From These Roots

There were two libraries in Harlem, and by the time I was thirteen I had read every book in both libraries and I had a card downtown for Forty-Second Street… 

—James Baldwin

Originally built as a Carnegie Library in 1905, the Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints—the forerunner to today’s Schomburg Center—opened in 1925 in this very space to meet the needs of a changing community. As part of what was then called the 135th Street Branch Library, the collection helped expose residents to theater, film, art, scholarship, and literature. Roots for a thriving Black theater scene were nourished in the lower level in the American Negro Theatre, which still bears the original floorboards. The robust company, with members such as Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis whose papers the Schomburg Center recently acquired, seeded other theaters, including the Negro Ensemble Company, the Harlem Experimental Theatre, and the National Black Theater [still] in residence at 126th Street and 5th Avenue.