Sugar Hill, Manhattan

For the same-named district in Detroit, see Sugar Hill Historic District (Detroit, Michigan).
Sugar Hill Historic District
row houses at 718-730 St. Nicholas Avenue (2014)
Map
LocationRoughly bounded by W. 155th St., 145th St., Edgecombe Ave. and Amsterdam Ave.
Manhattan, New York
Coordinates40°49′38″N 73°56′36″W / 40.82722°N 73.94333°W / 40.82722; -73.94333
Area75 acres (30 ha)
Built1883-1930[2]
ArchitectRichard S. Rosenstock, Arthur Bates Jennings, Frederick P. Dinkelberg, Henri Fouchaux, Theodore Minot Clark, Neville & Bagge, Schwartz & Gross, George F. Pelham, Horace Ginsbern, C. P. H. Gilbert, Clarence True, John P. Leo, Samuel B. Reed, William Grinnell, William Schickel et al.[2]
Architectural styleQueen Anne, Romanesque Revival, Renaissance Revival, Beaux-Arts, Neoclassical, Colonial Revival, Gothic Revival, neo-Grec, etc.[2]
NRHP reference No.02000360[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPApril 11, 2002
Designated NYCLHamilton Heights/Sugar Hill HD: June 27, 2000
extension: October 3, 2001
Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Northeast HD: October 23, 2001
Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Northwest HD: June 18, 2002

Sugar Hill is a National Historic District in the Harlem and Hamilton Heights[3] neighborhoods of Manhattan, New York City,[4] bounded by West 155th Street to the north, West 145th Street to the south, Edgecombe Avenue to the east, and Amsterdam Avenue to the west.[5] The equivalent New York City Historic Districts are:

  • Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Historic District and Extension: roughly West 145th to West 150th Street, Edgecombe Avenue to between Convent and Amsterdam Avenues
  • Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Northeast Historic District: roughly West 151st to West 155th Street, west of St. Nicholas Avenue to between Convent and Amsterdam Avenues
  • Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Northwest Historic District: roughly West 151st to West 155th Street, east of St. Nicholas Avenue to Edgecombe Avenue[2][6]

The Federal district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.[1] The Federal district has 414 contributing buildings, two contributing sites, three contributing structures, and one contributing object.[7]

History

Sugar Hill got its name in the 1920s when the neighborhood became a popular place for wealthy African Americans to live during the Harlem Renaissance. Reflective of the "sweet life" there, Sugar Hill featured rowhouses in which lived such prominent African Americans as W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Walter Francis White, Roy Wilkins, Sonny Rollins and Afro-Puerto Rican Arturo Schomburg.[8]

Langston Hughes wrote about the relative affluence of the neighborhood in his essay "Down Under in Harlem" published in The New Republic in 1944:

Don't take it for granted that all Harlem is a slum. It isn't. There are big apartment houses up on the hill, Sugar Hill, and up by City College – nice high-rent-houses with elevators and doormen, where Canada Lee lives, and W. C. Handy, and the George S. Schuylers, and the Walter Whites, where colored families send their babies to private kindergartens and their youngsters to Ethical Culture School.[9]

Terry Mulligan's 2012 memoir Sugar Hill, Where the Sun Rose Over Harlemr[10][11] is a chronicle of the writer's experiences growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in the neighborhood, where her neighbors included future United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, early rock n' roll legend Frankie Lymon, and New York baseball great Willie Mays.

Notable buildings

Among the many notable buildings in the Sugar Hill area are:[2]

  • Benziger House
    Benziger House
  • Bailey House
    Bailey House
  • 14 (right) and 16 (left) St. Nicholas Place
    14 (right) and 16 (left) St. Nicholas Place
  • Fink House
    Fink House
  • Baiter House
    Baiter House
  • 715 (left) - 721 (right) St. Nicholas Avenue
    715 (left) - 721 (right) St. Nicholas Avenue
  • 729 and 731 St. Nicholas Avenue
    729 and 731 St. Nicholas Avenue
  • 409 Edgecombe Avenue Apartments
    409 Edgecombe Avenue Apartments
  • The Garrison Apartments, 435 Convent Avenue
    The Garrison Apartments, 435 Convent Avenue

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b "National Register Information System – (#02000360)". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. ^ a b c d e New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission; Dolkart, Andrew S.; Postal, Matthew A. (2009). Postal, Matthew A. (ed.). Guide to New York City Landmarks (4th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 189–208. ISBN 978-0-470-28963-1.
  3. ^ James, Davida Siwisa (2024). Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton's Old Harlem Neigborhood Through the Centuries (1st ed.). Fordham University Press. ISBN 978-1-5315-0614-8.
  4. ^ "Harlem - New York City Neighborhood - NYC". nymag.com. New York (magazine). 2003-03-10. Retrieved 2009-01-04.
  5. ^ "Harlem, Hamilton Heights, El Barrio, New York City". ny.com. Retrieved 2009-01-04.
  6. ^ Siegal, Nina (2000-06-15). "Landmark Status For Harlem Buildings; District Holds Hub of Black Culture". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-01-04.
  7. ^ Howe, Kathleen A. (January 2002). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Sugar Hill Historic District". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved 2011-03-25. See also: "Accompanying 69 photos".
  8. ^ a b White, Norval; Willensky, Elliot; Leadon, Fran (2010). AIA Guide to New York City (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 546. ISBN 978-0-19538-386-7.
  9. ^ Hughes, Langston. "Down Under in Harlem". The New Republic (March 27, 1944): 404-5
  10. ^ Terry Baker Mulligan website
  11. ^ Henderson, Jane (6 May 2012). "Penned in St. Louis: Terry Baker Mulligan". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved 22 February 2013.
  12. ^ a b Taborn, Karen Faye (2018-05-21). Walking Harlem : the ultimate guide to the cultural capital of black America. New Brunswick, New Jersey. ISBN 978-0-8135-9458-3. OCLC 1038016815.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  13. ^ Elaine Woo, "Marvel Cooke; Pioneering Black Journalist, Political Activist", Los Angeles Times, December 6, 2000.
  14. ^ "United States Census, 1930". Ancestry.com. April 4, 1930. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
  15. ^ "The Leslie Uggams Show", Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation. Accessed February 15, 2024. "A major feature of the show was a continuing segment called 'Sugar Hill' about a working-class black family. Uggams played the wife of a construction worker in the sketch."
  16. ^ Smith, Cecil. "Leslie Uggams Show Bows Sunday on CBS", The Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1969. Accessed February 15, 2024, via Newspapers.com. "Perhaps the most choice item on Sunday's premiere hour is 'Sugar Hill,' the weekly adventures of a black family in a Harlem flat."
  17. ^ Perrone, Pierre (2011-10-04). "Sylvia Robinson: Hitmaker who co-founded Sugar Hill Records and became known as 'the mother of hip-hop' - Obituaries - News". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-05-25. Retrieved 2013-09-15.
  18. ^ "Claudine (1974) - Filming & Production - IMDb". imdb.com. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  19. ^ O'Connor, John J. "TV: Harlem Setting for Cinderella", The New York Times, March 24, 1978. Accessed December 28, 2022. "With the story's setting switched to Harlem during World War II, Cinderella is transformed into an ebullient, naive country girl brought to the big city by her father.... She finally gets to go to the famous Sugar Hill Ball only with the help of Michael, who lives on a fire escape of the tenement next door."
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