Harlem/Culture

Culture and environment


In the 1920s, Harlem was the center of a flowering Black culture that became known as the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a time of impressive artistic production, but due to the racist practices then accepted, Blacks were sometimes excluded from viewing the creations of their peers. Some jazz venues, including most famously the Cotton Club, where Duke Ellington played, and Connie's Inn, were restricted to Whites. Others were integrated, including the Renaissance Ballroom and the Savoy Ballroom.

Since the 1920s, this period of Harlem's history has been highly romanticized. With the increase in a poor population, it was also the time when the neighborhood began to deteriorate to a slum, and some of the storied traditions of the Harlem Renaissance were driven by poverty, crime, or other social ills. For example, in this period Harlem became known for "rent parties," informal gatherings in which bootleg alcohol was served and music played. Neighbors paid to attend and thus enabled the host to make his or her monthly rent. Though picturesque, these parties were thrown out of necessity. Further, more than a quarter of Black households in Harlem made their monthly rent by taking in lodgers, who sometimes brought bad habits or even crime that disrupted the lives of respectable families. Urban reformers campaigned to eliminate the "lodger evil" but the problem got worse before it got better; in 1940, still affected by the Depression, 40% of Black families in Harlem took in lodgers.

The high rents and poor maintenance of housing stock, which Harlem residents endured through much of the 20th century, was not merely the product of racism by White landlords. Though precise statistics are not available, wealthier Blacks purchased land in Harlem, and even by 1920, a significant portion of the neighborhood was owned by Blacks. By the late 1960s, 60% of the businesses in Harlem that responded to surveys reported ownership by Blacks, and later an overwhelming fraction of new businesses were Black owned.

In 1928, the first effort at housing reform was attempted in Harlem with the construction of the Paul Laurence Dunbar Houses, backed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. These were intended to give working people of modest means the opportunity to live in and, over time, purchase houses of their own. The Great Depression hit shortly after the buildings opened, and the experiment failed. They were followed in 1936 by the Harlem River Houses, a more modest experiment in housing projects. And by 1964, nine giant public housing projects had been constructed in the neighborhood, housing more than 41,000 people.



The Apollo Theater opened on 125th Street on January 26, 1934, in a former burlesque house. The Savoy Ballroom on Lenox Avenue was a renowned venue for swing dancing and was immortalized in a popular song of the era, "Stompin' At The Savoy." In the 1920s and 1930s, between Lenox and Seventh Avenues in central Harlem, more than 125 entertainment places operated, including speakeasies, cellars, lounges, cafes, taverns, supper clubs, rib joints, theaters, dance halls and bars and grills.

Though Harlem musicians and writers are particularly well remembered, the community has also hosted numerous actors and theater companies, including the New Heritage Repertory Theater, National Black Theater, Lafayette Players, Harlem Suitcase Theater, The Negro Playwrights, American Negro Theater, and the Rose McClendon Players. In 1936, Orson Welles produced his famous Black Macbeth at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem. Grand theaters from the late 19th and early 20th centuries were torn down or converted to churches. Harlem lacked any permanent performance space until the creation of the Gatehouse Theater in an old pumping station on 135th Street in 2006.

In the post-World War II era, Harlem ceased to be home to a majority of NYC's Blacks, but it remained the cultural and political capital of Black New York and possibly Black America. The character of the community changed in the years after the war, as middle-class Blacks left for the other boroughs (primarily the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn) and suburbs. The Black percentage of Harlem peaked in 1950, at 98.2%. Thereafter, Hispanics and, more recently, White residents have increased their share.



Black Harlem has always been religious. The area is home to more than 400 churches. Major Christian denominations include Baptists, Methodists (generally African Methodist Episcopalian, or "AME"), Episcopalians, and Roman Catholic. The Abyssinian Baptist Church has been a particularly potent organization, long influential because of its large congregation, and recently wealthy as a result of its extensive real estate holdings.

The Nation of Islam and splinter Black Muslim groups maintain mosques in Harlem, and the Mormon church established a chapel at 128th Street in 2005. Many of the area's churches are "storefront churches," which operate out of an empty store, a building's basement or a converted brownstone townhouse. These congregations may have fewer than 30–50 members each, but there are hundreds of them. Judaism, too, maintains a presence in Harlem, including The Old Broadway Synagogue, Temple Healing from Heaven and Temple of Joy. A non-mainstream synagogue of Black Jews known as Commandment Keepers was based in a synagogue at 1 West 123rd Street until 2008. Especially in the years before World War II, Harlem produced popular Christian charismatic "cult" leaders, including George Wilson Becton and Father Divine.

Since 1965, the community has been home to the Harlem Boys Choir, a famous touring choir and education program for young boys, most of whom are Black. The Girls Choir of Harlem was founded in 1988.

Harlem is also home to the largest African-American Day Parade, which celebrates the culture of African diaspora in America. The parade started in spring 1969 with Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. as the grand marshal.

Arthur Mitchell, a former dancer with the New York City Ballet, established Dance Theatre of Harlem as a school and company of classical ballet and theater training in the late 1960s. The company has toured nationally and internationally. Generations of theater artists got a start at the school.

Manhattan's contribution to hip-hop stems largely from the artists who have Harlem roots, including Kurtis Blow and P. Diddy. Harlem is also the birthplace of popular hip-hop dances, including the Harlem shake, toe wop and Chicken Noodle Soup.