New York Public Library, Schomburg Collection for Research in Black Culture ARCHITECT: McKim, Mead & White; Charles F. McKim DATE: 1903-05 STYLE: Neo-Classical Built as the West 135th Street Branch Library, the former Schomburg Collection building at 103 West 135th Street was designed in 1904 by the eminent firm of McKim, Mead & White. Small and dignified, the structure is one of the eleven elegant neo-Classical buildings that the firm designed for the New York City Public Library system under a generous grant from Andrew Carnegie. Located in the heart of Harlem, the Library Branch became a center of black cultural events during the 1920s, as the well-known Schomburg Collection on black history and culture, housed in the building, served as a magnet to countless intellectuals drawn to the area during the “Harlem Renaissance.” Distinguished by a fine architectural design, the building is also nationally significant as a cultural center and a site where the documentation of the black experience was a long and important tradition.

135th Street branch of the New York Public Library, home of the “Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints.” March 20, 1928. The Carnegie-funded library, designed by Charles Follen McKim, opened in July, 1905. During the 1920s, the 135th Street branch led the NYPL’s gradual integration of African-American works into its collections and programming. In 1921, the branch hosted the first annual exhibition of African-American art — the first show of its kind in Harlem. In 1926, the Afro-Puerto Rican scholar and book collector Arturo Alfonso Schomburg sold his collection — including “5,000 books; 3,000 manuscripts; 2,000 etchings and paintings; and several thousand pamphlets” — to the library, with the stipulation that the collection remain in Harlem. Schomburg himself was the collection’s curator from 1932 until his death in 1938. In 1940, the archive was renamed the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature, History and Prints. In 1972, the branch became a Research Library and was renamed the Schomburg Collection for Research in Black Culture. In 1980, a new Schomburg Center extension opened on nearby Lenox Avenue.

108-110 West 136th Street, 1936. In 1913 and 1915 Madam C.J. Walker, the African American businesswoman who made millions selling hair care products purchased two brownstones in Harlem. She was prompted to move to Harlem by her daughter A'Lelia, who had arrived in the city a few years earlier. Walker hired African American architect Vertner Tandy, the first black architect registered in New York State, to redesign the buildings. The resulting structure was a handsome, single, Georgian style townhouse. The building not only served as Walker's home, but the garden level was used as a beauty parlor, college, and spa. Women were able to receive training in the use of Walker's products, while also providing services to clients in an upscale locale. Walker died in 1919. Her daughter, who by the mid-1920s had become an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance (known for hosting well-attended and extravagant parties), turned the 136th Street home into an event space and cultural salon she called the Dark Tower. Lasting only a year as the Dark Tower, the house was later rented to the city for use as a health clinic (pictured here as the Harlem Health Center). In 1941, the home, then owned by the city, was demolished for a branch of the New York Public Library, which in 1951 would be renamed for Countee Cullen, black poet, and friend of A'Lelia Walker.

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.

The 135th Street Branch of the YMCA, unknown date. The third of 12 Carnegie libraries designed by the preeminent firm of McKim, Mead & White for the New York Public Library (NYPL), the 135th Street Branch opened in 1905. Within the next ten years, African Americans started to move to Harlem in large numbers. Under newly-appointed white librarian Ernestine Rose in 1921, the 135th Street Library made significant changes to better serve a burgeoning black community. That same year, it became the first NYPL branch to have an integrated staff; in 1922, Nella Larsen began working here as an assistant and was promoted to children’s librarian two years later. The 135th Street Branch, with its literary gatherings, art exhibitions, theatrical and musical productions, and lectures, was known as “the place to go” during the Harlem Renaissance. Importantly, the library provided a rare public platform for black artists, writers, and performers as well as the opportunity to share their work with audiences of color. A young Langston Hughes made a point to visit the library the day he arrived in Harlem in 1921 (he later wrote about it in his 1963 essay “My Early Days in Harlem”). Other Harlem Renaissance luminaries who frequented the branch included poet Countee Cullen (who met Hughes here), performer Florence Mills, poet Claude McKay and writer Eric Walrond, the latter two of whom also reserved space here to work. In 1926, the Krigwa Players Little Negro Theatre, which included playwright Harold Jackman, performed plays by, about, and for people of color in the library’s basement (The American Negro Theatre still performs here.)

Originally the West 135th Street Branch of the NYPL, this library grew exponentially over the 20th century to encompass a complex of buildings housing the prestigious Schomburg Collection for Research in Black Culture. The original building was one of 11 Carnegie-funded branches designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White. All that remains of the building, which was designed in the firm’s characteristic Italian Renaissance Revival style, is its West 135th Street façade. During the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, the library became an important center for black cultural events and scholarship. This was due to the pioneering work of Branch Librarian Ernestine Rose, who began compiling a collection of black literature and history books beginning in the 1920s. As a result of this growing and influential collection, the library was renamed the 135th Street Branch Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints in 1925, and the following year, the NYPL increased it with the acquisition of historian, writer, and activist Arturo Alfonso Schomburg’s famous private collection. With its continued expansion, a new wing was added to the rear of the building on West 136th Street in 1941. With this addition, the library, which had doubled in size, was renamed the Countee Cullen Branch. In 1972 the collection was renamed the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 1980, a new building was constructed at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard. The complex now represents three distinct eras for this venerable institution. 103 West 135th Street is a New York City Individual Landmark.

The Public Design Commission (PDC) was established as the Municipal Art Commission by the New York City Charter in 1898 (following the consolidation of NYC). The Commission was tasked with the oversight of all public artworks and monuments, but its purview quickly expanded to include public structures and open spaces. Renamed in 2008, the PDC reviews the design of permanent works of architecture, landscape architecture, and art proposed on or over City-owned property. Projects are submitted by City agencies and include the construction, renovation, or restoration of buildings; the creation or rehabilitation of parks, playgrounds, and plazas; installation of lighting and other streetscape elements; signage; and the installation and conservation of artwork, including monuments and memorials. The Commission also acts as caretaker and curator of the City’s public art collection, which is located throughout the city’s public buildings and open spaces, and maintains an extensive archive documenting the history of New York City's public works. The PDC Archive maintains a collection of projects reviewed by the Commission since 1902, documenting more than 7,000 sites throughout New York City and providing a unique view into the history of the City’s public works. The designs that have been reviewed by the PDC throughout its over 120-year history are representative of the policies and focus of Mayoral administrations while simultaneously following historical trends in public design, public health, and artistic and cultural movements in the city and country at large. The following examples illustrate the breadth of projects under the PDC's purview, from large scale developments to streetscape fixtures that often go unnoticed. For an in-depth history of the Public Design Commission, see Michele H. Bogart’s book, "The Politics of Urban Beauty."