Hotel Theresa ARCHITECT: George & Edward Blum DATE: 1912-13 STYLE: Terra-cotta The Theresa entered the national limelight in 1960 when Cuban premier Fidel Castro chose to stay at the hotel while visiting New York to speak at the United Nations General Assembly; while at the Theresa, Castro hosted a visit from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. The Hotel Theresa, built in 1912-13, is significant in the history of Harlem, America’s most prominent African-American community, as one of the most important social centers of that community. It is a major work by the noted architectural firm of George & Edward Blum, exemplifying this firm’s singular approach to ornamentation and inventive use of terra-cotta.

"Settling in for what they initially assumed would be a temporary stay at Harlem’s Theresa Hotel, Anna and Merritt \[Hedgeman] set about looking for employment and permanent housing… The Theresa offered a suite of rooms at a reasonable rate, a central location, and a bit of celebrity. The stately white terra cotta and brick hotel had only recently opened its doors to black guests, but now a bevy of black entertainers, artists, and socialites called the “Waldorf of Harlem” home… The tallest building in Harlem, standing on the corner of 125th Street and 7th Avenue, now Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, and near Frank’s Restaurant, the Apollo Theater, the Harlem Opera House, the African Memorial National Bookstore, and Blumstein’s Department Store, the Theresa literally offered a window on Harlem’s political, social, and cultural life. Anna and Merritt would become two of the hotel’s high-profile residents, a group that included writer Zora Neale Hurston, socialite Grace Nail Johnson, Negro Yearbook editor Florence Murray, and entertainer Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson." For more on the social world at Harlem's Theresa, check out this article by Jennifer Scanlon on the forgotten civil rights pioneer Anna Hedgeman in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Hotel Theresa ca. 1934 Built by Gustavus Sidenberg, a lace dealer who named the hotel for his late wife before marrying another Theresa, the Hotel Theresa was hailed as a triumphant testament to Harlem's arrival as a self-contained district. It was the tallest Harlem structure of its day, retaining that distinction until 1973, when the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. state office building was erected. The structure's height, together with the stylized sunrise on the façade, symbolized the builder's hopes for all the good things modernity was still to bring to Harlem. Sidenberg maintained a strict policy that excluded black people, except as servants. Many other hotels, theaters, and department stores discriminated against blacks during the years now celebrated as the Harlem Renaissance. Not until 1937, nearly twenty years after African Americans came to dominate Harlem's population, was this discriminatory policy rescinded at the Hotel Theresa. New black owners welcomed boxer Joe Louis, singer and actress Lena Horne, and dancer and singer Josephine Baker, as well as Cuban premiere Fidel Castro. Senator John F. Kennedy would choose the Hotel Theresa as his forum when he asked Harlem blacks for their support, and Malcolm X would form the Organization of Afro-American Unity in the top floor's double-height dining room.