WHY DID I PROTEST? I have never been to Paris, not to Rome, the eternal city. Harlem is our Paris, our Rome. Very few buildings here were built by black people, for black people...The Renaissance Casino was one. When it was announced that it was to be demolished, breaking a pledge made to partly restore it, it made me despair, finding myself to be so powerless and to see black history, like black people, so little valued, even by the most elite black people who attend the Abyssinian Baptist church. After 45 minuets spent chanting “save Harlem now”, from the corner of 138th Street outside of the empty ballroom, police came. They said they had calls complaining and asked that I move on. I refused, and hundreds of European tourists looked on, was handcuffed and arrested for “disorderly conduct” and “disturbing the peace”. Harlem’s most famous early 20th-century entertainment-center, with a theatre, restaurants, meeting rooms and dance hall, the ‘Renaissance Casino’, provided the backdrop for the area’s most elegant dances and exciting sporting and political events. The Renns basketball team, Joe Louis, Fletcher Henderson and Ella Fitzgerald appeared here. But vacated in 1989, by the 1990s it had so deteriorated that it was used as a setting for Spike Lee’s crack den from hell in the movie Jungle Fever. Just before this occurred, the Renaissance was sold to the Abyssinian Baptist Church for a nominal sum. It was also identified then by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission as part of their proposed “opening salvo” providing Harlem with landmarks protection equal to that of the rest of Manhattan. January 9th, 2007: A delegation of Harlem residents go to the LPC. This well-connected group was headed by prominent attorney Gordon Davis who formerly served as NYC Parks Commissioner. It included the Rev. Calvin O. Butts, David Dinkins, our former Mayor, City Council Member Inez Dickens, then Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, his predecessor, C. Virginia Fields, and even a representative of the NYC Landmarks Conservancy. All argued that the best way to save the beloved Renny was to partly demolish it. Their plan called for razing the theatre, except for the façade. An apartment tower that incorporated the ballroom section of the complex was to be built behind the theatre façade. In a neighborhood where only 3.5% of buildings have been protected as city landmarks, compared to 3/4ths in Greenwich Village and nearly half on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, leading residents demanded that the Renaissance Casino not be designated under any circumstances. Among the countless wedding receptions held here was that of Joyce and David Dinkins, a half century ago, making former Mayor Dinkins’ testimony imploring that the Renaissance not be land-marked all the more poignant. One wonders if he realizes how disillusioning it was for the Caribbean-American creators of this wonderful building to be foreclosed during the great depression and see their dream taken over by whites? Within a matter of days, the new owners dismissed African American workers, and replaced them with an all-white staff. Something definitely had been lost at the “Renny”. For Joseph Sweeney, a former owner, this loss was so great that he put his head in the oven and turned on the gas stove. His funeral, presided over by the reverend Adam Clayton Powell, sr., was held at the Abyssinian Baptist church.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 00:29:11 +0000
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