Richard Wright slept there. So did Claude McKay, Matthew Henson, George Washington Carver and Malcolm X.
Ralph Ellison waited tables there, Paul Robeson was discovered on its stage and Jackie Robinson coached basketball in the gym.
This bastion of black history is the Harlem Y.M.C.A., sometimes called the “living room of the Harlem Renaissance.” The 11-story brick building, on 135th Street off Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, also played a critical role throughout segregation, when blacks were barred from other Y.M.C.A.’s and were similarly unwelcome at many hotels, theaters, restaurants and other public places in the city — including Harlem itself. Continue reading
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