How much do New Yorkers value buildings of architectural interest? The example of New York City Centre. By Vianney Lepoutre

NYC CENTRE
NYC Centre restoration
Sponsorship for the restoration

The New York City Center, previously known as the City Center of Music and Drama, is a Neo-Moorish theater built in 1923, famous as a performing home for several major dance companies.

The theater was first used as a meeting house for the Ancient Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, a freemasonry organization. It was purchased by the city in 1943 and saved from demolition with the idea of transforming it into a theater.

The New York City Center was renovated in 2010 for $56 million. Historic elements like the mosaic walls, arabesque ceilings and the original box-office lobby were restored.

This restoration effort is proof that New Yorkers want to protect their old buildings and have found the means to do so. The New York City Center is a fine example of the culturally rich past of the City. New Yorkers want to keep buildings like it as they are places that bring back memories, that bear witness to past events, both good and sometimes sad.

Are New Yorkers nostalgic people? Yes and no. They are prepared to spend much time, effort and money on preservation, which would indicate a fondness for things of a bygone era. But, I would say, it is not a morbid interest, but rather more motivated by pride of past accomplishments and the need to remind ourselves and future generations of those times and of the progress made since. It’s a museological, academic, educational interest more than a desperate attempt to maintain the memory of better times alive…

Since the 1950s, many preservation organizations have been set up. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) is one among many. The aim of GVSHP is to preserve the architectural heritage and cultural history of Greenwich Village and contribute to Village community life.

Similar preservation movements exist elsewhere in the New York boroughs, showing the importance heritage has for New Yorkers.

Through preserving examples of past architecture, they want to protect what had and still has importance for them: their homes, the places where things happened to them… New Yorkers want to preserve the places that have meaning, that remind them of events and people, of yesteryear and of today. The past needs to be present…

Lower East Side Tenement Museum

Tenement Museum

AE sponsorship

“Harlem is where the heritage is!” By Emma Nicolas

Harlem Heritage Tours

Harlem has been famous since the 1920s as an African-American residential, cultural and business area. It is one of New York’s more vibrant neighboroods and one that is undergoing considerable development. Americans, and Black Americans in particular, are proud of the cultural heritage of Harlem.

Harlem is a large neighborhood north of the borough of Manhattan. Black residents began to arrive there in large numbers in the early 20th century during the Great Migration. In the 1920s and 1930s, the “Harlem Renaissance” took place, mostly in Central and West Harlem. For the Black artists, musicians, politicians and entrepreneurs, it was a time when everything seemed possible, a time, as a former resident recalled, when “it was truly bliss to be alive”. Not only did Blacks take pride in their African heritage, pride in Black folklore, pride in just being Black, it also seemed natural to believe that art could bridge the formidable gap between the black and white worlds, that excellence and merit could produce social change. However, with job losses during the Great Depression and the closure of the industries in New York City after World War II, crime and poverty increased significantly.

Then segregation reared its ugly head and the African-American dream of a better life fell apart. Harlem was seen by New Yorkers as a place of extreme poverty where you could buy drugs easily. Whites considered it a dangerous place because “full of black people”. Violence rose.

During the 1960s, public figures like Malcolm X, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Queen Mother Moore, and Preston Wilcox, used Harlem as a launch pad for political, social, and economic empowerment activities.

Howard Dodson, the director of Harlem's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, has said about the Harlem community: “…coming into the urban areas they (Blacks) had access to information, more information not just about themselves but about their world, and an opportunity to think in some very different ways about their world and what they might do to change it.”

Segregation has gradually faded away in Harlem, and the neighborhood has slowly been gentrified in the past twenty years.

Many local tour companies have appeared. “Harlem is where the heritage is!” is the slogan of the Harlem Heritage Tours company. This company is different from the others because all tours are conducted by those who were actually born and raised in Harlem. You can take a Harlem Gospel tour, a Harlem Hip Hop roots tour, a Harlem movies tour, a Harlem Jazz tour, or even a Harlem heritage basket-ball tour. The creator of the company said: “When we started ten years ago, many thought that visitors would be reluctant to visit the community, but to our pleasant surprise, the public was thirsty for authentic experiences presented via the eyes of those who are actually from Harlem”.

I would have thought most New Yorkers would have preferred to forget Harlem’s history, the violence, poverty, drugs and crime… But Harlem is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The President of Harlem Heritage Tours said: “I’ve had opportunities to reverse people’s perceptions of my home. So many people come here and they want the history, they want the culture. But they hesitate because of the stereotype that Harlem is dangerous… And I walk them around and show them what Harlem is really about”.

WTC 9/11 by Steve Reich

Dealing with tragedy...

Listen to an extract on youtube!

Fostering living cultural heritage...

City Lore Web site

City Lore cultural centre

Romare Bearden

Romare Bearden Foundation

Romare Bearden, United States, (1911-1988) was a collage artist and painter. He was an African-American who is internationally recognized for his lifelong work as a collage artist. His work told many captivating and inspiring stories to draw attention to social realism and to celebrate the African-American experience. During the 1960's he becharmed a type of art we call collage. Collage comes from the French word coller, "to gum or stick something together." His work was created by gluing fragments of paper, fabric, scraps, photographs, drawings, and images in magazines and newspapers to a flat surface. In addition, he used watercolors, oil paints, and inks to make his collages. He enjoyed many art forms and styles including African, Asian and European art.

Romare Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. He moved to Harlem in New York City when he was a young child and grew up there in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance (1919-1929), was a period in American cultural history when Black artists felt a need to contribute their African heritage and pride in a positive way to the visual, performing and literary arts. Harlem became the center of this artistic rebirth period during the 1920's when Romare Bearden was a young artist. Many visits were made to the Bearden household by family friend and poet, Langston Hughes, and musicians, Fats Waller and Duke Ellington. From the 1940's through the 1980's, Romare Bearden became a presence in American art. He has had many successful exhibitions at premier art galleries throughout the United States.

Romare Bearden captured many wonderful images from his childhood memories and images of the people and places throughout his life. His work is rich with narrative details about black community life-public and private. It is apparent that Romare Bearden had an amazing ability to unify the mixed media of his work through experimentation to communicate universal themes with profound artistic value. 

Information adapted from PBS Newshour

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