The Golden Edge

Residents

The southernmost “Golden Edge” (along 110th Street) gains its desirability from its position facing Central Park. Here, members of the African-American professional class live in neat rowhomes, seemingly with their backs to the neighborhood; however, the neighborhood opens its arms to them, providing services their money might not be able to buy in the same establishments as their white peers. The residents of the Golden Edge are doctors, lawyers, and successful show-biz sorts. The residents of the richly appointed apartments are a healthy mix of black newcomers and Eastern-European Jewish residents. It is these families, then, whom one encounters making the long streetcar or el ride north to 135th Street.

Hotels & News Offices

The grand Hotel Teresa can be found at the corner of 7th Avenue and 125th Street—Seventh Avenue is Harlem’s widest street, a graceful boulevard with a median planted with trees. Thirteen stories tall, Hotel Teresa is mostly an apartment hotel providing long-term lodgings for residents and comfortable temporary lodgings for celebrities. Because the hotel occasionally hosts noteworthy guests, all of the major newspapers of Harlem—the News, the Age, and the Courier—have a reporter assigned to cover activities there. In addition, the Pittsburgh Courier’s Harlem offices are directly across the street from the hotel. The Amsterdam News offices are at 2271 Seventh Avenue, and the New York Age is at 230 West 135th Street.
While the Teresa caters to the rich and wealthy of Harlem, Hotel Olga (697 Lenox Avenue and 145th Street) is open to all, as the establishment is not segregated and is open for tourists and other travelers, as well as longer-term residents.

Entertainment and Political Ties

The Frogs Clubhouse (at 111 West 32nd Street) is just a block down from the Golden Edge. The Frogs are a charity organization originally formed to support the efforts of black actors and other performers locked out of white theater networks. Later, the organization expands to include other professionals outside of the theater. The Frogs were led by Bert Williams, a vaudeville comedian popular enough to be considered a superstar. The Frogs continued after he unexpectedly passed due to pneumonia. Every August the club holds a charity event called “The Frolic of the Frogs” featuring comedy routines, dances, and charity raffles—all for a cover of fifty cents at the door.
At the corner of 5th Avenue and 110th Street (on the far end of the Golden Edge) is the soapbox corner known as “Trotsky Square,” in front of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association building. This corner is one of the most popular locations for public speech-making and political meetings. Every day passersby can take a moment to listen to Harlem’s political leaders speak on matters of class and race. The location is not a coincidence, many of the Jewish families in the Golden Edge recently immigrated from Eastern Europe and are sympathetic to socialist and communist politics.

Type

Neighbourhood

Location under

Harlem