Harlem Historic District, Library Are Designated As Landmarks

HARLEM, NY — A century-old library branch and a collection of 13 historic blocks in Harlem were both designated as city landmarks on Tuesday, the culmination of a yearslong push by neighborhood preservationists to recognize the spaces.

The Dorrance Brooks Historic District runs along both sides of Frederick Douglass Boulevard between West 135th and 140th streets, bounded by St. Nicholas Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard.

Hailed by the Landmarks Preservation Commission for its "remarkably cohesive and intact streetscapes," the area includes dozens of ornate rowhouses built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, coinciding with the extension of the subway system uptown.

It played a key role in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, years after Black Americans first arrived in Harlem after being pushed out of their former homes on the West Side of Manhattan. In that era, the Dorrance Brooks district was home to W.E.B. DuBois, singer Ethel Waters, and the headquarters of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

One home, at 580 St. Nicholas Ave., played host to the "Harlem West Side Literary Salon," a meetup that helped launch the careers of Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes and other Renaissance luminaries.

The neighborhood also figures in the history of African American medicine: during an era when Black doctors were often turned away from major hospitals, two small hospitals were opened in the district to serve Harlem residents.

Tuesday's unanimous vote by the Landmarks commission brings to an end a process that began in 2018, when Community Board 10 passed a resolution calling for the district to gain landmark status.

Named after a Black serviceman who died in action in World War I, Dorrance Brooks Square is the city's first landmarked district to bear the name of an African American.

Also designated on Tuesday was the Harlem Branch of the New York Public library, a building completed in 1909 on West 124th Street on the northern edge of Marcus Garvey Park.

Funded by Andrew Carnegie and designed by the renowned firm McKim, Mead & White, the three-story building initially served mostly German and Irish immigrants who lived in the area at the time. As Harlem's demographics changed by the mid-1930s, the branch "nurtured African-American cultural and intellectual life, especially during the Harlem Renaissance," according to a past Landmarks presentation.

The library once housed the groundbreaking Rose McClendon Players theater group, and is the only one of Harlem's five Carnegie libraries that had not already been designated a city landmark.

The actor Ossie Davis called the branch "the only home I had ... the very temple of my existence, my craft, the place that trained me, the first institution to welcome me," according to the NYPL.

Previous coverage:

• Harlem Historic District, Library Move Closer To Landmark Status
• Harlem Sites Nominated For National Landmark Status