Friday, February 10, 2023 – CELEBRATE BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND SOME OF THESE SITES

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2023


ISSUE 910

BLACK HISTORY

SITES TO

DISCOVER IN NYC

(PART 2)

UNTAPPED NEW YORK

Lewis Latimer House

The Lewis Latimer House in Flushing, a red and white Victorian home, honors Lewis Howard Latimer, an African-American inventor and humanist born to fugitive slaves who lived in the home from 1903 until his death in 1928. Latimer was one of the founders of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Queens, and he was known for his work with figures like Hiram S. Maxim, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. The red and white house, which dates back to around 1889, contains a museum dedicated to Latimer’s work and the achievements of other black scientists.

George Latimer, his father, escaped from Virginia to Boston before his subsequent capture and imprisonment. Abolitionists like Frederick Douglass strove to grant George freedom through a publication called “The Latimer Journal, and the North Star.” Growing up in the Antebellum period, Lewis Latimer joined the Union Navy in 1864 and later became an expert draftsman while working at a patent law office. After learning about physics and engineering, Latimer would work with Edison, under whom he invented and patented the carbon filament, which improved the production of the incandescent lightbulb. He also authored “Incandescent Lighting,” the foundation for modern electrical engineering theory. He would also go on to draft drawings for Bell’s invention of the telephone.

Joseph Rodman Drake Park

In Joseph Rodman Drake Park in Bronx’s Hunts Point neighborhood is an enclosed cemetery and recently discovered slave burial ground. When Drake Park was originally created in 1909, an 18th-century cemetery of wealthy slave-owning families like the Hunts and Leggets were preserved. Yet in 2013, students at Public School 48 analyzed census data and maps to identify a potential spot where the remains of 156 Black and Indian slaves in Hunts Point, per the 1790 Census, ended up.

The students and their teacher Justin Czarka found a black-and-white photograph from 1910 showing several markers resembling headstones, labeled on the back, “Slave burying ground, Hunts Point Road.” The US Department of Agriculture sent scientists to perform soil tests using radar in the cemetery in the summer of 2013, and several areas of the park were determined to have “anthropogenic features” as “likely potential burial sites.” A plaque honoring the burial ground was put up in 2014.

The infamous Audubon Ballroom at 166th Street is where Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 while giving a speech. The building was originally built as the William Fox Aubudon Theater in 1912, designed by Thomas Lamb. Shabazz died either en route to or at the Harlem Hospital, across the street.

Today it is owned by Columbia University, which provides space for the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center. Columbia University also preserved the facade of the theat

Apollo Theater

The legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem is perhaps one of the best-known sites that have empowered African Americans to showcase their art and break free from oppression. The singer James Brown, who released the album Live at the Apollo, loved the theater so much that his body was brought to the Apollo before his funeral. Music legends like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Jackson 5, Patti LaBelle, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and many others performed at the Apollo. Additionally, artists like Dave Brubeck and Stan Getz performed at the Apollo, and even The Beatles flocked to the Apollo as soon as they arrived in NYC.

The Apollo Theater was opened in 1914 and was designed by architect George Keister, opening originally as the all-white New Burlesque Theater. It wasn’t until 1934 that it became the Apollo, a hotspot for African American pop culture and music. It became the first theater to allow a mixed-race audience and the first in New York City to hire Blacks for backstage jobs. The year the Apollo opened, Ella Fitzgerald made her singing debut there during Amateur Night, winning a grand $25. Secrets of the Apollo range from its “Good Luck Stump” that entertainers rub before performing to its Wall of Autographs with names like the Obamas, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Photo courtesy New York Public Library. 

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a New York Public Library research library on Malcolm X Boulevard that serves as an archive repository for Black culture worldwide. From poems by Phyllis Wheatley to papers by Malcolm X and Ralph Bunche, the Center is home to everything from manuscripts to rare books to photographs depicting Black culture. The center also houses documents signed by Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture and a recording of a speech given by Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey.

Named after Afro-Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, the Center often hosts readings, art exhibitions, and workshops, and it is currently directed by Guggenheim Fellow Kevin Young. In the past, the Center has put on influential exhibitions like Malcolm X: the Search for Truth, the controversial Give me your poor…, and “Lest We Forget: The Triumph Over Slavery.” The Schomburg Collection today stands at over 10 million objects written, created, and designed by people of African descent from countries like South Africa, Nigeria, and Trinidad and Tobago.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

SOUTH ENTRY TO MACY’S DEPARTMENT STORE
LAMP ON 34TH STREET CLOSE TO 7TH AVENUE

GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT!!

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

UNTAPPED NEW YORK

THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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