Hotel Theresa
The Hotel Theresa was a vibrant center of black life in Harlem, New York City, in the mid-20th century. The hotel sits at the intersection of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard (a.k.a. the intersection of 7th Avenue and 125th Street). It opened in 1913 and was from then, until the construction of the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building across the street in 1973, the tallest building in Harlem. It has a striking white brick facade and was known as the "Waldorf Astoria of Harlem." From the time it opened until 1940, the hotel accepted only white guests, plus a few black celebrities. This changed in 1940 when the hotel passed to new management, which welcomed black patrons.
Louis Armstrong, Sugar Ray Robinson, Lena Horne, Josephine Baker, Dorothy Dandridge, Duke Ellington, Muhammad Ali, and Dinah Washington all stayed in the Hotel, as did Fidel Castro and Nikita Kruschev, who elected to stay in Harlem rather that a more standard diplomatic residence while visiting New York in order to draw attention to class and racial divisions in America. The hotel profited from the refusal of prestigous hotels elsewhere in the city to accept black guests. As a result, black businessmen, performers, and athletes were thrown under the same roof.
Malcolm X maintained the Organization of Afro-American Unity at the hotel and hosted many meetings there.
Bill Clinton's commerce secretary, Ron Brown, grew up in the hotel, where his father worked as manager. U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) once worked there as a desk clerk.
The hotel suffered from the continued deterioration of Harlem through the 1950s and 1960s, and, ironically, from the end of segregation elsewhere in the city. As black people of means had alternatives, they stopped coming to Harlem. The hotel closed in 1967.
After remaining vacant for four years, the building was converted to office space in 1971, and now goes by the name "Theresa Towers," though a sign with the old name is still painted on the side of the building, and the old name is still commonly used. The building was declared a landmark by the City of New York in 1993.
Sources
- http://www.barrypopik.com/article/968/waldorf-of-harlem-hotel-theresa-now-theresa-towers
- Meet Me at the Theresa : The Story of Harlem's Most Famous Hotel, Sondra Kathryn Wilson, 2004