Outdoors the Washington Heights department of the New York Public Library in Manhattan stands a metallic put up topped with an unassuming blue plaque bearing golden letters — an simply missed marker that’s truly a window into Harlem’s storied previous.
Bearing the identify Regina Anderson Andrews, it memorializes the librarian, playwright and group activist who was influential within the Harlem Renaissance of the twentieth century. As the primary Black lady to move a New York Metropolis department of the New York Public Library, Andrews took the library idea past books to embody group engagement, cultural cultivation and studying and overcame many years of discrimination to take action.
Music prodigy Coleman “the Hawk” Hawkins introduced the tenor saxophone from the background to middle stage and revolutionized jazz. “I think a solo should tell a story… Romanticism and sorrow and greed—they can all be put into music,” he as soon as mentioned. (Theresa Braine/NYDN)
“Old Harlem is disappearing,” Taylor mentioned. “That’s why While We Are Still Here is a really needed entity right now, just to codify as much of the history as we possibly can.”
The 25 indicators arrayed round Harlem from West one hundred and tenth Road to West 163rd Road memorialize the folks, organizations, buildings and websites that type the wealthy historical past of the neighborhood as soon as recognized worldwide as a hub and incubator of Black artistry and tradition.
Taylor first conceived of the indicators in 2020. With assist from the African-American Cultural Heritage Motion Fund and a number of other different arts and humanities teams, the primary signal was put in in 2023. The ultimate ones must be in place by the tip of 2025. A pair are pending on account of close by development.
There are plaques bearing family names akin to civil rights activist Malcolm X, and Nelson Mandela, who obtained a “statesman’s welcome” at Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and West a hundred and twenty fifth Road in 1990 after being launched from jail in South Africa, based on his inscription. There are nods to the Cotton Membership, the indispensable Inexperienced Guide safe-travel information, and two landmark Edgecombe Avenue residence buildings as soon as dwelling to African American luminaries together with Paul Robeson, Thurgood Marshall and W.E.B. Du Bois.
There’s one for Dorothy Maynor exterior the Harlem College of the Arts, which she based again in 1964. Below her stewardship, it nurtured the artistry of hundreds of scholars, a mission it continues to at the present time.
Dorothy Maynor based the Harlem College for the Arts, commemorated by this marker exterior the varsity’s predominant constructing. (Theresa Braine/NYDN)
Ethel Waters, the actress and singer who broke Broadway boundaries to combine the theater, was additionally the primary African American to have each her personal selection present and tv sequence—“The Ethel Waters Show” and “Beulah,” respectively — and the primary to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy.
Andrews began as a librarian at NYPL’s one hundred and thirty fifth Road department in the course of the Harlem Renaissance and created a spot for group gathering, exploration and studying, additionally carving out house for African American writers to hone their craft in security and quiet.
The indicators had been hand-crafted and painted by hand by an Ohio firm, with the letters hand-pressed, Taylor mentioned. The markers additionally type a cornerstone for bringing the historical past to life in festivals and displays, performances and occasions. On this approach, the historical past of Harlem will all the time be current, even when its residents are not predominantly African American, Taylor mentioned, noting, “There will at least be a visual reminder of what happened here.”
