12652: Holy Harlem.

Pope Francis Meets the Harlem Globetrotters…?

8437: National Black Theater Not In The Black.

From The New York Times…

A Harlem Cultural Hub Is Threatened by Debt

By Kevin Flynn and Felicia R. Lee

Theirs was a partnership built on vision and pride and rooted in a building at the very heart of black America.

In 2002 the National Black Theater, a cultural anchor of Harlem, invited the owners of Nubian Heritage, a growing beauty-care company with an African pedigree, to invest in its sprawling building at Fifth Avenue and 125th Street.

The theater, created in the turmoil of the civil rights movement, had owned the building for 19 years. But now it faced foreclosure, as large construction loans remained unpaid.
For the theater, its new partners held the promise of revenue and revival. For the businessmen, two former street vendors from Liberia, the building provided a flagship store in a historic neighborhood.

Nine years later, though, the store is closed; the partnership owes nearly $1.8 million in unpaid property taxes; and the theater is facing foreclosure yet again, a plight it blames on its partners, men it once embraced as kindred spirits and now in court accuses of mismanagement and fraud.

“This debt has placed the theater’s home at risk like nothing else ever has,” said Raymond N. Hannigan, the theater’s lawyer.

Founded in 1968 by Barbara Ann Teer, the theater was created to showcase productions by, and about, black Americans at a time when such stories rarely appeared on the mainstream stage. It has evolved into a cultural spawning ground, one that presents shows and workshops intended to foster respect for African ancestry and for black self-expression, and one graced over the years by artists like Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, Nina Simone, Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou.

But the theater’s story is also a cautionary tale about what can happen when arts groups extend beyond their comfort zone to find revenue, as is increasingly popular in the poorly financed arts world. Ms. Teer was a pathfinder in such efforts. From the day in 1983 when she bought the building, a former jewelry factory, she hoped to finance her work with rent from the other tenants. “The real estate subsidizes the art,” she liked to say.

The men Ms. Teer later picked to be her lead partners in that effort, Richelieu Dennis and Nyema Tubman, began their careers on 125th Street, peddling organic shea-butter soaps, much like the ones Mr. Dennis’s grandmother once sold at village markets in Africa. Today they operate several companies on Long Island that make skin and hair care products derived from African ingredients, which they market online and through major retailers like Target. Dun & Bradstreet estimated that the primary company has $6 million in annual gross sales.

“My whole life has been about building community, building business in our community, empowering people in our community,” Mr. Dennis said.

Read the full story here.

6902: How Harlem Celebrates Independence Day.

From The New York Times…

Harlem Journal
The Good Old Red, White and Barbecue

By Christine Haughney

Limited space has long forced New Yorkers to celebrate Fourth of July rituals differently. As the rest of the country has backyard barbecues and pool parties, city dwellers cook lunches in tiny kitchens and carry them up to rooftops, or, if they can get a spot, they spread blankets in the parks.

In Harlem, Dorothy Davis celebrates with a front-stoop cookout.

Ms. Davis, 54, a full-time baby sitter with an encyclopedic knowledge of the comings and goings of her West 119th Street block, starts shopping weeks ahead for a communal feast. In a decade of yearly cookouts on the sidewalk in front of her building, Ms. Davis — known to neighbors as Dot or Auntie — has come to feed at least 50 relatives and neighbors.

“I don’t mind sharing my blessings,” she said, sitting in her living room near a tall stack of take-home containers. “I’m a people person.”

Part of the reason her cookout is so popular is her reputation for generous portions. Anthony Burrell, an Alvin Ailey dancer whose 3-year-old daughter, Sifare, is under Ms. Davis’s care, described the dinners she cooks for him on Friday nights.

“You could feed the whole block off one plate,” he said, recalling fried white fish, rice, collard greens and macaroni and cheese.

For her family, Ms. Davis’s efforts have made the Fourth of July into one of the biggest holidays her family celebrates, but the observance has taken on added significance since her Aunt Lillian, who loved the holiday, died two years ago.

This year, about 30 relatives drove in from Texas, Virginia, Rhode Island and South Carolina. Weeks in advance, Ms. Davis invited her building superintendent, a neighboring landlord and retired police officers from the local precinct.

“The neighbors come; she doesn’t have to invite them,” said one of her aunts, Lena Perryman, who stops by the cookout each year, even though she dislikes crowds. “She doesn’t turn anybody away.”

Ms. Davis, who says she has been cooking since she was 10, usually prepares collard greens, green beans, barbecue chicken, potato and macaroni salads. (She did not have time to bake this year, but she hinted that there might be a Costco cake for an uncle whose birthday is coming up.)

In an effort to cut costs, she is serving lemonade instead of cans of soda — though at some point, Ms. Davis may retreat to her apartment for her favorite Cognac.

The way Ms. Davis sees it, food is not just a source of sustenance. When guests are well fed, she said, there is “no fussing.”

“Usually at a cookout, there’s somebody who wants to fight,” she said. “We never had no arguments.”

In the weeks leading up to the cookout, Ms. Davis tries to squeeze in shopping around baby-sitting for eight children. Last weekend, she headed to two Western Beef stores in the Bronx to buy $400 of ribs, chicken and hamburgers, which she stored in a deep freezer in a bedroom. By Monday, she had already decided to set up the grill in a vacant lot next to her building. She was still sorting out what kind of pork to use in the collard greens.

On Thursday, she headed back to Western Beef to pick up hamburgers. As she shucked corn and soaked chicken, her sister Deborah picked up plates, and her daughter, Dequasha, headed to a party shop to make a deposit for 30 balloons.

By Friday, her entire family had started to pitch in with last-minute shopping and preparations. A goddaughter, Denise, was expected to arrive from Providence, R.I., to make the fruit salad. Aunts, brothers, daughters and nieces helped with peeling potatoes, spicing chicken and preparing ribs.

Her friend Tina is bringing a macaroni salad. One aunt who does not like to cook will bring a tossed salad. Setup is to begin as early as 6:30 on Saturday.

By late afternoon, her brother Marshall will start to grill. She will seat her relatives and neighbors on a half-dozen tables set up on the sidewalk. As the aroma of grilled chicken and ribs wafts down 119th Street, neighbors will start to appear.

In the end, she makes sure that no leftovers come home with her. One year she cooked so much, she had to hand out trays of food to relatives, neighbors — even strangers — to get rid of it all. While she estimates the cookout will cost $600, she does not keep track. Her concern is that people leave well fed.

“I spend, and I cry the next day when I’m broke,” she jokes. “It’s always better to have enough than not enough.”