Merson's Liquor and Wine, January 7, 1941.

Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church ARCHITECT: George W. Foster, Jr. DATE: 1923-25 STYLE: Neo-Gothic The Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, built in 1923-25, is the sixth home of New York City’s first black congregation and the founding church of the A.M.E. Zion Conference of churches, which spread throughout the United States and Canada. Established in 1796, under the leadership of James Varick, Mother Zion has a long and illustrious history of religious and social activism. In the nineteenth century, the A.M.E. Zion conference was popularly known as the “Freedom Church” because of its important role in the abolitionist movement; many conference churches, including Mother Zion, served as stations on the Underground Railroad. The movement of the Mother Zion congregation northward, beginning in lower Manhattan, to the present location in Harlem, reflects the residential patterns of New York City’s black population. At the time the present church was constructed, Harlem contained the majority of New York’s black residents. A distinguished composition in the neo-Gothic style, reflecting the tradition of Protestant church design in the 1920s, the church building was designed by George W. Foster, Jr., one of the first black architects to be registered in the United States. During the twentieth-century leadership of Pastor James W. Brown and his successor, Dr. Benjamin C. Robeson, Mother Zion rose to even greater prominence as a religious and social institution. Robeson’s civil rights crusade attracted such notable Harlem residents as Langston Hughes and W.E.B. DuBois, and the Zion pulpit was often a platform for the social and political activism of Robeson’s brother, Paul Robeson. Mother Zion has continued its almost two-hundred year tradition of service to its congregation and community, not only addressing the spiritual needs of its members but also providing an array of social programs.

Hamilton Grange at its second location before St. Luke's Richardsonian Romanesque church was constructed, ca. 1889.

The Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church at 140-148 West 137th Street is the sixth home of New York City’s very first black church, and the founding church of the A.M.E. Zion Conference of churches. Today, the gorgeous neo-Gothic structure, built in 1923-1925, stands as a symbol of the city’s black, religious, and civil rights history while continuing to serve as a touchstone for over 1.4 million followers. In honor of Black History Month, we delve into the remarkable story of Mother Zion, which takes us beyond the Village and back. This story is adapted from a Village Preservation blog, which can be viewed here.

287 Convent Avenue, 1932. Hamilton Grange in its second location! The 1802 home of Alexander Hamilton was originally located at approximately West 143rd Street between what is now Convent Avenue and Hamilton Place. Built by John McComb Jr., the two-story Federal style house was only home to Hamilton for two years before his death by duel in 1804. The home remained in his family until the 1840s. By the 1880s the home had been condemned and was likely to be razed for the implementation of the street grid uptown. St. Luke's, an Episcopal parish originally organized in Greenwich Village, had recently moved uptown. In 1889, the church had the structure moved east and south (about 250 feet) to a new lot at 287 Convent just north of 141st Street. For the move many features of the home, including the original porches, were removed, the traditional entrance was sealed (that side of the house was no longer the front), and a new staircase and entrance were created once the home was in place. The church used the house for their first uptown services in 1889, but soon after built their own massive Richardsonian Romanesque church. In the 1910s a new apartment building was constructed within inches of the Grange (it can be seen at left in this 1932 photograph). The home became a public museum in 1924. It stood, literally encircled on one side by the church and squeezed in on the other side by the apartment building, until 2008. After being closed in 2006 for architectural and structural surveys, it was decided that a more appropriate place for the house was in nearby St. Nicholas Park. The home was raised high enough to pass over the loggia (porch) of the church that curved around it. In July of 2008, from its spot on stilts in the middle of Convent Avenue, the home was moved 500 feet to the park. Attached to its new foundation, the home had its original staircase and entrance restored. It also had 13 sweet gum trees (for the original 13 states) installed nearby, exactly as Hamilton had planted in 1802. Hamilton Grange reopened to the public in September 2011.

120 West 140th Street, 1920. Public School 139 (also called the Frederick Douglass Junior High School) was likely constructed in the first years of the 20th century. In the 1930s and 1940s school had a number of well-known teachers including poet Countee Cullen and James Allen, president of the New York State NAACP for some time. Today the former school building serves as a senior center.

Watt-Pinkney Mansion, 1925. Built in 1796 by John DeLancey, the dwelling later known as the Watt-Pinkney mansion originally stood on a low rise of what would become 139th and 140th Streets. Archibald D. Watt acquired the house and its 300-acre farm in 1826. Eleven years later, following the crash of 1837, he borrowed funds from his stepdaughter, Mary G. Pinkney (1810-1908). A mortgage on the Watt acreage secured the loan. In the 1860s, when Seventh Avenue was extended northward, the house was moved around the corner to 139th Street. Mary G. Pinkney left a fortune in uptown real estate and a house worthy of becoming a museum. However, her home was not to enjoy the fate of the Morris-Jumel Mansion. Around 1915 the Libya nightclub opened in the mansion near the foot of Libya Hill. Harlem’s most influential politicians, professionals, and theater people patronized the club, where the Clef Club provided the musicians. A young Ethel Waters, famous later as a singer and then as an actress, performed at the Libya as part of a dance duo. The nightclub closed in 1921. For a time, the local community tried to interest the City of New York in acquiring the property for a playground, but the house was ultimately demolished in 1925.

Street scene outside Daniel’s Bar & Grill, Harlem, 1939.

Abyssinian Baptist Church ca. 1923 Abyssinian Baptist Church was located on West 40th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues when Adam Clayton Powell Sr., arrived from New Haven to take up the pastorship of what was the largest black congregation in the world in 1908. Powell, who moved his family to a house in a predominantly white neighborhood on West 134th Street, soon tried to interest his congregation in relocating the church to Harlem but encountered considerable resistance. Abyssinian did not purchase land on West 138th Street between Seventh and Lenox Avenues until 1920. A white architectural firm designed the Gothic edifice, completed in 1923, which still features stained-glass images of blue-eyed blond angels, saints, and biblical figures. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who succeeded his father as pastor in 1937, used the substantial power base afforded by the largest black congregation in America to win election as the first black member of New York's City Council and as Harlem's Congressman for twenty-five years.

H. Adolph Howell Funeral Chapel, ca. 1926. The H. Adolph Howell Funeral Chapel was considered one of the first "funeral churches" (what would come to be known as funeral parlors). Howell was a Caribbean immigrant, local Harlem businessman and undertaker, who moved to Harlem in the first decades of the 20th century. The building at 2332 Seventh Avenue became the funeral facility in the middle of the 1920s and quickly became a prominent part of the community, a space where the neighborhood's deceased were mourned and celebrated. Often the bodies of the recently departed were laid out in state for a few days before their Sunday afternoon burials (as Sunday was the traditional day for funerals). This was the case for two famous burials that occurred at H. Adolph Howell's. In 1927 famed Harlem cabaret singer, dancer, and comedian laid in state for five days while more than 10,000 mourners passed by her coffin. In 1931 the funeral services for A'Lelia Walker, daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and mainstay of the Harlem Renaissance in her own right, also saw 10,000 mourners files passed her casket at Howell's. On the day of the funeral itself, more than 1000 people gathered outside the funeral parlor for the invite-only funeral. In later years the building served as the John Joyce-Rodney Dade Funeral Home, which only ceased operations in 2007.

303 West 142nd Street, ca. 1932.

Mother AME Zion Church, 1925. Designed by one of the first African American architects in the United States, George W. Foster Jr., Mother Zion was completed in 1925, as the sixth and final home of the religious community. The congregation that moved into this new Gothic Revival building dates to 1796 when it was founded as the first African American church in New York. The community became the "mother" church of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Conference denomination when the church broke from the predominantly white Methodist Episcopal Church in 1820. During the 1930s the charismatic preacher of the this church was Reverend Dr. Benjamin C. Robeson, who spoke passionately of civil rights activism. Parishioners, both here and in its previous locations, included singer Paul Robeson (brother to the pastor) Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, Marian Anderson, and Madam C.J. Walker.

During an era of racial segregation, pioneering African-American singer and actress Ethel Waters (1896-1977) achieved stardom in theater, radio, movies, and television. Her career in New York began in 1919 when she moved to Harlem and performed at such popular venues as the Lafayette Theater (demolished) on West 132nd Street and the Lincoln Theater (façade since altered) at 58 West 135th Street. By at least 1925, Waters was living in a seven-room apartment at 580 St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem’s Sugar Hill section. The building had become one of the neighborhood’s most prestigious addresses for prominent African Americans around that time. First a blues singer, she recorded numerous hit songs during this time, including “Dinah” (1925), “I’ve Found a New Baby” (1926), and “Am I Blue?” (1927). In 1925, Waters replaced popular black star Florence Mills at the Plantation Club, a nightclub formerly part of Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre. She made her Broadway debut in Africana (1927) at Daly’s 63rd Street Theatre (demolished), which soon moved to the National Theatre (now Nederlander Theatre). Her performance in the short-lived revue caught the attention of lyricist Irving Berlin, who would later cast her as the only major black performer in As Thousands Cheer, a huge Broadway hit in 1933. Berlin had also been impressed with her “Stormy Weather” act with Duke Ellington at the whites-only Cotton Club (demolished) in Harlem. After Waters found success in Hollywood and her fame grew she never publicly acknowledged her homosexuality, likely because — as with other closeted stars then and to this day — she feared it would ruin her career. However, in the early 1920s, she lived with her girlfriend, dancer Ethel Williams, and was well known in Harlem’s lesbian circles. Fellow entertainer Mabel Hampton called them “the two Ethels” and later recalled spending time with them and other lesbian blues singers in Harlem.

Hamilton Grange porch detail, with St Luke's loggia (first floor exterior gallery) archways seen in the background, date, unknown.

Interior of Hamilton Grange, date unknown.

136 West 137th Street, ca. 1932.

202-204 West 136th Street, ca. 1936. This building has been home to the New York Urban League (NYUL) for over a century. NYUL is part of a much larger, nationwide organization that formed in 1910 to help African American migrants assimilate into urban life. Since the inception of the National Urban League's New York branch in 1918, NYUL has provided essential social services in New York City, helping black individuals find jobs, healthcare, educational opportunities, and also expand their employment.

Abyssinian Baptist Church ARCHITECT: Charles W. Bolton & Son DATE: 1922-23 STYLE: Neo-Gothic The Abyssinian Baptist Church is the home of one of New York City’s oldest church organizations and the second oldest within the family of African-American churches in Manhattan. Organized in 1808 by a small group of black worshippers who withdrew from the predominantly white First Baptist Church on Gold Street, the Abyssinian Baptist Church was incorporated in the following year, adopting the ancient name for Ethiopia. The northward movement of the Abyssinian congregation, which occupied several successive locations from its first home in a wooden church on Worth Street to its imposing stone edifice in Harlem, followed the residential patterns of New York’s black population. Under the leadership of the Reverend William Spellman during the second half of the nineteenth century, the church grew rapidly into one of the wealthiest of the “African” congregations. In the twentieth century, the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Sr.’s “social gospel,” blending social activism with spiritual leadership, set the tone for Abyssinian’s ongoing mission to serve its community. Commissioned during Powell’s tenure, the striking church building and the adjoining community house were the work of Charles W. Bolton & Son, a productive Philadelphia firm which specialized in churches. The neo-Gothic design of the church reflects the tradition of Protestant church architecture of the 1920s. Powell’s son and successor, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who served eleven terms as a U.S. Congressman, put Abyssinian at the forefront of the national crusade for social reform and civil rights. During his pastorate, the church membership grew to over 10,000, placing it among the largest Protestant churches in the world. Today, the church leadership under the Reverend Calvin Butts continues its commitment to religious and social service and economic development in Harlem.

Hamilton Gate on Convent Avenue, undated postcard. Four concrete and metal arched gates, rendered in a neo-Gothic style, created four entrances to the North Campus Quadrangle of City College. Mirroring the original neo-Gothic buildings of the campus (the building seen here is Shepard Hall), the gates were all named for famous men, Hudson, Washington, Stuyvesant, and Hamilton. This gate at the northern edge of Convent Avenue was named for Alexander Hamilton who lived nearby at the start of the 19th century.

Hamilton Grange with porch configuration and non-original entrance at 287 Convent Avenue, date unknown.

Interior view of the original front door of Hamilton Grange, date unknown. During the home's time at 287 Convent Avenue (1889-2008), this original door was facing the side of the church next door.

2465 Seventh Avenue (Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard), ca. 1939. Two sailors stand in the doorway of a Seventh Avenue restaurant; note the bunting advertising the 1939 World's Fair.

The Constitution of the United States of America establishes the laws and governmental structure of the United States. It was first drafted by James Madison and explains which rights are reserved to the national and state governments. The Constitution was ratified in 1787, four years after the official ending of the Revolutionary War. In the years between the Treaty of Paris, which ended the war, and the Constitutional Convention, the United States was governed by a document titled Articles of Confederation. This document gave more power to the various states instead of a single national government. This made important decisions regarding trade, taxation, and defense, very hard to make. Many people recognized the serious situation the new nation found itself in and met in Philadelphia to create a new guiding document. After intense debate, they produced the US Constitution, which still forms the basis of our government. In fact, the US Constitution is the oldest constitution still in use today. While not perfect, this document laid out the fundamental rights that all Americans enjoy today. These different locations throughout New York help to highlight some of the powers and rules laid out in our founding document. NYS Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards 7.4 & 11.2 For Teachers: US Constitution Lesson Plan

The Harlem Renaissance was one of the most important cultural movements in American history. The legacies left behind, whether musical, political, or legacies of social activism, are ones whose impacts we still see everywhere in American culture today. As a part of my personal project with the Living City Project, I led a walk around Harlem, looking at historical buildings, streets, and institutions, or at least where they once were, and discussing the important people, events and activities associated with those iconic sites. I started this project with an interest in the influential jazz scene of NYC in the early 20th century. As I began to study this, I came across Billie Holiday’s incredible art and life. Although Holiday wasn’t from New York, one of her most famous songs, “Strange Fruit,” was a product of the city’s writers and musicians at the time. The lyrics were written by a Jewish school teacher, Abel Meeropol, who originally wrote them as a poem. The song was heard being sung in Cafe Society by the floor manager at the time, who told the club’s founder, Barney Josephson. Josephson then invited Holiday to come to hear the song. From there, it became the iconic and deeply powerful song we know today. Billie performed it all over the world. It became one of her signature songs. I was equally as fascinated by Holiday’s relentless, fearless singing of the song, the national interest in hearing her sing it, and the federal government’s alarm at her performing the song. Furthermore, as I read more about her and her music, I began to understand how, in many ways, “Strange Fruit” was the catalyst for other protest songs of the 20th century. After beginning with an interest in NYC Jazz, and then Billie Holiday, I arrived at the Harlem Renaissance because of the way it aligned with what fascinated me about Billie. The Harlem Renaissance was also a meeting of civil rights activism, art, and the movement, and has had long-lasting effects on American culture, just as Holiday has. This is only a small sampling of some of these incredibly important and influential institutions and figures, and it is only a fraction of the information out there about this topic. There are many scholars and organizations who have delved deeper into some of these topics, and I encourage the viewer to look beyond this introduction if they're interested. I also recognize that I am a young white woman from out of town, and this is not my community in many senses. I created this walk in hopes of appreciating and better understanding the great cultural influence that many of the figures and institutions from The Harlem Renaissance have had on my own life as well as on the lives of many Americans to this day. Spotify playlist with all songs from the tour: Harlem Renaissance Walk. I chose to include this playlist because the music is what initially drew me to this topic, and I want the reader to get to experience it as well. In addition, sometimes with history, it is hard for the reader to completely feel and understand what was going on; I feel that music is a vivid, real way to gain even the slightest understanding of the moment they’re learning about, especially when discussing an artistic, musical movement. I would encourage the reader to either listen to the playlist before starting the tour, after doing it or both. At each stop, I have included which song from the playlist goes with the stop - I encourage the viewer to play these at each stop in addition to listening to the playlist all the way through.

Fruit carts at Eighth Avenue and West 143rd Street, 1937. The Ninth Avenue El (which ran along Eighth Avenue from 110th Street to the Harlem River) was the first elevated rail line in New York. The original section, from Battery Place to Cortlandt Street, along Greenwich Street, opened in 1868 as the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway, an experimental single-track cable-powered elevated railway. The section of the line seen here (the traditional two-track line) opened in 1879. The elevated line was closed in 1940, except for a short "Polo Grounds" shuttle between 155th Street and Burnside Avenue in the Bronx, which ceased operations in 1958. Difficult to see unless the photograph is zoomed in, are the small posters of President FDR tacked up among the signs and prices for the produce.

A residential enclave, this neighborhood east of St. Nicholas Park features remarkably intact and finely detailed residential rowhouse architecture, built for upper-middle-class professionals in the late 19th century. The community is named for the adjoining park dedicated in 1925 that honors African-American infantryman Dorrance Brooks, who displayed ”signal bravery” in World War I. The square became a rallying point for civil rights protests. Closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance, the area was home to jazz musician Lionel Hampton. Dorrance Brooks Square was designated a historic district on June 15, 2021. Watch the 2020 Grassroots Prersvation presentation on Dorrance Brooks Square

College of the City of New York: The Main Building, 1911. Described in the LPC designation report as being shaped from above as a stubby anchor, Shepard Hall (originally known as Main Hall) is the largest of the buildings on the City College of New York North Campus. Built in a lavish neo-Gothic style with terra cotta quoins and a seven-story tower, Shepard Hall is the "cathedral" of this campus. Designed, along with most of the other university buildings nearby, by George B. Post between 1903 and 1907, it was the particular project a former graduate Edward Morse Shepard. Shepard would oversee the design and decoration of the enormous room within the Main Building called the Great Hall, which could accommodate more than 1000 people.

Drawing of Hamilton Grange, pre-1889. Hamilton's home has only been in its new (and likely final) location in St. Nicholas Park since 2008– not long enough for photographs to be in the collections of NYC archives. For a series of historic photos, make sure to visit the pins for 287 Convent Avenue and 143rd Street between Convent and Hamilton Place. This drawing of the home in its original location (approximately West 143rd Street between Convent Avenue and Hamilton Place) is very similar to how the building looks today. In its final move the original entrance was restored.

St. Nicholas Avenue Presbyterian Church is a Gothic Revival church built between 1904-1905. Its congregation was originally known as the Lenox Presbyterian Church, which occupied a Romanesque structure constructed in 1892. Upon moving, the church changed its name to reflect its new location. The congregation merged with the North Presbyterian Church and moved to 529 West 155th Street in 1927. The building now houses the St. James Presbyterian Church, a historically black church known for its music. In 1964, the Harlem School of the Arts was established in the basement of this building. Its founder was Dorothy Maynor, the wife of Reverend Shelby Rooks and a talented soprano soloist. Her husband was the pastor of the church until 1976. The school is now located in the building directly behind the church.

305 West 142nd Street, ca. 1932.

187 West 135th Street, 1931. Between 1925 and 1938, this apartment was the residence of Civil Rights activist James Weldon Johnson . Johnson could be described as a modern "Renaissance man" - he taught and practiced law, songwriting, poetry, as well as authored novels, and served as the United States consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua all before he was appointed head of the National Association of Colored People (NAACP). Johnson was born in Jacksonville Florida. While studying for the bar exam, Johnson was a schoolteacher and eventually served as the principal of the prestigious Stanton Preparatory School. In 1897, Stanton passed the bar making him the first African American admitted to the Florida Bar. Johnson opened a law practice in Florida while concurrently writing poetry and songs, which led him to New York in 1901 during the Great Migration. He moved to the city with his brother, John Rosamond Johnson, and together they authored around 200 songs (many of which were sung on Broadway.) While in New York, Johnson remained interested in law and thus, became involved in politics. He participated in Theodore Roosevelt's presidential campaign and when Roosevelt was elected, he served as consul to Venezuela in 1906 and to Nicaragua in 1913. During this time, he anonymously published his novel, "The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man." By the 1920s, Johnson had become a leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance as a poet and songwriter. He began working for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1916 and by 1920 he was appointed executive secretary. Johnson lived in this house on 135th Street during his time as head of the NAACP, a position he held for ten years. In "Negro Americans, what now?" an essay published in 1934, Johnson writes the following: "Black America is called upon to stand as the protagonist of tolerance, of fair play, of justice, and of goodwill...White America cannot save itself if it prevents us from being saved." His home was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

Hamilton’s impact on New York City was deep and long-lasting. In addition to establishing the Bank of New York and resurrecting Columbia College, he advocated for the city through his role as the first Secretary of the Treasury. A physical reminder of Hamilton’s presence remains in Harlem in the form his “country” estate, The Grange, although it has moved a couple of times over the last 200 years in response to our growing metropolis. Towards the end of his political, financial, and legal career, Alexander Hamilton wrote to his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, about a “sweet project” he was planning, with which she would be pleased. He told her she could “guess and guess again,” but that he would let her in on his “scheme” when they next saw each other. Hamilton’s plan was to purchase land in part of upper Manhattan about nine miles above the city limits of the time, and to commission a country home. The Federal-style home was designed by John McComb, Jr., and Hamilton named the estate “The Grange” after his family’s ancestral home in Scotland. The Grange was finished in 1802 and Hamilton lived there for just two years, until his death-by-duel in 1804. Hamilton’s widow sold the home in 1833 and moved downtown. By 1889, the Grange had fallen into disrepair and was set to be razed to make room for the expanding city grid. The estate sat on what was to be 143rd Street – the street would have run right through the house’s northwest corner. Luckily, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, in the midst of relocating from Greenwich Village, acquired the house and moved it a half block east and two blocks south, out of the way of the city’s bulldozers. The home’s original porches and staircase were removed for the move; the original front entrance was boarded up; and a new entrance was added to the side of the house, which now faced the street. St. Luke’s used the house for various purposes and built an adjacent church building that nearly touched The Grange’s front porch. In 1924 the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society purchased The Grange and turned it into a museum, complete with furniture and decorative objects associated with the Hamilton family. The house changed hands yet again in 1962, after being purchased by the National Park Foundation and transferred to the National Park Service. The same year Congress designated The Grange as a National Memorial, with the caveat that it be relocated, again, and restored to its original condition. The second relocation didn’t occur until about 45 years later, in part due to local opposition to moving the home from its spot on Convent Avenue in the eponymous Hamilton Heights neighborhood. Residents were afraid the move would effect the character of the community. Officials decided to move The Grange to nearby St. Nicholas Park, where the home would remain within the original 32 acres of Hamilton’s estate, and where its original features could be restored. The Grange temporarily closed in 2006 – the home was moved one block south and one block east in June 2008 – and in September 2011, it finally re-opened to the public.. The house is oriented in a different direction, allowing for a better view from the street, but otherwise its original characteristics have been restored, including the addition of 13 sweet gum trees – the same variety that Hamilton had planted to represent the original 13 colonies. Perhaps Hamilton already had these trees in mind when he referred to The Grange as his “sweet project!”