Connect with us

New York

When Harlem Was ‘as Gay as It Was Black’

Published

on

When Harlem Was ‘as Gay as It Was Black’

Two Black men, in tuxedos, clasp hands and dance in a smoky foreground in a scene from “Looking for Langston,” the 1989 film that reevaluated gay and lesbian contributions to the Harlem Renaissance.

A map of Manhattan with a boundary drawn around Harlem, just north of Central Park.

A map shows the borders of Harlem, which, south to north, extends from the top of Central Park to the area above 145th Street, and, west to east, from St. Nicholas Park to Fifth Avenue.

A black-and-white photograph of Ma Rainey’s Georgia Jazz Band. Ma Rainey, in a dress and headband, is surrounded by five Black male musicians playing, from left, trombone and trumpet.

JP Jazz Archives/Redferns

Advertisement

On Stage and Off

Many L.B.G.T. performers and entertainers of the Renaissance used their artistry to express their sexuality. Others went to great lengths to keep their private lives hidden. Only recently have scholars been able to unpack their complicated lives, providing a brighter, clearer vision of who they were.

A map highlighting various points in Harlem.

A map of Harlem with a location labeled “Ma Rainey at the Lincoln Theater” near 135th Street and Lenox Avenue.

Map with location labeled “Gladys Bentley at the Clam House” near 135th Street.

Map with location labeled “Bessie Smith at Hotel Olga” in the northernmost part of Harlem.

Advertisement

Map with a location labeled “Jimmie Daniels” on 116th Street, and a photograph of Jimmie Daniels Restaurant.

Map with a location labeled “Ethel Waters” near Colonial Park in northwest Harlem, and a photograph of 580 St. Nicholas Avenue, where she lived for a time.

Map with a location labeled “Edna Thomas” in south Harlem, and a photograph of 1890 Seventh Avenue, where she lived.

Map with a location labeled “Georgette Harvey” south of 116th Street.

Map with a location labeled “Alberta Hunter” north of 135th Street, and a photograph of 133 West 138th Street, where she lived.

Advertisement

Patrons of the Savoy Ballroom dancing the Lindy Hop and other dances.

Out and About

As the period flourished, so did the number of public and semi-public spaces for L.G.B.T. life — theaters, lodges, cabarets, salons, nightclubs, parks, bathhouses, streets — developed, said Shane Vogel, a professor of English and African American Studies at Yale University and the author of “The Scene of Harlem Cabaret: Race, Sexuality, Performance.”

Each location “created spaces for people in Harlem to experience new kinds of social contacts and erotic possibilities that weren’t as widely available in the decades before the Harlem Renaissance,” he said.

Patrons of the

Map with a location labeled “Hamilton Lodge at Rockland Palace” at the very top of Harlem, and a photograph of 280 West 155th Street, where the venue was located.

Advertisement

Map with a location labeled “Ubangi Club” at 131st Street and Seventh Avenue, and a photograph of the building where the venue was located.

Map with a location labeled “Swing Street” at West 133rd Street, running between Lenox and Seventh Avenue, and a photograph of The Nest, one of the nightlife venues on that block.

Map with a location labeled “The Cotton Club” at 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue, and a photograph of the exterior of the club, with a large marquee and cars in the foreground.

Map with a location labeled “Clam House” at West 133rd Street, near Seventh Avenue, and a photograph of the exterior of the club, with an awning, flanked by two cars.

Map with a location labeled “Savoy Ballroom” on Lenox Avenue, between 140th and 141st Streets, and a photograph of the exterior of the club, with a large marque that reads “SAVOY.” Pedestrians walk in the foreground.

Advertisement

Map with a location labeled “Mount Morris Bathhouse” at 28 East 125th Street, just outside the east parameter of Harlem, and a photograph of the building, with a man crossing the street in the foreground.

Map with a location labeled “Harlem Y.M.C.A.” at 180 West 135th Street, near Seventh Avenue, and an illustration of the building, which rises high above its neighbors.

Map with a location labeled “Hotel Olga” at Lenox Avenue and 145th Street, and a photo of the building.

Map with a location labeled “Lafayette Theater” at 2247 Seventh Avenue, and a photo of the exterior of the theater, with a marquee, arched windows and a sign or flag hanging above them.

Robert W Kelley/The LIFE Picture Collection, via Shutterstock

Advertisement

The Smart Set

While race was commonly explored among the artists, thinkers and writers of the Renaissance, some openly broached the subject of sexuality, which was viewed as scandalous. For others, any references may have been carefully coded and more difficult to detect.

Map with a location at the far bottom of the map labeled “Alain Locke,” “Washington D.C.” and an icon pointing down.

Map with a location labeled “Nella Larsen” at 236 West 135th Street, near Eighth Avenue.

Map with a location labeled “Langston Hughes” at 20 East 127th Street, north of Mount Morris Park, just outside the parameters of Harlem.

Map with a location labeled “Countee Cullen” at 104 West 136th Street, near Lenox Avenue.

Advertisement

Map with a location labeled “Richard Bruce Nugent” at 267 West 136th Street, near Eighth Avenue.

Map with a location at the far bottom of the map labeled “Carl Van Vechten,” “150 West 55th Street” and an icon pointing down.

Map with a location labeled “Harold Jackman” at 7 West 134th Street, just outside the east perimeter of Harlem.

Map with a location labeled “Maurice Hunter” at 254 West 135th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Map with a location labeled “Claude McKay” at 147 West 142nd Street, between Seventh and Lenox Avenues, and a photograph of the exterior of the building.

Advertisement

A photograph of the Alexander Gumby Book Studio, with a semi-circle of people sitting and chatting or reading.

Alexander Gumby collection, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University

Behind Closed Doors

Private spaces in Harlem — mainly homes and apartments — opened doors to the kind of intimate socializing and sexual experimentation that could not exist at large nightclubs or segregated venues. Away from the public eye, these spaces held invite-only soirees or rent parties that were primarily spread through word of mouth.

Map with a location labeled “A’Leila Walker and the Dark Tower” at 108 West 136th Street, on the far east side of Harlem, and a photograph of the exterior of the building.

Map with a location labeled “Wallace Thurman” at 267 West 136th Street, near Eighth Avenue, and a photograph of the block, with a car coming toward the camera.

Advertisement

Map with a location labeled “Iolanthe Sydney” at 267 West 136th Street, near Eighth Avenue.

Map with a location labeled “Alexander Gumby Book Studio” at 2144 Fifth Avenue, on the far east side of Harlem.

Map with a location labeled “409 Edgecombe Avenue” at the far north section of Harlem, and a photograph of a cluster of three high-rise buildings.

Harlem in 1938.

Looking Back, Through a Fresh Lens

Efforts to reexamine Harlem’s queer history have helped audiences reimagine Renaissance-era spaces and celebrate aspects of its everyday life that were underground.

Advertisement

New York

$140,000 a Year in Manhattan: Pizza Is a Treat, and Old Toys Are New

Published

on

0,000 a Year in Manhattan: Pizza Is a Treat, and Old Toys Are New

How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.

We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?

Advertisement

Kerry McAuliffe weighs that question every time she looks up the cost of summer camp for one of her three children or opens a stuffed closet in her Morningside Heights apartment, close to Columbia University in Manhattan, and has a basketball fall on her head.

“We’re in a place where it’s very tight,” Ms. McAuliffe said. Her family of five lives on $140,000 a year.

Advertisement

Ms. McAuliffe and her husband both grew up in suburbs outside New York City, and say they are dedicated to staying in the city long term. Anna Watts for The New York Times

Advertisement

Their housing solution: become the super

The family’s monthly rent — $2,700 for their three-bedroom apartment — is their biggest expense, as it is for most New Yorkers. But they have a hack to make their housing more affordable: Ms. McAuliffe’s husband, Jake Kassman, is the superintendent for their building and the one next door.

Advertisement

The couple’s three children are 7, 3 and 1. For now, at least, they all happily eat broccoli. Anna Watts for The New York Times

He took on the super job a few years ago, after the couple’s first child was born and the family realized they wouldn’t be able to live only on Mr. Kassman’s roughly $110,000 salary as an M.R.I. technician at Columbia University’s medical center. Ms. McAuliffe had left her job in education around the same time, because the cost of child care would have canceled out her paycheck.

Advertisement

There are perks: The family now takes in an extra $30,000 or so a year, including a few months of free rent, and their landlord recently let them knock down a wall to take over an extra bedroom in a vacant unit next door.

‘Someone gets financial aid. Why not you?’

Advertisement

Ms. McAuliffe and Mr. Kassman spend much of their free time plotting how to provide their children with as many opportunities as they can, while weighing the cost of school and activities.

The family had never seriously considered private school until a chance meeting on a playground a few years ago. Ms. McAuliffe was speaking with a neighbor who encouraged her to apply for financial aid, asking: “Someone gets financial aid. Why not you?”

The family applied to the nearby Cathedral School, which costs about $65,000 a year, and received a package that would cover more than half the cost for their daughter.

Advertisement

The couple’s eldest has started to ask about the after-school activities and camps that many of her friends go to. The couple splurged on a week of theater camp, which cost $1,000, and a season of swim team at the local pool, which runs $800, for her.

But Ms. McAuliffe feels a pang of guilt whenever she signs her daughter up for an activity, because she can’t afford classes for the younger children, both boys.

Advertisement

“One day we’ll have to do a reckoning of where the funds go,” she said. “My son is like, ‘Can I do swim team?’ And I’m like, ‘We’ll see.’”

They cut back on babysitting but splurge for pizza night

Since nearly all of the family’s budget goes to rent and education, Ms. McAuliffe and Mr. Kassman have made peace with the fact that the frequent nights out and elaborate birthday parties that other families can afford are not part of their lives.

Advertisement

The couple gets a babysitter only about three times a year, so they can go out to dinner for each of their birthdays and their anniversary. They know it would be good for them to go out on their own more. But, Ms. McAuliffe said, “I’m trying to come to terms with the idea that this is a chapter in life, and hopefully we’ll be able to grow old together and talk about those things later.”

The family’s weekly treat is Friday night pizza delivery, which usually costs $25.

Advertisement

For the rest of the week, Ms. McAuliffe tries to keep the weekly grocery bill to about $300. She relies on quesadillas and pasta to feed the whole family, and is relieved that all three kids happily eat broccoli. But she worries about how much she’ll have to stock her fridge once she has two preteen boys in the house.

On weekends, the family mostly sticks to the city’s bounty of free parks and playgrounds.

The couple has a car, which they use to go visit family on Long Island. They sometimes take day trips upstate, to a farm or a hike, but usually drive home at night to avoid paying for an Airbnb. Just the cost of gas, an activity and a meal for the day usually runs them about $300.

Advertisement

Their Christmas strategy: Old toys are new

For Christmas, Ms. McAuliffe wrapped the open puzzles and toys that her oldest child had grown out of to make them look like new gifts for her younger children.

Advertisement

Instead of birthday parties where the whole class is invited, Ms. McAuliffe has each of her children pick a special activity, like a trip to the Statue of Liberty, that they can attend with a friend.

The family’s sacrosanct splurge is a short summer vacation, usually four nights, somewhere within driving distance of the city, which typically costs about $3,000.

Advertisement

That tradition helps the couple feel better about skipping so much of what their peers can afford. None of her children has ever been on an airplane, and she doesn’t expect that to change soon.

Ms. McAuliffe recently spoke with a friend who grew up in New York but left the city because of the cost of living. He asked her why she was staying, when life could be so much easier somewhere else.

“I just like being in New York,” Ms. McAuliffe said. “There’s so much to do the second you step outside your door.”

Advertisement

We want to hear from you about how you afford life in one of the most expensive cities in the world. We’re looking to speak with people of all income ranges, with all kinds of living situations and professions.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

New York

Video: Deer Sets Off Burglar Alarm in a New York Bank

Published

on

Video: Deer Sets Off Burglar Alarm in a New York Bank

new video loaded: Deer Sets Off Burglar Alarm in a New York Bank

Police officers on Long Island responded to an alarm at a bank to find that the culprit was a deer that had crashed through a window.
Advertisement

By Axel Boada

January 23, 2026

Watch Today’s Videos

    Armed Robbers Steal At Least $110,000 Worth of Pokémon Cards

    0:58

    Runaway Horse Charges Through Busy N.Y.C. Intersection

    0:40

    New York City Nurses Go on Strike

    1:32

    Advertisement
    Hochul and Mamdani Announce Plan for Universal Child Care

    1:56

    Mamdani Creates Office of Mass Engagement

    1:23

    ‘I Will Govern as a Democratic Socialist,’ Mamdani Says at Inauguration

    2:15

Video ›

Today’s Videos

Advertisement

U.S.

Politics

Immigration

NY Region

Science

Advertisement

Business

Culture

Books

Wellness

World

Advertisement

Africa

Americas

Asia

South Asia

Donald Trump

Advertisement

Middle East Crisis

Russia-Ukraine Crisis

Visual Investigations

Opinion Video

Advertisement

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Continue Reading

New York

Video: Armed Robbers Steal At Least $110,000 Worth of Pokémon Cards

Published

on

Video: Armed Robbers Steal At Least 0,000 Worth of Pokémon Cards

new video loaded: Armed Robbers Steal At Least $110,000 Worth of Pokémon Cards

Three men stole at least $110,00 worth of Pokémon cards from a shop in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday. The thieves held customers at gun point, smashed display cases and took money from the cash register. One of the items stolen was a first-edition Charizard card worth about $15,000, according to the store’s owner.

By Jamie Leventhal and Jorge Mitssunaga

January 17, 2026

Continue Reading

Trending