It’s often been a quiet, tactfully kept DL secret, sometimes expressed by area institutions in doublespeak, but Harlem’s long-term residents today are just as concerned with our community losing its unique and distinct Black identity and association as white residents were about losing a special place 110 years ago.
That’s what makes the question “Just what in the devil is ‘the built archive’ of Harlem?” an important one. It was a query pondered and grappled recently, from September 17–19, as the CCNY Spitzer School of Architecture held a dynamic symposium presented by the Harlem Place, Memory, & Culture Incubator.
Led by Jerome Haferd, assistant professor of architecture in the City College Spitzer School of Architecture (SSA) and part of the architectural team in charge of the Amsterdam New’s coming National African American Journalism Center, the conference examined how design practitioners are reimagining our built environment and preservation practice through Afro-diasporic culture and memory.
The premier event brought together Harlem and national leading artists, architects, scholars, archivists, and cultural professionals to explore how Black memory, design, spatial justice, and community knowledge shape the ways we document, preserve, and imagine our shared histories and futures — and how architecture can act to bridge multiple disciplines.
During a tour I conducted Friday morning that compared the heritage of 135th Street, Black Harlem’s original Main Street, with 125th Street, which emphasized white shoppers well into the mid-20th century, I stressed that whatever exists in Harlem has meaning and belongs to us. “Whatever survives, only did so due to us.” That applies to exceptional buildings built by and for whites or important adaptations like Franco’s painted security gates,
In 1911, St. Philip’s Episcopal Church took deliberate action to hasten the creation of a Black stronghold uptown by purchasing a row of 10 French Flats (apartments with private baths but no elevator) on the north side of 135th Street (stretching west of the Harlem Public Library that became the Schomburg Center, nearly to Seventh Avenue). The buildings were obtained through pioneering Black Realtor John Nail for a quarter-million dollars — the largest realty purchase by African Americans in New York’s history. Whites were evicted and replaced by Black families.
Mordecai Cargill of ThirdSpace Action Lab; Jerome Haferd, CCNY professor, SSA; Justin Garrett Moore, Mellon Foundation officer; Vanessa Morrison, University of Oklahoma; Eric Riley, architect, KDI; Germane Barnes, U. Miami; Amber Wiley, U. Oklahoma; Marta Gutman, dean, CCNY, SSA; Inye Wokoma, Wa Na Wari. (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Justin Moore and Glenn Hunter. (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Architect and CCNY professor Jerome Haferd; artist Abigail DeVille; civil rights attorney, activist, and twin brother Roman Haferd; and professor and author Amber Wiley. (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
French Flats — apartments on the north side of 135th Street, purchased in 1911 by St. Philip’s Episcopal Church to help turn Harlem from white to Black. (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Picker Building, aka Frank’s Chophouse (315 West 125th Street), built in 1887 and designed by John F. Miller; 125th Street’s only surviving cast iron façade. (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Frank’s Chophouse, bought by Trinidadian African American Selwyn Joseph in 1964. (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Original entrance to 1325 Park Avenue by C. P. H. Gilbert, one of 125th Street’s most-threatened buildings (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Today’s entrance to 1325 Park Avenue, illustrates what could happen to entire landmarked building. (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Onetime Twelfth Ward Bank Building, designed by George S. Drew in 1892; another unprotected and endangered 125th Street building. (Michael Henry Adams photos)
For three generations, this strategic investment was the basis of the church’s endowment. Renovated in a way that shaved off the buildings’ distinctive cornices and replaced ground-floor commercial shops, whose rents once helped lower the rents of residents, it doesn’t just need immediate restoration of pretty architectural elements. “Sure, restoring the beauty and history of a place is an important way to attract business and tourism while instilling pride in the people who live here, but greater affordability can come from having stores that cater to residents. In this case, that’s of equal importance,” I told the group.
On 125th Street, at stores like Blumstein’s, the Lowe’s Victoria Theater, and Frank’s Chophouse, Black patrons were discriminated against as late as the 1930s. It took lawsuits using New York State’s Civil Rights Law, regular editorials in the Amsterdam News and other Black journals, and public demonstrations, to finally effect a change, led by community giants like Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and actress Freddie Washington.
By 1963, famous Frank’s even became Black-owned after it was acquired by Trinidadian African American Selwyn Joseph. Richard Greene, executive VP of Black-owned Carver Savings and Loan Bank; Apollo Theater owner Frank Schiffman; entertainers Nancy Wilson, Dionne Warwick, Bill Cosby, Cannonball Adderly, and other bigwigs all lunched here. Frank’s closed around 1971.
On Saturday morning, Valerie Joe Bradley, president of Save Harlem Now!, opened a panel with compelling memories of Harlem and a path that led her to eventually moving here from East 55th Street. Back in the 1970s, her well-to-do white neighbors shouted racist insults and epithets, threw garbage, and called police with noise complaints whenever she entertained United Nations delegates on her magnificent terrace.
Uptown, in methodically restoring a Victorian brownstone, she became an active advocate for local parks, dance, and art charities, ultimately becoming an historic preservationist. Articulating how, along with gentrification and a rapidly evolving built environment, the traditional cultural life of Harlem is also under threat, she said, “This threat is real and doesn’t just include well-built buildings with beautiful architecture being put at risk of vanishing. Everyday sounds and rituals of Harlem like block parties are also what make this place unique. DJ Stormin’ Norman’s (Norman McHugh) summer dance parties, welcoming all comers, as diverse as they wanna be; Sundae Sermon; are out of this world, bBut in a changing Harlem, it’s becoming more and more difficult to secure a permit due to noise complaints from recent residents.”
Hearing this, a local audience member noted, “Tomorrow is the African American Day Parade. I just want you to notice the police presence. Bigger and bigger each year; it’s become excessive!”
Bradley’s remarks led to an engaging conversation with Sade Lythcott, one of the designers responsible for creating the new National Black Theatre. She pushed the panel and audience to look beyond conversations around the nuance of preservation in communities of color like Harlem: “Let’s consider that it’s not just about old vs new buildings, but how do we effectively ensure that any aspect of Black cultural life will endure here or anywhere?”
“I hear you,” said a delegate from Cleveland, complaining that for all its historical significance (Laura Spelman Rockefeller, wife of John D. Rockefeller, who founded Spelman College, taught there and Langston Hughes attended high school here) and architectural distinction, Cleveland’s Central High School remains vacant with no announced plans.
“These are high-stakes issues confronting us,” said Haferd. “My hope for the conference was to remove some of the ‘silos’ that currently seem to exist between different folks, org[anizations]s, and disciplines, all engaged in what I would consider to be preservation and memory work. These efforts of historic preservation, design, and activism can and should all be allied in the holistic cultural preservation of neighborhoods and communities like Harlem, which have always been dynamic. What we’ve begun must commit us to an ongoing dialogue, assuring not just sustaining and substantiation for Black heritage worldwide, but utilizing culture, history, and heritage, in a way that stimulates and strengthens Black people.”
