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Creator
409 Edgecombe Avenue Tenant Association
Call number
Sc MG 804
Physical description
6.34 linear feet (16 boxes, 1 oversize folder)
Language
English
Preferred Citation
[Item], 409 Edgecombe collection, Sc MG 804, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library
Sponsor
Home to Harlem Project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Repository
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

409 Edgecombe Avenue, also known as Colonial Parkway Apartments, is a residential apartment building in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem that was home to many of the city's Black elite during the 1920s–1950s. The 409 Edgecombe collection consists of the personal effects of building residents, typically including correspondence, bills, receipts, and other ephemera. The collection is made up of the contents of trunks found in a storage room of the building by the 409 Edgecombe Avenue Tenant Association.

Biographical/historical information

409 Edgecombe Avenue, also known as Colonial Parkway Apartments, is a residential apartment building in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem that was home to many of the city's Black elite during the 1920s–1950s.

The thirteen-story building was designed by architects Simon Schwartz and Arthur Gross in the neo-Georgian style and completed in 1917. Though initially its tenants were exclusively white, the building opened to Black tenants December 1, 1927, and they soon comprised the majority of the building's residents. The building's luxury amenities attracted members of New York's Black upper class, and residents included a number of notable figures, such as NAACP leaders Walter Francis White and Roy Wilkins, artists Aaron Douglas and Elizabeth Catlett, journalist Marvel Cooke, author and activist W.E.B. Du Bois, and lawyer and future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall. Langston Hughes dubbed the building "Harlem's House of Celebrities" and described it as a hub of social activity for writers and poets during the Harlem Renaissance, declaring it "one of Harlem's most fashionable addresses." By the 1950s, Jet magazine argued the glamour of the Sugar Hill neighborhood was fading as some residents moved elsewhere, but named 409 Edgecombe as an exception for retaining "anything approaching the high-styled living of yesteryear."

Ownership of the building has passed through various entities, from its initial owner Candler Holding Corp., to Nicolas Jones and the Colonial Parkway Corp. in 1918, to Metropolitan Life Insurance in 1930, to the Antillean Holding Company, a Black-owned investment group led by Augustine A. Austin, in 1942. After Austin's son Orin defaulted on the mortgage, Metropolitan Life Insurance again took over, and in 1976 the building was purchased by Harold Tamarin. Due to Tamarin's failure to pay taxes, the city took ownership of the building in 1979, and it was converted to an HDFC co-op. In 1993, the building was given landmark status by New York City.

Scope and arrangement

The 409 Edgecombe collection consists of the personal effects of building residents, typically including correspondence, bills, receipts, and other ephemera. The collection is made up of the contents of trunks found in a storage room of the building by the 409 Edgecombe Avenue Tenant Association.

Please note that the belongings of some residents, including Walter White and Aaron Douglas, have been cataloged as separate collections; see under Separated Material for a full list.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged alphabetically by name, with unidentified material at the end.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Gift, 409 Edgecombe Avenue Tenant Association, 1988

Separated material

Material from the 409 Edgecombe collection was separated to create the following collections:

Walter White papers, Sc MG 479, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library

Aaron Douglas papers, Sc MG 308, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library

Fisher family papers, Sc MG 312, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library

Lillian Ross letters, Sc MG 547, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library

Philip Watson papers, Sc MG 546, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library

Alphonso H. Johnson papers, Sc MG 550, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library

Alma Lillie Hubbard papers, Sc MG 549, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library

Additional material was transferred to the following divisions of the Schomburg Center:

Photographs belonging to Marie Thomas were transferred to the Photographs and Prints division (Marie Thomas collection / Sc Photo Marie Thomas Collection).

Transferred to the Art and Artifacts division: World War I army uniform, sash, pins, and jewelry.

Bibliography

Burden-Stelly, Charisse. "Radical Blackness and Mutual Comradeship at 409 Edgecombe," Black Perspectives, African American Intellectual History Society, July 16, 2019.

"Harlem's Luxury Corner," The Inter-State Tattler, March 30, 1928.

"Has Sugar Hill Gone to the Dogs?," Jet 3, no. 20, March 26, 1953.

Hughes, Langston. "409 Edgecombe," The Chicago Defender, October 12, 1946.

"Streetscapes/409 Edgecombe Avenue; An Address that Drew the City's Black Elite" New York Times, July 24, 1994.

Urbanelli, Elisa. "409 Edgecombe Avenue Apartments," Report prepared for New York City Landmark Preservation Commission, June 15, 1993.

Using the collection

Location

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Second Floor