Harlem YMCA
community center in Manhattan, New York
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.
Background
Around 1900, a "colored" YMCA operated at 132 W. 53rd street, in the area then known as "San Juan Hill" (now Lincoln Square), which was then a mainly African American residential neighborhood. Between 1910 and 1930, Harlem developed from a mostly white neighborhood to become the center of New York's African American community.
Original West 135th Street Branch (Jackie Robinson Youth Center)
The West 135th Street Branch YMCA, at 181 West 135th Street, was built in 1919 at a cost of $375,000, with funding from Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company. The 226 room building was designed by architect John Jackson in a style suggesting an Italian palazzo.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harlem YMCA” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.