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The Dark Tower was a townhouse on 108 West 136th Street in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City,.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2021) |
The Dark Tower was a townhouse on 108 West 136th Street in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City,.
Madame C.J. Walker commissioned Villa Lewaro in 1916 and began the final stage of construction on another residential / business property associated with the name Dark Tower a year prior (concurrently, private space rentals within the building were being advertised under the dba 'Walker Studio'), [1] with the Dark Tower moniker having originated from poet Countee Cullen's eponymous column in Opportunity Magazine. [2] The Dark Tower space originally consisted of two combined townhouses at 108 and 110 West 136th Street in Harlem, New York [3] starting in 1916 forming the mansion and nascent Dark Tower community. The building was still hosting retail operations on the ground floor, this being distinctly separate from the cultural enlightenment starting to percolate the site based on heightened awareness. During the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, this Neo-Georgian styled mansion expanded to become the popular salon tête-à-tête officially embraced as Dark Tower having such invited visitors such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. Du Bois, Muriel Draper, Nora Holt, Witter Bynner, Andy Razaf, Taylor Gordon, Carl Van Vechten, Clarence Darrow, Alberta Hunter and James Weldon Johnson among others. [1] Eventually, following Walker's death, the mansion was leased to New York City, which repurposed the site to function as a health care clinic triage facility. Finally, in 1941, the mansion was demolished and with construction finally completed for its replacement: the new edifice emerged and was dedicated as the Countee Cullen Branch of the New York Public Library.
Madam C. J. Walker was an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political and social activist. She is recorded as the first female self-made millionaire in America in the Guinness Book of World Records. Multiple sources mention that although other women might have been the first, their wealth is not as well-documented.
Countee Cullen was an American poet, novelist, children's writer, and playwright, particularly well known during the Harlem Renaissance.
Gwendolyn B. Bennett was an American artist, writer, and journalist who contributed to Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, which chronicled cultural advancements during the Harlem Renaissance. Though often overlooked, she herself made considerable accomplishments in art, poetry, and prose. She is perhaps best known for her short story "Wedding Day", which was published in the magazine Fire!! and explores how gender, race, and class dynamics shape an interracial relationship. Bennett was a dedicated and self-preserving woman, respectfully known for being a strong influencer of African-American women rights during the Harlem Renaissance. Throughout her dedication and perseverance, Bennett raised the bar when it came to women's literature and education. One of her contributions to the Harlem Renaissance was her literary acclaimed short novel Poets Evening; it helped the understanding within the African-American communities, resulting in many African Americans coming to terms with identifying and accepting themselves.
Astor Row is the name given to 28 row houses on the south side of West 130th Street, between Fifth and Lenox Avenues in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, which were among the first speculative townhouses built in the area. Designed by Charles Buek, the houses were built between 1880 and 1883 in three spurts, on land John Jacob Astor had purchased in 1844 for $10,000. Astor's grandson, William Backhouse Astor, Jr., was the driving force behind the development.
Mumbo Jumbo is a 1972 novel by African-American author Ishmael Reed, originally published by Doubleday in New York. The novel has remained continuously in print in the decades since its first edition. It was first published in the UK by Allison and Busby, and has been published in translation in several languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, as well as a Chinese translation in 2019. The novel was released as a Penguin Modern Classic in 2017.
A'Lelia Walker was an American businesswoman and patron of the arts. She was the only surviving child of Madam C. J. Walker, popularly credited as being the first self-made female millionaire in the United States and one of the first African American millionaires.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard between West 135th and 136th Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it has, almost from its inception, been an integral part of the Harlem community. It is named for Afro-Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.
The Robb House, located at 23 Park Avenue on the corner of East 35th Street in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City is a townhouse built in 1888-92 and designed in the Italian Renaissance revival style by McKim, Mead & White, with Stanford White as the partner-in-charge.
Fire!! was an African-American literary magazine published in New York City in 1926 during the Harlem Renaissance. The publication was started by Wallace Thurman, Zora Neale Hurston, Aaron Douglas, John P. Davis, Richard Bruce Nugent, Gwendolyn Bennett, Lewis Grandison Alexander, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes. The magazine's title referred to burning up old ideas, and Fire!! challenged the norms of the older Black generation while featuring younger authors. The publishers promoted a realistic style, with vernacular language and controversial topics such as homosexuality and prostitution. Many readers were offended, and some Black leaders denounced the magazine. The endeavor was plagued by debt, and its quarters burned down, ending the magazine after just one issue.
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after The New Negro, a 1925 anthology edited by Alain Locke. The movement also included the new African-American cultural expressions across the urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest United States affected by a renewed militancy in the general struggle for civil rights, combined with the Great Migration of African-American workers fleeing the racist conditions of the Jim Crow Deep South, as Harlem was the final destination of the largest number of those who migrated north.
The Victoria Theater was a theater located on 125th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was designed in 1917 by Thomas W. Lamb, a notable and prolific theater architect of the era, for the Loew's Corporation. It was largely demolished in 2017, with the facade and lobby retained as part of a new mixed-use skyscraper, the tallest building in Manhattan north of Central Park.
Villa Lewaro, is a 34-room 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) mansion located at Fargo Lane and North Broadway in Irvington, New York, 30 miles north of New York City. It was built from 1916 to 1918, and was designed in the Italianate style by architect Vertner Tandy for A’lelia Walker, for her mother, Madam C.J. Walker. An additional site, the Dark Tower Walker residence with business occupancy, was established in New York City's Harlem neighborhood, thus completing the Walker property portfolio.
The Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont House was a mansion located at 477 Madison Avenue on the northeast corner of 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. The building was demolished in 1951.
A'Lelia Perry Bundles is an American journalist, news producer and author, known for her 2001 biography of her great-great-grandmother Madam C. J. Walker.
Frederick Asbury (F.A.) Cullen was an American Methodist minister, community and civil rights activist, based in Harlem, New York City. He supported legal and social protests, and was influential in working with the youth of his community.
Nina Yolande Du Bois, known as Yolande Du Bois, was an American teacher known for her involvement in the Harlem Renaissance. She was the daughter of W.E.B. Du Bois and the former Nina Gomer. Her father encouraged her marriage to Countee Cullen, a nationally known poet of the Harlem Renaissance. They divorced within two years. She married again and had a daughter, Du Bois's only grandchild. That marriage also ended in divorce.
Harold Jackman was a British-born teacher, model, and patron of the arts with emphasis on African American art and literature. Raised in Harlem, Jackman was known for his involvement in the Harlem Renaissance and his dedication to preserving African American cultural artifacts. He founded the Countee Cullen Memorial Collection at Atlanta University and contributed to the James Weldon Johnson Collection of Yale University, the Literary Collection of Fisk University, and to the Schomburg Collection at the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library. Along with Regina M. Anderson and Dorothy Randolph Peterson, he was also a co-founder of the Harlem Experimental Theater.
Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Black Poets of the Twenties: Anthology of Black Verse is a 1927 poetry anthology that was edited by Countee Cullen. It has been republished at least three times, in 1955, 1974, and 1995 and included works by thirty-eight African-American poets, including Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglas Johnson, James Weldon Johnson, and Claude McKay. The anthology also includes biographical sketches of the poets whose work is included in the book.
Edna Lewis Thomas was an American stage actress whose career began in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. She appeared on Broadway, with the Lafayette Players theater company, and in productions by the Federal Theater Project of the Works Progress Administration. Her portrayal of Lady Macbeth in Orson Welles' all-Black "Voodoo" Macbeth in 1936 was much acclaimed. She was an influential figure in Black theater, and was a member of the Alhambra Players and the Harlem Experimental Theatre. She only appeared on screen once, in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire.