Tag Archives: Carl Van Vechten

Fifth Avenue And 110th Street in Harlem NY 1929

Fifth Avenue. looking north from 110th Street showing a movie theater, billboards, and gas station, on October 6, 1929. Street view. (Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)

This is the Fifth Avenue intersection street view looking north from 110th Street showing a movie theater, billboards, and gas station, on October 6, 1929.

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HW Pick: Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance: A Portrait in Black and White

Carl Van Vechten was a white man with a passion for blackness who played a crucial role in helping the Harlem Renaissance, a black movement, come to understand itself. Continue reading

HW Pick: Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance: A Portrait in Black and White

Carl Van Vechten was a white man with a passion for blackness who played a crucial role in helping the Harlem Renaissance, a black movement, come to understand itself. Continue reading

Walter’s World: Dance and More Bearden

Complexions Contemporary Ballet fall season at the Joyce Theatre (175 8th Ave at 19th St) Tuesday November 15 through Sunday November 27. Continue reading

Walter’s World: Weekend Picks Theatre, Bearden and Jazz

By Walter Rutledge

MONETTE- I Love My Life,  Saturday October 29th, 8pm at Walkerspace, 46 Walker Street.

Kymberle Joseph makes her official Off Broadway debut  with this one- woman show. Performances are Thursday and Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 3pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 3pm and 7pm. Continue reading

The Niggerati Manor In Harlem

 

The Niggerati was the name used, with deliberate irony, by Wallace Thurman (below) for the group of young African American artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. “Niggerati” is a portmanteau of “nigger” and “literati”. The rooming house where he lived at 267 West 136th Street, and where that group often met, was similarly christened Niggerati Manor. The group included Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and several of the people behind Thurman’s journal FIRE!! Continue reading

Harlem For Sale: The Lena Horne Estate Auction

Doyle New York will auction the estate of the legendary performer and civil rights pioneer Lena Horne on Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 10 am. Continue reading

Remember: The Elks Rendezvous

Architecture

The above Carl Van Vechten photograph shows a long-gone corner establishment at 464  Lenox Avenue circa 1940. The Elks Rendezvous Lounge had one of most impressive Art Deco neon awnings that we have come across in some time and there’s even a neon elk head at the top curve of the sign (click to enlarge). The musician Louis Jordan created a sextet called Louis Jordan and His The Elks Rendezvous Band after landing a residency at the Elks Rendezvous club at 464 Lenox Avenue in Harlem. Continue reading

HW Pick: William Grant Still

Harlem World Presents’ the World Premiere Recordings on the Naxos Label Performed by the Fort Smith Symphony. Conducted by Music Director John Jeter, the recording showcases major orchestral works by the Great American Composer William Grant Still (photo below is from the new CD $9.98) . Continue reading

Camilla Ella Williams was the first!

Camilla Williams photo taken by Carl Van Vechten, 1946.

Camilla Ella Williams (born October 18, 1919) is an American operatic soprano and the first African American to receive a contract with a major American opera company. Continue reading