Walks in My New York: A Story in Paintings, Photographs, and Text (No Series) by Olrik Mikael

Author:Olrik, Mikael [Olrik, Mikael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2015-05-04T04:00:00+00:00

Actually Harlem was planned for the white middleclass which, by the beginning of the 19th century, had outgrown Downtown Manhattan. Once the subway was extended to Harlem, housing development and speculation took place on a grand scale. Even an opera house was built and prospects for settlement looked good, but the families with children who were meant to move in preferred the Upper West Side. At the same time African Americans migrating from the south needed housing. This presented a quandary for the landlords who couldn’t fill their buildings yet were reluctant to rent apartments to blacks. However, an enterprising black businessman, Philip Payton, came up with a brilliant solution: five year leases at reduced rent.

This provided the spur for the development of Harlem, which soon blossomed into a thriving black community. In the 1920s there were more than 500 jazz clubs. Harlem nightlife was legendary. It was the place to go.

Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, the entire jazz scene, moved to Harlem creating an environment that was groundbreaking and probably the most significant thing ever to happen to jazz. Those were the days with places like The Roseland Ballroom and the recently reopened Apollo. It was also the heyday for the controversial Cotton Club, an anomaly where all the musicians were black but the only patrons who were admitted were white. A paradox difficult to conceive in a time when America’s president is an African-American.

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