The Apollo Theater is located at 253 West 125th Street. For more than forty years it was the country’s most important venue for black entertainment. Built in 1913, it was originally a vaudeville and burlesque house known as Hurtig & Seamon’s New Theater. Amateur Night, introduced by showman Ralph Cooper, Sr., has been a staple at the Apollo since its opening in 1934. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, James Brown, and the Jackson Five are just a few of the winners of Amateur Night.

Apollo Theater, ca. 1985. The most famous music venue in Harlem was opened as a “Whites Only” burlesque theater in 1914. It reopened as the Apollo Theater in 1934. From the swing bands of the 1930s to soul and gospel, rock, and blues, the Apollo has been host to Duke Ellington, Count Basie, the Staple Sisters, Mahalia Jackson, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, Buddy Holly, Billie Holiday, Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, James Brown, George Clinton and the Parliament-Funkadelic, Al Green, and in 2012, President Barack Obama singing "Let’s Stay Together" to Al Green.

A new chapter in the long Black freedom struggle took shape in New York and elsewhere following World War II. African-American New Yorkers and their allies mobilized against a range of discriminatory policies and practices, including exclusion by employers and banks, whites-only housing, segregated and unequal public schools, and controversial uses of force by police. By the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act, New York had passed anti-discrimination laws in employment and housing, and activists had staged an enormous school boycott protesting segregated schools. Yet racial discrimination remained, and that year, rioting broke out in Harlem after a white policeman fatally shot African-American teenager James Powell. Activists have continued to mobilize in response to police conduct in communities of color, as well as against city schools and housing that remain divided along racial lines.

A collection that maps and celebrates NYC LGBT history for the month of October!

With so many of us staying indoors these days, it is helpful to remember the glories of New York City’s public landscape, past and present. Here are a few examples to remind you of treasured sites we look forward to visiting again, appreciating in person, and sharing with others!

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.

Apollo Theater ARCHITECT: George Keister DATE: 1913-14 The Apollo Theater was for four decades starting in the 1930s one of New York City’s and the nation’s foremost arenas for leading popular black American performing talent. It retains much of its original character, including its proscenium and flanking boxes and classically-inspired plaster ornament. Its construction reflects the early twentieth-century entertainment history of vaudeville and burlesque in Harlem, in particular, the tradition of Harlem theaters which displayed black performers in a variety show format. The Apollo Theater was graced by the presence of nearly all major black American performers at some point in their careers, reflects the migration of blacks to Harlem and represents the cultural contributions of Harlem and black Americans to New York City and the nation.

With the Grammy Awards back in New York, we began thinking about all the places here that are important to the history of music. From the days when jazz musicians dubbed New York “the Big Apple,” the City has been the place to make it big. A lot of the most famous music venues have been lost over the years to development and changing tastes, but many more always pop up, seemingly weekly in Brooklyn and Queens.

As African Americans migrated uptown to Harlem in large numbers in the 1910s and ’20s, existing theaters began showcasing black performers. Some of these venues welcomed black audiences. The Apollo Theater, which had operated as a burlesque venue in the 1910s and ’20s, was relatively late in bringing on black entertainers. Although performers such as blues singer Alberta Hunter are said to have appeared here as early as 1930, African-American performers became the rule under new ownership in 1932. Three years later, again under new ownership, the Apollo instituted a permanent variety show format featuring leading black talent that would last until the 1970s. This was particularly important as, even through the 1950s, few major theaters across the United States featured black entertainers. Every form of popular African-American entertainment – comedy, drama, dance, gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, swing, bebop, rock and roll, and soul music – was showcased at the Apollo. LGBT luminaries included comedian Jackie “Moms” Mabley; singers Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, Josephine Baker, Clyde McPhatter, Little Richard, Carmen McRae, Johnny Mathis, Arthur Conley, Carolyn Franklin (and sister of Aretha), Billy Preston, Nona Hendryx, Teddy Pendergrass, and Luther Vandross; and gospel greats Clara Ward, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Marie Knight, Alex Bradford, Ruth Davis, Jackie Verdell, and James Cleveland.