Sugar Hill, Manhattan

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.

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

Terry Mulligan's 2012 memoir Sugar Hill, Where the Sun Rose Over Harlem 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:

• Nicholas C. and Agnes Benziger House, 345 Edgecombe Avenue (William Schickel, 1890–91) - has also been used as a hospital, nursery and housing for the homeless
• James A. and Ruth M. Bailey House, 10 St. Nicholas Place (Samuel B. Reed, 1886–88) - A Romanesque Revival residence built for James A. Bailey of the Barnum & Bailey Circus
• The Garrison Apartments, 435 Convent Avenue (Neville & Bagge, 1909-1910) - Originally Emsworth Hall, it became a cooperative apartment building in 1929 and is today the oldest continuously operated Black founded, owned, and managed co-op in New York City. Home to many Harlem trailblazers and history makers.
• 14 and 16 St. Nicholas Place (William Grinnell, 1883–84) - Queen Anne style detached frame houses clad in wood shingles
• Fink House, 8 St. Nicholas Place (Richard S. Rosenstock, 1885) - Queen Anne style house, would later be combined with...
• Baiter House, 6 St. Nicholas Place (Theodore G. Stein, 1893–94) - ...and used as a sanitarium, a hospital, a hotel, and a group home
• 713-721 St. Nicholas Avenue (Hugh M. Reynolds, 1890–1891) - Row houses in the Victorian Romanesque Revival style
• 718-730 St. Nicholas Avenue (Arthur Bates Jennings, 1889–1890) - A Romanesque Revival row
• 729 and 731 St. Nicholas Avenue (Theodore Minot Clark, 1886–1886) - two houses faced in Manhattan schist and shingles
• 757-775 St. Nicholas Avenue (Frederick P. Dinkelberg, 1894–1895) - A Renaissance Revival style row which is said to be "among the finest in the district."
• 409 Edgecombe Avenue Apartments (Schwartz & Gross, 1916–1817) - Originally the Colonial Parkway Apartments. Home to Babe Ruth as an infant, Aaron Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Jules Bledsoe.
• 555 Edgecombe Avenue. Several noted big band leaders lived here in the 1940s including Count Basie, Andy Kirk, Don Redman, Erskine Hawkins, Benny Carter and Cootie Williams.

Gallery

File:Benziger House 345 Edgecombe Avenue from south.jpg|Benziger House File:Bailey House 10 St. Nicholas Place from west.jpg|Bailey House File:14 and 16 St. Nicholas Place from southwest.jpg|14 (right) and 16 (left) St. Nicholas Place File:Fink House 8 St. Nicholas Place from northwest.jpg|Fink House File:Baiter House 6 St. Nicholas Place.jpg|Baiter House File:715-721 St. Nicholas Avenue.jpg|715 (left) - 721 (right) St. Nicholas Avenue File:729 and 731 St. Nicholas Avenue.jpg|729 and 731 St. Nicholas Avenue File:409 Edgecomb Av jeh.JPG|409 Edgecombe Avenue Apartments File:Garrison Apts 435 Convent Ave NYC 10031.jpg|The Garrison Apartments, 435 Convent Avenue

In popular culture

• The Leslie Uggams Show featured a "Sugar Hill" sketch throughout its one-year run in 1969.
• The Sugarhill Gang, the first rap group with a single in the Top 40, took their name from the neighborhood; the band members were actually all from Englewood, New Jersey.
• The 1974 film Claudine, starring Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones was filmed in the Sugar Hill neighborhood.
• The 1994 film Sugar Hill, about drug dealers in Harlem, stars Wesley Snipes.
• Sugar Hill is mentioned in the lyrics to the jazz standard "Take the 'A' Train" by Billy Strayhorn.
• It is also referred to by rapper AZ's "Sugar Hill" on his album Doe or Die.
• Henry "Red" Allen recorded "Sugar Hill Function", written by Charlie Holmes, on February 18, 1930.
• There is also a song by Rex Stewart and his Fifty-Second Street Stompers – one of the four Duke Ellington small groups – called "Sugar Hill Shim-Sham", which was recorded on July 7, 1937.
• The 1978 film Cindy, a modern retelling of Cinderella set in Harlem, includes a scene at the Sugar Hill Ball.

References

Notes

References

1. {{NRISref
2. James, Davida Siwisa. (2024). "Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton's Old Harlem Neighborhood Through the Centuries". Fordham University Press.
3. (2003-03-10). "Harlem - New York City Neighborhood - NYC". New York (magazine).
4. "Harlem, Hamilton Heights, El Barrio, New York City". ny.com.
5. {{cite nycland
6. Siegal, Nina. (2000-06-15). "Landmark Status For Harlem Buildings; District Holds Hub of Black Culture". [[The New York Times]].
7. Howe, Kathleen A.. (January 2002). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: New York SP Sugar Hill Historic District". National Archives and Records Administration.
8. {{cite aia5
9. [[Langston Hughes. Hughes, Langston]]. [https://newrepublic.com/book/review/down-under-in-harlem "Down Under in Harlem"]. ''[[The New Republic]]'' (March 27, 1944): 404-5
10. [https://terrybakermulligan.wordpress.com/ Terry Baker Mulligan website]
11. Henderson, Jane. (6 May 2012). "Penned in St. Louis: Terry Baker Mulligan". St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
12. Taborn, Karen Faye. (2018-05-21). "Walking Harlem : the ultimate guide to the cultural capital of black America".
13. [[Marvel Cooke]],[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-dec-06-me-61800-story.html Elaine Woo, "Marvel Cooke; Pioneering Black Journalist, Political Activist", ''Los Angeles Times'', December 6, 2000.]
14. (April 4, 1930). "United States Census, 1930".
15. [https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/shows/leslie-uggams-show-the "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. [[Cecil Smith (writer). Smith, Cecil]]. [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-preview-of-the-les/141055934/ "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.
18. "Claudine (1974) - Filming & Production - IMDb".
19. "Take the "A" Train". [[National Museum of American History]].
20. O'Connor, John J. [https://www.nytimes.com/1978/03/24/archives/tv-harlem-setting-for-cinderella.html "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."