellectually Gifted Children (IGC) program put into P.S. 197 on West 135th Street and Fifth Avenue and succeeded. “I said, ‘There’s no monopoly on brains so you’re gonna put one in here!’” 

 

 

Nichson also fought against having the 6th grade removed from P.S. 197, summoning then Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton to a meeting at the school with parents. When Sutton told her that he may not be able to stay long, Nichson flew into action. 

“So I warned my parents out there: ‘Percy Sutton the Borough President is coming here to help us. I don’t want to see a vacant seat in this building—I don’t care if you get a drunkard, whoever—get ‘em and fill every seat in here!’” Nichson said so many people showed up, “it was standing room only so when Percy Sutton came in, he could hardly get in the door.” Again, according to Nichson, she prevailed, saving the 6th grade. 

The nonagenarian’s feistiness endures despite her advanced age. The daughter of a World War I veteran who was a member of the all-black 369th Infantry Regiment, one of the most decorated units from that war, Nichson described herself as being “born a Harlem Hellfighter,” after the regiment’s moniker. A few years ago, she mesmerized attendees of a Town Hall meeting when she lectured Mayor Bill De Blasio about the lack of services in her neighborhood. 

After years of watching the church’s congregation age, Mother Zion has succeeded in attracting some young new members. These include Bria Hardin-Boyer, 24, a Spellman and Columbia graduate who is a feminist, and former Black Lives Matter and NAACP activist, as well as her husband, a Harvard graduate and attorney. Diane Chappelle, 63, the church’s volunteer historian would like to see this continue but acknowledges it won’t be easy. “Like Janet Jackson said, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ We can’t just sit back on our laurels and think about how grand we were and not do anything for today’s generation, so I think that’s the mantle we have to pick up for this Harlem Renaissance.” 

It helps that Byrd has won deep respect from his congregation. During services on Feb. 23 , Mrs. Amelia Montgomery, 78, widow of the celebrated late Tuskegee Airman and civil rights activist Dabney Montgomery, gave Byrd the United States Congressional Gold Medal of Honor that her husband received in 2007 for his service. “Here is this medal that God said to me I should give to Reverend Byrd,” said Montgomery, recalling Byrd’s unwavering support before and after her husband’s passing. Thunderous applause followed. 

Now, Mother Zion is stepping up to help its community respond to the current coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. In a Facebook video post on March 12, Byrd said the church would help feed children who might miss meals because of school closures. “Mother AME Zion Church will commit itself to feeding the vulnerable youth of Harlem daily,” he said. Recognizing that the church’s doors should always be open, especially to the marginalized, he added, “if we can’t feed them through the week, we shouldn’t be open on Sunday.” 

  

Article and photos by Catherine Chojnowski 

After returning to New York from her college studies at Stony Brook University, Gisele Hill, a 28-year-old Harlem native, found that she was unable to afford living in the neighborhood that was her childhood home.  She also found that she was not alone. 

Having lived in Harlem her entire life, Hill, an assistant manager at a coffee shop, noticed that many familiar faces were no longer there and that a new demographic of young, white professionals had taken their place. Rather than returning to the neighborhood she grew up in, Hill moved north to Washington Heights.  

“Rent is too damn high and it is forcing the community I have grown up in and loved to leave,” said Hill. “It is hurtful, and more and more every day it feels as if Harlem no longer belongs to me.” 

Hill’s story reflects the changing nature of Harlem, which like other areas of the city has experienced widespread gentrification. Bits and pieces of the neighborhood have slowly disappeared behind wooden panels and turned into construction sites, only to re-emerge as modern residential and office buildings.  Longtime residents such as Hill worry that Harlem is losing its extensive African American historical and cultural significance. In the early 1900s, Harlem became a destination for African Americans of all backgrounds seeking to assert their identity as a free people. The neighborhood became home to one of the highest concentrations of African Americans in the country and was the birthplace of one of the most celebrated cultural movements in American history, the Harlem Renaissance. 

“People being forced out of their communities have to now find homes in other places although they’ve given so much to the Harlem community,” Hill said. “Even if I am able to afford to live here someday, it will not be the Harlem that I grew up in.” 

The effects of gentrification are most evident in the rising housing prices and changing demographics of the neighborhood. The median gross rent price in Central Harlem increased from $800 in 2006 to $1,070 in 2017, according to New York University’s Furman Center, which researches housing trends in the city. The Furman Center also reported that sales prices for all residential property types also increased by two percent in Central Harlem between 2017 and 2018, compared to an overall two percent decrease in the borough of Manhattan.  While Central Harlem’s total population increased by 13.4 percent from 2010 to 2018, the percentage of African Americans in the neighborhood decreased from 63 to 55 percent, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.  

David John McCoy, 30, first noticed the changes in the neighborhood accelerating around 2007 when many local bodegas and family-owned businesses seemed to suddenly disappear. McCoy’s family has a long history with the neighborhood: His great-grandmother first moved to Harlem from Georgia in 1930, fleeing the racism she was experiencing in the South. His grandfather and grandmother followed in 1958, and McCoy’s family has been rooted in Harlem ever since.  Last year, when his rent was raised substantially, McCoy, who is self-employed, had no choice but to leave Harlem and move to the Bronx. Many of the friends he grew up with also have been forced to move.  

“It being a struggle for the working class to live [in Harlem] is an understatement,” he said.

The changing dynamics of the neighborhood is evident to anyone who walks through its streets. Tucked between old brownstones and storefronts are novelty coffee shops, hip restaurants along with luxury condos and residential buildings. Almost every street is now home to an empty lot with a construction permit pasted on the deep green wooden panels hiding the rubble. The steel skeletons of new high-rise buildings in construction and looming cranes are visible from almost every street corner. Revisiting Harlem for the first time after having moved in August 2019, McCoy points out storefronts with grates covering their windows.  

“This was open last time I was here,” he says. “And that was only two months ago.”

McCoy said that when the new businesses started popping up around Harlem, it was clear that they were not catering to the community that was once there, but rather a new one. They took the place of family-run small businesses where the workers knew most of their customers by name and community centers where neighbors once gathered. While McCoy acknowledges the positive changes Harlem has experienced, such as the renovation of public spaces, an increased police presence and a decline in crime, he wishes that such resources had been accessible to the community years ago, when he was growing up there.  

“It’s a feeling, too,” McCoy said, explaining that he now feels unwelcome in the neighborhood he grew up in. “People come here and think they have more claim to the neighborhood than you.” 

The Savoy Ballroom, which welcomed up to 4,000 dancers at a time from 1926 to 1958, has been replaced by the Savoy Park Apartments, a seven-building complex stretching from 139th Street to 142nd Street on Lenox Avenue. All that remains of the jazz venue that was once the “the heartbeat of Harlem’s community and a testament to the indomitable spirit and creative impulse of African Americans” is a memorial plaque.  

Other historical landmarks will soon face the same fate. The building that was once the Lincoln Theatre, which is now home to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, will soon be demolished and transformed into a 30,000-square-foot residential building. An article published by the New York Amsterdam News in 1927 described the Lincoln Theatre as “one of the smallest in New York City, but one of the most energetically conducted.” 

Gentrification has also led to the displacement of long-time residents whose history is rooted in the streets of Harlem. While some of the neighborhood’s more affluent natives are able to remain in Harlem, the shift in the community has been evident universally among Harlemites.  

Colette Whitlock, 76, recalls growing up in the Sugar Hill area of Harlem. Like McCoy, Whitlock’s family has a long history in Harlem: her parents moved to Harlem from Chicago in the early 1940s. Many of the family-owned businesses she recalls frequenting as a child and young adult are long gone. She reminisces about Thomforde’s, an old-fashioned ice cream parlor with black and white tiles covering the floor that she regularly visited with her friends when she was young.  

“I would say that the culture of Harlem, from the time when my father was growing up to today, it’s very different,” Whitlock said. “It’s different in that the people aren’t a community – they’ve spread out.” 

 

Article, photos and podcast by Kenneth Sousie

“I was so many different black men myself,” says Richard Gaines.

Gaines is a retired educator who has returned to his artistic roots in order to explore black men in today’s world, specifically how they are viewed by non-black people. His sculpture, painting and mixed media work is pieced together by hand using found objects, earthy materials and even his own blood. His creations are think-pieces that he hopes will inspire open and honest conversations about racism both past and present.

Gaines’s work is currently showing at Artisan Barber on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, an independent art gallery and event venue showcasing works from artists from across the five boroughs. The community oriented space, according to Richard, has “a little bit of renaissance in itself.” 

 

In this podcast, Gaines speaks about the Harlem he knew as a young artist in the 1980s and how it has changed.

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Article, photos and documentary by Kenneth Sousie

The i, Too Arts Collective, a space for Harlem creatives, which operated out of  The Langston Hughes House, closed its doors in December after a 3-year effort to raise enough funds to survive. 

The collective was founded in 2016 by Renee Watson, an award-winning author of children’s books, for the purpose of memorializing the legacy of Hughes by using his former home as an artists’ and writers’ space that also offered classes and workshops for free, especially for under-served youth. Just like Hughes, who was not a native New Yorker, Watson came to Harlem from elsewhere. When the Portland native first visited the house of her biggest hero, she immediately had a dream of turning it into an engaging space for the community. 

During his final 20 years, Hughes lived and worked at the house writing a collection of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Hughes also wrote what is argued to be his most political work—articles for the The Chicago Defender, a legendary black newspaper that was widely read outside the Windy City; it ceased publishing a print edition last year, but continues to publish a digital edition. The Langston Hughes House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 and was made a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Hughes passed away in 1967.  

The #LangstonsLegacy campaign was started by Watson and co to not only gain contributions to stay in the house, but to raise awareness of the house’s history and importance in the Harlem arts community. On December 8th, 2019, the i, Too Arts Collective gathered with friends, neighbors and members to put on one last open mic. 

“This will forever be home to me. It’s bittersweet. At least I get to close it out.” said Smoove Babii, poet and Harlem native. 

“I feel sadness that this place is closing because it feels like our history is being erased. Children need to understand landmarks. We know who Shakespeare is, and children hear about Langston Hughes but to be able to walk in his home, to be able to see his typewriter – it gives a feeling of ‘I can do it too,’ so [the collective] needs to stay.” said Sasha Duvet, a Langston Hughes fan and Harlem native.   

Despite the Collective closing, Walker has sincere hopes for the future of Harlem’s writer’s community. “Harlem is synonymous with community. It’s what black people do, we form communities. I hope Harlem remains a place for the world, that people of color can know that not only are they safe here, but they are heard here. The i, Too Arts Collective is dedicated to Harlem. Langston’s heart was for Harlem.” 

 

 

Article, Photos and Audio by Shemuel Bacchus and Brenika Banks 

Turn on the radio and pop songs, hip hop and rock music are the top genres played on repeat these days. One thing you rarely hear anymore is the blues.

As of 2019 there are 15, 451 radio stations in the United States, according to statista.com. Of those stations, only 14 are dedicated to playing the blues, according to radio-locator.com. 

But those numbers belie the influence of the blues not only on a range of modern music genres but on African-American life, mainstream American culture, and on Harlem itself. 

 As New York celebrates the centennial of the Harlem Renaissance, it also celebrates Harlem’s roots in jazz and the blues, according to Mo Beasley, a Harlem-based poet and educator.

“If there were no music in Harlem, there would be no black folks in Harlem,” Beasley said.

 

 

The sound of the blues emerged, slow and sad with strong rhythms, in the southern United States among African American musicians at the turn of the 20th century. An entire genre of music was born out of African American work songs, field hollers, as well as chants and shouts. Jazz’s origins can be found in the African American communities of New Orleans, where it grew out of blues and ragtime. Some of the greatest blues musicians included such icons as Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Jerry Roll Morton.

The reach of blues and jazz extended far beyond music. Langston Hughes, the poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance, was famously influenced by jazz and blues, and pioneered such art forms as jazz poetry. 

 

Harlem would not have the cultural status that it does today if not for the jazz-driven, stylish nightclub life that emerged within the soulful upper Manhattan neighborhood in the 1920s.  Venues like the Cotton Club featured jazz and blues artists like Cab Calloway, Ethel Waters and, of course, Armstrong.

 

 

The jazz scene in Harlem faded in the 1930s with the onset of the Great Depression. But the nightclub scene has seen a revival in recent years with the reopening of clubs like Minton’s Playhouse and Showman’s Jazz Club. 

 

With the centennial of the Harlem renaissance, local residents also are reflecting on the legacy of the blues and jazz. 

 

In October, a panel held at The Community Church of New York and moderated by Beasley explored the history and influence of the blues. To open the event, “The Redemptive Power of the Blues: 400 Years of Resistance and Healing,” Beasley performed one of his poems, “If the Blues Knew What We Know Now,” which can be heard below.  

 

 

Another panelist, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, the playwright and constitutional law professor, spoke about the importance of both jazz and blues as expressions of the unique experience of black Americans, living in a country that once only saw them as property. Browne-Marshall described blues in its infant stages as, “them that got and them that don’t.” 

 

For the past two summers, Beasley also has taught a literature class in Harlem and heard the sentiments of many students who say they are using music as a way to fight gentrification in their neighborhood.   He thinks that white families who lived in Harlem a century ago may have felt a similar way.  

 

“It was wonderful to listen to high school students talk about their identity, feeling like it’s being squeezed because of all these new people coming in and being very disrespectful of what was before,” says Beasley. “So, their music becomes a way of pushing back.”

 

 

 

Apache Brown Band, a modern-day blues band, performed in October last year at the “Full Participation is a Human Right” conference and arts festival at the Community Church of New York; the event was aimed at shedding light on how punishment and race intersect in the United States. Lead singer Apache Brown discussed how jazz’s origins were about feel and focused on improvisation.  He identified Muddy Waters, George “Buddy” Guy and BB King as the band’s most influential blues artists.

“I have friends who play jazz, who are really technical, versus us who play,” said Brown. “We’re more about feel.”  

 

The popularity of jazz and the blues has ebbed and flowed over the hundred years since they made their way to Harlem and other northern cities. With each generation, new music genres emerge that owe their origins to the blues and jazz. While they have become the foundations of America’s musical heritage, the genres remain a key creative outlet for African Americans.

Speaking at Minton’s Playhouse, JC Hopkins, a Grammy-nominated producer, songwriter and bandleader, said he believes we are seeing a re-emergence of jazz music.

“I feel like there’s a lot of musicians coming out of music school — young musicians of color are re-embracing jazz,” he said.

The story continues in a podcast by Brenika Banks:

Article and photos by Kenneth Sousie; Audio reporting by Shemuel Bacchus.

Since its inception, The Harlem Writers Guild has represented some of the most celebrated black writers in American history. With a membership that has included Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka and Alice Childress, the guild upholds the literary tradition born in the Harlem Renaissance and continues to play an important role in the literary life of African-American writers.

From hosting writing workshops to supporting Harlem bookstores, the guild promotes literacy and the creation of literature from the African diaspora. Founded in 1950 by John Henrik Clarke and Rosa Guy, it was built as a forum where African American writers could gather, workshop and exercise their literary crafts.

On Nov. 7, 2019, the current incarnation of the oldest African American writers guild in the world gathered at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, at West 135th Street and Lenox Avenue, for an evening of celebration. 

A light drizzle fell as attendees entered the center, which was established in 1925 as the New York Public Library Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints. The building houses a vast collection illuminating a rich history of black influence on American arts and literature. It preserves the “black experience,” housing works by some of Harlem’s most important writers such as W.E.B. Dubois, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes. For the guild, and for the evening’s guests, the setting served as a symbolic gathering place for an institution that echoes sentiments from the Harlem Renaissance dating back 100 years.

The guild was formed after “The Committee for the Negro in the Arts,” a predecessor organization, lost funding, leaving African American writers feeling alienated from the literary culture in New York City. A 1949 letter from TCNA addressed what it saw as systemic racism, particularly in radio broadcasts. “[Radio] has consistently denied recognition to the Negro as a human being,” the letter read. “It has, except in rarest cases, presented the stereotype of the Negro as a clown; lazy stupid and ignorant.”

Signed by such writers as W.E.B. Dubois, Theodore Ward and Dorothy Parker, the letter described a climate that was a major factor in the need for Harlem’s writers to unionize and promote respectful African American representation. The guild’s first meeting space was above a humble storefront at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue. As the years went by, the Guild gained members and recognition and was honored by the United Nations Society of Writers in 1977. The guild has seen its authors produce and publish over 600 works of literary fiction and nonfiction. 

The November celebration was held in the Schomburg Center’s Aaron Douglas Meeting Room, which is decorated with the murals of the eponymous Harlem Renaissance painter, illustrator and visual arts educator. The evening’s main event was a panel consisting of its contemporary members: novelist Judy Andrews, novelist Eartha Watts Hicks, poet and essayist Marc W. Polite, journalist Angela Dewes, historical novelist Minnette Coleman, and spoken-word poet John Robinson, who sat at a long table in front of an audience of all ages, including “special guests,” seventh-graders from the nearby Democracy Preparatory School. 

 

Opening the event, longtime member Sylvia L. White approached the podium while a band played “So What,” the first track of Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” album. As sounds from the piano and bass filled the space, White read a list of names: “Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Henry Belafonte, Alice Childress, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Sidney Poitier,” and added, “Some of these names are household names, others are known in academic and literary circles. The thing that all of these illustrious writers and performers share in common is that they were, at one time, members of The Harlem Writers Guild.” 

The first speaker was Betty Ann Jackson, who has been a member of the guild for 37 years.

“Yes, I am old, and I’m proud of it,” said Jackson.

She recounted the story of her introduction to the guild in the spring of 1982, when she attended the very first Black Writers Conference sponsored by Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. Abandoned by her date, she went to find a table with “a pretty good view” of the front podium with people who she could enjoy the evening’s festivities with, “preferably smokers” since it was a no-alcohol event.

With tables filling quickly and no familiar faces in sight, she found a table with a “pretty good view” and “some smokers” who invited her to sit and join them for dinner.

“Between cigarette puffs I learned that the good-looking-guy-over-there was Bill-Williams-Forde,” she said, referring to the then-director of the Harlem Writers Guild. Also at the table was Rosa Guy, and a “very tall woman.”

At that, audience members in the Aaron Douglas Meeting room called out, “Maya!”

And indeed, it was Maya Angelou. “I knew it was her and I felt like I hit the jackpot,” Jackson said. “Although it was a dry event, the entire guild had bottles of rose wine under the table and they quickly filled her glass.”

When dinner was finished, the wine “continued to flow from under that tablecloth,” and Angelou was called to the podium, taking no notes with her — just her purse and her mink coat. Jackson recounted that Angelou stood at the microphone and said, in her distinct deep voice: “I’m so high. I don’t know what I’m going to say.”

The audience before Jackson broke into adoring laughter. Angelou’s speech, according to Jackson, was “totally brilliant,” and merited a standing ovation. When she returned to her table, her companions were so exuberant they accidentally knocked over the wine bottles, which “fell under our table like dominoes, clinking glass mixing with roaring applause.” 

Director Diane Richards also spoke of Angelou, whom she said was difficult to talk about without feeling like she was still alive. She read from “The Heart of a Woman,” in which Angelou, who passed away in 2014, recounted one memory of her time as a member of the guild: “The Harlem Writers Guild was meeting at John’s House, my palms were sweating and my tongue was thick. The loosely formed organization without dues or business cards had one strict rule: any invited guest could sit in for three meetings, but thereafter, the visitor had to read from his or her works in progress.”

The tradition of workshopping, from the days of Angelou, is still important today and serves as the cornerstone of the guild. According to a letter by Richards, which can be found on Marc Polite’s web publication “Polite on Society,” one of the “primary initiatives” is to “cultivate and provide a sacred, strong haven” for “A Woke Black Nation.” In this spirit, the guild is not just a literary group for Richards, but a vehicle against socio-economic disparity and racism. 

Listen to Marc W. Polite – “When The Real You Shows Up” below: 

 

After honoring the past, the guild devoted the rest of the evening to contemporary works. One by one, guild members took to the podium to speak of their history, works and the core values they try to uphold in their writing. 

 

“I write historical fiction, because I don’t want our tales to be forgotten,” said Minnette Coleman, before reading from her book, “The Tree: A Journey To Freedom,” a tale of magical-realism that examines the Underground Railroad.

Angela Dews, a former meditation teacher, reflected on the Four Noble Truths while reading from her novel, “Still, In the City,” about a Buddhist in New York City. “Suffering has a cause. I don’t suffer when I abandon my craving. When I open my awareness beyond my interior processes to a world that I am creating and sharing a space in, I see a sign,” Dews read. 

Marc W. Polite recited his poem, “My People:” “My people face all kinds of evil – we’re still here! We find hope in the dimmest of places, building on the real, living, inspiring. Being Black and American means courage under fire, because the shots never stop.” 

 

Listen to an excerpt from Minnette Coleman – “The Tree: The Journey to Freedom” below: 

 

As pleased guild leaders thanked the audience for their attendance, the rustling of coats and movement of chairs against the marble floor was interrupted by a voice. 

During the Q&A, a woman named Karen M. stood frantic and proud, trembling as she clenched the microphone. “Today marks one year since the passing of my mother,” she said. “I thought it was going to be so hard to get it together, but I can feel her, I can hear her, and I just wanted to share something.” 

“Empowerment! Your movement, your improvement, ladies, queens, goddesses, it is time! Only you can stop yourself, let your vision shine! We will empower communities with common unity positive communication and cooperation is a must! We were put here to create opportunities for sisters and brothers to meet, greet and share opinions and views! We were destined to be here without fear – so thank you, Writers Guild, for putting this together.” 

A brief and breathless pause overcame the room, and then a roar of applause.  A visitor had just shared, traditions had been honored, and the Guild — a constant work in progress — smiled back. Maya would have been proud.  

Article and photos by Apolinar Islas

A river of people advanced and stopped, step by step, as they moved along the sidewalk of West 125^th Street toward the white and red neon lights of the marquee that marks the vaunted Apollo Theater.  Holding out their cellphones, the concert-goers allowed ushers to scan their electronic tickets, which read “Apollo Amateur Night Super Top Dog. November 27, 2019. 7:30 PM,” before they rushed through the chandelier-adorned lobby and took to their velvet-covered seats in the theater. The neoclassical house was warmly shadowed with incandescent lights. As people settled in, DJ Jess entertained the crowd and comedian Capone, the show’s presenter, fired up the audience with jokes.

It was the start of the grand finale of the 2019 season of The Apollo’s famous Amateur Night, where aspiring singers, musicians and comedians perform in the hope of convincing the audience to vote them winners of the Super Top Dog cash prizes — $5,000 in the minors’ category and $20,000 for adult performers. But more than winning the contest, the contestants were seeking to become the next Apollo legend, a title coveted over the 85-year-old history of Apollo’s Amateur Night – a Harlem cultural celebration. Among past winners were Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and the Jackson 5. In 1983, the Apollo Theater was designated a city and state landmark, showcasing American rhythms – from jazz to blues to mambo to salsa and even Asian music. International stars, like Cuban singer Celia Cruz and Akiko Wada, one of the biggest singers of Japan, performed in concert here in years past.

A Tradition of Music and Culture

During the Great Migration of the early 20^th Century, many Southern blacks found new homes in Harlem, imbuing the neighborhood with a flourishing arts scene that sparked the Harlem Renaissance between 1919 and the early 1930s. Harlem became a place where jazz, blues, comedians, poets, painters and philosophers thrived. The Apollo, a Harlem music mecca, was constructed in 1914; designed by architect George Keister, it was originally only open to white audiences. Its first name was Hurtig and Simons New Burlesque Theater, changing to the 125^th Street Apollo Theatre in 1934 when it began opening its doors to black audiences as well. Since then, this cultural institution became known as a stage where stars were born, embodying the spirit of Harlem through its professional and amateur performers. Singer James Brown performed more than 200 times at the Apollo, and Fitzgerald was the first Apollo Amateur Night female winner (taking home the $25 prize).

The contest, originally called Harlem Amateur Hour, is the legacy of Ralph Cooper, an African-American actor and producer who launched the show in 1933 at the Lafayette Theater. In 1934, Cooper renamed it Amateur Night at the Apollo and hosted the event for decades. The show was an Apollo mainstay, interrupted only for several years in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the theater was shuttered before new ownership revived it.

An International Stage for All

Anyone who wants to rock Apollo’s stage is welcome to do so. “Amateur Night contestants are black, white, Latino, Asian, Indian. It doesn’t matter your nationality,” said Billy Mitchell, 70, and the Apollo’s history tours director. “It’s all about the talent.” That talent includes Sung Lee, 30, who in 2014 won the $10, 000 Amateur Night prize for his beatbox performance,  mimicking a mix of genres including hip hop, electronic music, house and dubstep sounds with his mouth. “Music, beatboxing and looping is exactly what I’m meant to be doing in this life,” Lee, a Harlem resident, posted on his Facebook page. Last November, Lee was back at the Apollo pursuing his second Super Top Dog title against some of the most talented performers from around the nation and the world. Would he do it again?

The Apollo’s Amateur Night also has international reach. In August 2019, the Apollo unveiled its “Amateur Night Japan 2019,” which received more than 1,000 video auditions. “It has always been a top priority for the theater to engage communities in international households,” Aldo Scrofani, the theater’s chief operating officer, said in a news release. “The production of Amateur Night at the Apollo in Japan and potentially the Asian market, solidifies our commitment to the cultivation of diverse audiences in Harlem and abroad, ultimately creating a place for music lovers around the world to call home.”

The Drama Builds

As the performers prepared to take the stage for the 2019 finale, which was being broadcast live on Facebook, questions swirled among the audience members. Would Lee reclaim the title? Or would it be one of the winners of the Amateur Night Japan 2019 who also had come to Harlem to perform at the Super Top Dog competition? They were there to win –again– just like Lee.

The Super Top Dog winner hasn’t always been local. Three Japanese performers and a young girl from the United Kingdom took past titles, according to Mitchell. Would there be the fifth? It was up to the audience to decide, an Amateur Night tradition. If people love a performer, they cheer in support. Otherwise they boo the contestant, summoning “the executioner,” C.P. Lacey, who tap dances out from the wings to hustle the booed performer off the stage.

That’s why, before starting their acts, performers rub the so-called Tree of Hope for good luck; the stump of a tree that once stood outside the old Lafayette Theater, it sits on stage atop a Greek-style column during each Amateur Night. Legend says unemployed entertainers used to rub the tree hoping they would get their dream job at the Lafayette. Mitchell said he remembers 9-year-old Michael Jackson caressing the Tree of Hope before performing in “Stars of Tomorrow,” the opening segment of Amateur Night that showcases children and teen talent.

Let the Show Begin

One of the Japanese acts, 544 6th Avenue, a group of four young men, took the stage wearing black and gray traditional clothes and bamboo hats. They stopped to rub the Tree of Hope and danced to the delight of the audience. Following some American performers, a Japanese girl wearing a red Kimono with flowers sang in English, prompting thunderous applause.

It was now Lee’s turn to rub the stump, hoping not to become the first performer of the night to get booed off the stage. After the first, “Pufffftt. Pufftftft. CH.CH. Tumm. Pumm,” Lee received an ovation from the crowd. Wearing blue jeans that hugged his skinny body and a black hoodie under a jean jacket, Lee emulated music sounds and electric beats. The audience was euphoric.

A Bright Future for the Apollo

“The Apollo is getting bigger,” said Mitchell, noting that some of the theater’s offices would soon be moving soon into a new 28-story building, the Victoria Tower, which is going up next door at the site of the old Victoria Theater. The Apollo will occupy two floors of what will be the tallest building in Harlem. The tower also will include the Renaissance Marriott Hotel and two small theaters that the Apollo will manage. A planned renovation project at the Apollo will include the addition of a café and a small restaurant in the lobby, he said. “It’s going to be bigger and better in the next couple years,” Mitchell said. “We’ve got to look to the future, long after I’m gone and everybody is gone. There’s going to be something new for the future for people to come and enjoy and bring all kinds of different cultures and have them perform on stage.”

And the Winner Is….

The evening’s last contestant was Amateur Night Japan winner, Azumi Takahashi, a fragile-looking young woman covered in a long red-clay dress with black boots and a wide black belt. Once again, the cheers made the Apollo vibrate with appreciation. Now, the time had come for the audience to choose the 2019 Super Top Dog winner. A big screen over the stage, above the 10 performers, displayed a meter that would measure the loudest round of applause, which would lead to the naming of the champion.

After the first nine contestants were judged, it was clear that Lee had received the loudest response so far.  Next to him stood Takahashi, the final one to be judged, looking timid and delicate. The audience would be the judge. They gave Takahashi the same score as Lee. Capone asked the public to break the tie.

The theater went crazy as the audience made its final decision. The meter read 98 out of 100. We have a winner. The ovation continued. The house glittered with camera flashes. Lee tried not to look at the meter. Takahashi covered her face with her hands. She could not believe that she had just become the fourth Japanese and the fifth non-American winner of Super Top Dog of Amateur Night at the Apollo 2019. A rain of confetti fell over the stage. The night was over.

 

Podcast by Andre Beganski 

Brownstones are the bedrock of countless urban communities in New York City. The stoop of a brownstone is an ideal vantage point from which to watch neighborhoods change. For lifelong resident Robin E. Dickens, it’s a place to reminisce about growing up in Harlem and reflect on what is gone.

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