Wabash Avenue YMCA | |
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Location | 3763 S. Wabash Ave. Chicago, Illinois |
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Coordinates | 41°49′33″N87°37′29″W / 41.82583°N 87.62472°W |
Built | 1911 |
Architect | Berlin, Robert C. |
MPS | Black Metropolis TR |
NRHP reference No. | 86001095 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | April 30, 1986 |
Designated CL | September 9, 1998 |
Wabash Avenue YMCA is a Chicago Landmark located within the Chicago Landmark Black Metropolis-Bronzeville Historic District in the Douglas community area of Chicago, Illinois. This YMCA facility served as an important social center within the Black Metropolis area, and it also provided housing and job training for African Americans migrating into Chicago in the early 20th century. In 1915, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, one of the first groups specializing in African-American studies, was founded during a meeting at the Wabash 'Y'. [2]
Louis Gregory, a traveling speaker for the Bahá'í Faith and often attending national conventions of the religion held in Chicago area, is known to have stayed there in the spring of 1918 and gave talks to clubs while in town. [3] Black contralto Marian Anderson gave one of her early performances here in 1919. [4]
The Black Metropolis area in Chicago, centered on the area of 35th Street and State Street, was a city within a city developed by the black community as an alternative to the restrictions, exploitations, and indifference of the city at large. Wabash Avenue YMCA was opened in 1914, supported by Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company at the time. Rosenwald had a philanthropic interest in black-oriented causes. YMCA provided job training programs such as auto repair and manual training. The Black Metropolis district thrived through the 1920s, but competition from white-owned businesses on 47th Street and the effects of the Great Depression led to the closure of many of the black-owned businesses. [5] Declining membership and deterioration of the building led to its closing in 1981. In the late 1990s, however, a nine-million dollar renovation project was undertaken by The Renaissance Collaborative to return to the building to its rightful condition. [6]
It was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1986. [1]
Julius Rosenwald was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for establishing the Rosenwald Fund, which donated millions in matching funds to promote vocational or technical education. In 1919 he was appointed to the Chicago Commission on Race Relations. He was also the principal founder and backer for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, to which he gave more than $5 million and served as president from 1927 to 1932.
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The Harlem YMCA is located at 180 West 135th Street between Lenox Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1931-32, the red-brown brick building with neo-Georgian details was designed by the Architectural Bureau of the National Council of the YMCA, with James C. Mackenzie Jr. as the architect in charge. It replaced the building from 1919 across the street. Inside the building is a mural by Aaron Douglas titled "Evolution of Negro Dance." The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976, and was designated a New York City Landmark in 1998.
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