Another Harlem landmark bites the dust

[dhermann1]

One of the famous clubs of the Harlem Renaissance will meet the wrecking ball soon. The Ubangi Club, whose name I've always been familiar with, but knew little else about, will make room for another apartment building. Yawn. The Harlem real estate boom booms along.
This article explains that the Ubangi Club, which was near Connie's Inn, was a gay club, long before the term was used. Damned shame.
http://www.queerty.com/ubangi-club-gay-harlem-renaissance-20130311/

 

[dhermann1]

More. The Ubangi Club was apparently the same site as Connie's Inn, where the likes of Fletcher Henderson, Fats Waller, Moms Mabely, Louis Armstrong all performed. Two doors down was the Lafayette Theater, where Orson Welles staged a noted production of Macbeth in 1937. A whole lot of history has just been smashed to smithereens. Criminal.
http://www.queerty.com/ubangi-club-gay-harlem-renaissance-20130311/

 

[dhermann1]

More on the Lafayette Theater, as well. Just amazing.
http://authenticjazzdance.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/sad-losses-in-harlem/

 

[Stearmen]

We are just the opposite here! Condoes are actually saving our old Down Town buildings. It's the new up scale living thing. Unfortunately out of my price range, $500,000 for a loft, with one parking bay! And hear I am, complaining about a 2590 square foot Victorian on a 12,200 foot lot for $335,000.

 

[TomS]

Restored mills are the *in* condo project in my neck of the woods...

 

[majormajor]

One of the famous clubs of the Harlem Renaissance will meet the wrecking ball soon. The Ubangi Club, whose name I've always been familiar with, but knew little else about, will make room for another apartment building. Yawn. The Harlem real estate boom booms along.
This article explains that the Ubangi Club, which was near Connie's Inn, was a gay club, long before the term was used. Damned shame.
http://www.queerty.com/ubangi-club-gay-harlem-renaissance-20130311/

Very sad.

The same fate befell one of the oldest and most historically regarded music clubs in the UK recently. The developers who dream up these things, and the planners who pass them, should be ashamed. In 20 years, someone will say, "ooh, we shouldn't have done that, should we?"......

 

[MrBern]

1935 NYT advert

and sadly this is what replaces it
ttp://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/vestiges-of-harlem-nightlife-and-its-gay-side-give-way-to-wreckers/

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

I had heard about this. Although I feel that Connie's Inn was a shameful and degrading part of Harlem's history just as the Cotton Club was, I understand the desire to preserve the historic structures. Too bad, I guess.

 

[dhermann1]

Shameful and degrading in the sense that it was supposedly all whites, I assume? I believe that Connie's Inn became mixed early on. At any rate some of the most important innovations in American music first saw the light of day there. Damned shame.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Shameful and degrading in the sense that it was supposedly all whites, I assume? I believe that Connie's Inn became mixed early on. At any rate some of the most important innovations in American music first saw the light of day there. Damned shame.

It's like opening up an establishment in say, Little Italy, that featured the latest Italian performers and having a policy of "No Italians allowed" unless of course they are the entertainers and busboys. I just find it highly degrading that the owners of places like the Cotton Club and Connie's Inn had the audacity to not only open up such a club but open it up in the very community they so despised and made beaucoup money off the culture of the people they despised while doing it. Even though I know the history and all of the legendary performers that passed through their doors I can't help but think good riddance to bad rubbish. Langston Hughes had plenty to say about this subject.

 

[dhermann1]

I understand what you're saying, but isn't it also throwing the baby out with the bathwater? That was the very height of Jim Crow. In other areas of the US whites were murdering blacks with impunity. At least here whites (some of them, anyway) were relating to blacks in a positive and appreciative way. And the Ubangi Club definitely crossed color and gender lines. And the Lafayette Theater, which also occupied that block, was definitely a positive landmark.

 

[MrBern]

FYI
Dreams of a Harlem Jazz Rebirth
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/nyregion/envisioning-a-rebirth-of-jazz-in-harlem.html?hp

 

[dhermann1]

I've been right in the middle of this. My office is about equidistant from both locations. There's a lot going on in Harlem these days. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out.