Black-Owned Renaissance Theater Opens
The second post in our series on Black New York, 1921, for Black History Month
One hundred years ago today … Harlem had a new multi-purpose venue, a Black business, the Renaissance Theater at 137th Street and 7th Avenue, seen below in 1923.
Printed in the New York Times, 12 April 2015, Section 2, p. 2. New York Times.
The site opened January 15th, operated by Sarco Realty Company, whose president was William Roach, a West Indian entrepreneur.
New York Age, 22 January 1921, p. 6. Chronicling America.
Advertisements over the next month announced its “grand opening,” as “the first and only theater in the City of New York that has been built by Colored capital and is owned and managed by Colored people.”
New York Age, 5 February 1921, p. 5. Chronicling America.
The Theater represented a movement among Blacks to control their own businesses. A year earlier, the Negroes Factories Incorporated had launched with that aim, presided over by Marcus Garvey and Amy Jacques. (See our post about January 30, 1920.)
Kevin McGruder and Claude Johnson write of the Renaissance:
That historically important structure helped usher in the decade-long period of African American cultural and artistic flourishing, which at the time was known as the New Negro Movement. Those years eventually became known as the Harlem Renaissance period, and while many mistakenly believe that the building was named after the era, it was in fact the other way around. (“Requiem for a Demolished Shrine,” BlackFives.org)
Later in February 1921, the Age reported that the Sarco company, since entering the property business in 1918, had developed numerous projects in Harlem, and was “one of the leading real estate companies in the fight to relieve the housing shortage among the Negroes of Harlem.”
New York Age, 19 February 1921, p. 1. Chronicling America.
The Age also reports that one of the businesses within the building was the Puerto Rican-owned Dunbar Cigar Factory (to which NY 1920s will return).
Harlem World Magazine says the structure would soon become a “block-long entertainment complex that included stores” The 1923 photo above shows a storefront sign for the "Colored American Retail Co." (which Roach owned). Also visible is the Abyssinian Baptist Church, newly erected at the time and still standing.
– Jonathan Goldman, February 3, 2021
TAGS: Black business, entrepreneurialism, African American culture, real estate, entertainment, housing,