Volume 29, Number 15 · October 7, 1982
The Party's Over
By Darryl Pinckney
This Was Harlem: A Cultural Portrait, 1900-1950
by Jervis Anderson
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 390 pp., $17.95
Harlem exists in retrospect, in the memory of grandparents or elderly cousins, those 'old-timers' ever ready with their geysers of remembered scenes. The legends of 'Black Mecca' are preserved in the glossy musicals of Times Square and in texts of virtually every kind. Jervis Anderson's cool and carefully researched This Was Harlem is a valuable primer. Strong feeling for the place has been passed down—and that is what remains. Walking its avenues in search of what was fills me with the sadness that comes from squandered intimacy. The mere presence of the Schomburg Collection is very moving, as is Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theater of Harlem, the last true jewel in the brooch.
Review, 4343 words
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