Golden wedding anniversary
dinner for Mr and Mrs Joseph Guttenberg in their dining room,
118 West 120th Street, 1902 (note mantelpiece in right
background). MCNY Byron Collection.
NEW YORK CITY - The Museum of the City of New York's main floor
south exhibition galleries is filled with rich evocations of
Harlem's past as well as documents of the area's bright future
with the opening of "" on May 3.
The exhibition, which will run until January 4, traces the
architectural history of Harlem from preRevolutionary times to
World War I, as it emerged from farmland and suburb to thriving
metropolis on the eve of its explosion into world consciousness
as the "Cultural Capital of Black America."
Inspired by the book of the same title by architectural historian
and Harlem resident Michael Henry Adams, who serves as the
exhibition's guest curator, "" features images from the museum's
collections and color photographs of contemporary Harlem by Paul
Rocheleau. Furniture, sculpture, costumes, tableware and ephemera
that belonged to Harlem residents ranging from Alexander Hamilton
to Madam C.J. Walker evoke the real-life, everyday Harlem.
The exhibition is organized in two adjacent galleries. It begins
with a series of color portraits of contemporary Harlem residents
who are guarding Harlem's past. That section leads into an
assemblage of paintings, photographs, furniture, costumes,
sculpture and silver that document the early history of Harlem -
the Harlem not yet annexed to the City of New York, the Harlem of
race tracks and mansions in sylvan settings.
Among the items on view are furniture from Hamilton Grange (the
Harlem estate of Alexander Hamilton), a dress worn by Madame
Stephen Jumel (nee Eliza Bowen) at Morris-Jumel mansion and a
painting, circa 1830, by an anonymous artist of the Archibald D.
Watt mansion at present-day West 139th-140th Streets. The Watt
mansion, remarkably well documented in a 1908 series of
photographs by Edwin Levick, was demolished in 1925.
Much of the main 2,400-foot gallery features separate sections on
individual neighborhoods within Harlem. Each neighborhood section
is realized with both historical and contemporary photographs and
with objects of many kinds.
Of special note is the collection of items lent by A'Lelia
Bundles, great-great-grand daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and
great-grand daughter of A'Lelia Walker. Madam Walker, one of the
first self-made American woman millionaires, was in the vanguard
of the movement to Harlem by African Americans in the years
preceding World War I.
Other objects on display singly and in groups include a grotesque
gargoyle from City College, removed from the façade of one of the
early buildings at the Convent Avenue site designed by George B.
Post and recast in terra-cotta as part of the institution's
efforts to preserve its own architectural history.
Architectural elements rescued by preservationist and curator
Michael Henry Adams from a variety of Harlem sites - including
the former Audubon Theatre and Ballroom - give resonance to the
photographs of structures that are no more.
A group of photographs and documents - including a letter written
by a black New Yorker who suffered through the race riot of 1900
on the middle West Side of Manhattan, then the major black
residential area - provide context for the movement of African
Americans into Harlem. These materials also suggest why black New
Yorkers regarded Harlem as a "Promised Land" for African
Americans and why that sense of promise helped nurture the
explosion of talent that came to be known as the Harlem
Renaissance.
A variety of programs, ranging from lectures and book talks, to
musical presentations and walking tours, will be offered in
connection with the exhibition during its eight-month run.
The Museum of the City of New York is at 1220 Fifth Avenue.
For information, 212-534-1672 or www.mcny.org.
