Harlem YMCA, ca. 1930. Officially designed by the Architectural Bureau of the National Council of the YMCA, the architect in charge of the project was James C. Mackenzie, Jr. The red brick, neo-Georgian building was completed in 1932 and replaced a former YMCA building across the street. The building became an important location for the African American community in Harlem, with a number of well-known residents, including authors Ralph Ellison and Maria Celeste and Malcolm X.

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.

There have been two Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) buildings on this street. The original, which was built in 1918-19, was the YMCA Building, West 135th Street Branch at 181 West 135th Street. In 1931-32, a new building was constructed across the street at 180 West 135th Street; still in use today as the Harlem YMCA, it was first known as the YMCA Building, 135th Street Branch. The original location at 181 West 135th Street was the successor to the “Colored Men’s Branch” of the YMCA, located on West 53rd Street (1901-19). African-American YMCAs were the result of the YMCA’s official policy of racial segregation, from the organization’s beginnings in the United States in 1851 until 1946. Though excluded from white YMCAs, African Americans were encouraged to form separate branches, which became autonomous community centers. As the African-American population of Harlem rapidly increased and this facility became overcrowded, a new 135th Street Branch YMCA (today’s Harlem YMCA) was constructed across the street from the earlier building. This new 135th Street Branch, partially funded by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Julius Rosenwald (former president of Sears, Roebuck & Co.), and the Phelps-Stokes Fund, was called at the time of its completion the largest such facility for African-American men and boys, as well as one of the best-equipped YMCA buildings, in the country.