Hotel Theresa
The Hotel Theresa was a powerful center of black life in Harlem , New York City , in the mid-20th century . It is located at the intersection of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Martin Luther King , Jr. Boulevard (better known as 7th Avenue and 125th Street ).
history
It opened in 1913 and was the tallest building in Harlem until the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building was built in 1973. It has a striking white-brick facade and was known as the Harlem Waldorf Astoria . From the time it opened until 1940, the hotel only accepted white-skinned guests and only a few black celebrities.
Prominent guests included Louis Armstrong , Sugar Ray Robinson , Lena Horne , Josephine Baker , Dorothy Dandridge , Duke Ellington , Muhammad Ali , Dinah Washington , Ray Charles , Little Richard , and Jimi Hendrix . The rhythm and blues guitarist Walter "Papoose" Nelson died here in 1962 of a heroin overdose.
In 1960 Fidel Castro , who was in New York for a meeting of the United Nations, stayed in the hotel and was also visited by Nikita Khrushchev .
After breaking with the Nation of Islam , Malcolm X headed the organization for African American unity from the hotel and held meetings here. Here too he met Fidel Castro
The hotel suffered from the ongoing decline of Harlem in the 1950s and 1960s and, ironically, the end of segregation across the city. Since there were alternatives for blacks, they no longer came to Harlem. The hotel closed in 1967.
After years of vacancy, the house was converted into an office building in 1971 and now bears the name "Theresa Towers", although there is still a lettering with the old name on the building and this is still in common use. In 1993 the building was declared a sight by the city of New York.
Others
- Some scenes from the Hitchcock film Topas , the plot deals with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, were shot in and in front of the Hotel Theresa.
swell
- Barry Popik: Waldorf of Harlem (Hotel Theresa, now Theresa Towers) , June 4, 2005
- Sondra Kathryn Wilson: Meet Me at the Theresa: The Story of Harlem's Most Famous Hotel. 2004
Coordinates: 40 ° 48 ′ 31.5 ″ N , 73 ° 56 ′ 55.9 ″ W.