Imagine if you will, how Harlem must have looked in the early 1900s. Except for a few buildings like the Koch & Company store between Sixth and Seventh Avenues (the building still stands), churches and banks, much of 125th Street west of Fifth Avenue was populated by row houses and tenement buildings with stores at street level.
On the southwest corner of 125th Street and Seventh Avenue was the Winthrop Hotel, a six story building that took up Seventh Avenue between 124th and 125th Streets. Beyond that, several large tracks of land lay undeveloped.
The Winthrop was one of a few prominent buildings in Harlem but in 1912, the owner, Gustavus Sidenberg, demolished it and commissioned a new building, the Hotel Theresa, named in honor of his late wife.
Designed by the architectural firm of George & Edward Blum, the Hotel Theresa was Harlem’s ‘first great hotel.’ It stands 13 stories and was the tallest building in Harlem at the time. The Theresa had 300 rooms and was planned as an apartment hotel for long-term guests. Suites had one to three rooms and ensuite baths. One hundred of the rooms were reserved for short-term guests.
The entrance to the hotel, on Seventh Avenue, led to a thirty by thirty-five foot lobby area with a marble staircase leading to the main lobby on the second floor, a waiting room, ladies’ parlor and smoking room. Several stores, including a barbershop, a tailor and a delicatessen occupied the ground floor.
Located on the top floor of the hotel, the dining room offered diners magnificent views of Harlem, the New Jersey Palisades and Long Island Sound. Residents and guests could have their meals delivered to their suites or take them in the dining room, which seated 272.
From the time of its construction, the Hotel Theresa kept a strict policy of segregation and all its residents and live-in workers were white. Despite the changing demographics of Harlem, it was not until 1940 that the whites-only policy ended.
By then Harlem had become known as the black mecca and the Theresa suffered financially and was forced to change. To signal its new direction, a black manager was hired and the Theresa began catering almost exclusively to blacks.
Dubbed the “Waldorf Astoria of Harlem,” the Theresa was the place where black entertainers, sports figures and celebrities like Louis Armstrong, Dorothy Dandridge, Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Josephine Baker, Sugar Ray Robinson, Dinah Washington, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix and others stayed or lived for a while. At its legendary bar, prominent black residents and visitors to Harlem would meet. Almost any high profile black figure could be seen there.
During his 1960 visit to the UN General Assembly, President Fidel Castro and his party stayed at the Theresa. While there, Castro was visited by Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister of India, Malcolm X, Allen Ginsburg, Langston Hughes, and the Egyptian president Gamal Nasser. During that same year, John F. Kennedy made a campaign stop at the Theresa.
Following Castro’s stay, several visiting diplomats and leaders from developing countries, including Patrice Lumumba of Congo stayed at the Theresa.
In 1959, the Communist Party of the United States held its convention there. And in 1965, the Theresa became the headquarters of Malcolm X’s Organization for Afro-American Unity, the organization he founded following his break with Elijah Mohammed.
Gustavus Sindenberg died in 1915 but the Hotel Theresa remained a part of the Sidenberg estate until 1948. It was sold several times after. In 1967, the Theresa was closed. It reopened in 1971 as the Theresa Towers with office space, an auxiliary campus for Columbia Teachers’ College, and Touro College of Pharmacy. Some scenes from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1969 film, Topaz, were set in and in front of the Theresa.
The Hotel Theresa remained the tallest building in Harlem until 1973 when the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, on the northeast corner of 125th and Seventh Avenue was built. In 1993, the Hotel Theresa became a New York landmark on the National Register of Historic Places.
With all of the notable people staying at the hotel, I can see that as part of making it a landmark. Just imagine, all of those people passing through. I don’t think I would’ve gotten much work done with all of my star-gazing. LoL!
Would be interesting to have some artifacts of these places show on your site.
Wasn’t it Little Richard who made the ‘B’ word famous? Or was it the rap industry? Man, was he flamboyant and just too hilarious.
Atlanta has it’s interesting points but it’s so much better reading about other places. Somewhere as simple as a single building can be rich with history, especially when looking at the people who have frequented it.
I think of the people who occupy the building now — the students, office workers, etc., and wonder how much of the history they are aware of. Not sure about the artifacts – Im sure the owners have kept whatever was left. I’m gonna try to see the inside of it one of these days.
Not sure about lIttle Richard but you’re so right, he was flamboyant!
Ron Brown, who was in Clinton’s cabinet — he died in a plane crash sometime ago – apparently lived there when his dad worked there. And parts of Precious were filmed there.
I remember Ron Brown (R.I.P.).
Little Richard was such an entertainer. Hilarious and bold personality.
I’m sure with it being NY and all, there’s a place inside where they show off who’s been there. I hope so anyway.
You know, I’ll definitely talk to some of the older Harlem folks to see if they know and I’ll check into the Theresa — maybe they do have a little shrine to the past still there. Since it became a historic landmark, they wouldn’t have been able to change the structure too much. Not sure if it covers memorabilia. Will let you know. Thanks, Tots, good idea.
In American we love to destroy and rebuild. Which is how we end up losing a lot of our history very quickly. We can learn a lot from the Europeans who value their past and their older buildings more than we do. So I’m always happy to see when older buildings like this are recognized as a historical landmark. Truly remarkable.
Yup, we just looove putting up new buildings that look like dressed up boxes.
I love old buildings, they have so much to show us.
What a fascinating history of the majestic Theresa Hotel… I wonder if it is still a commercial building today or if there are some residences inside… I love that top floor… I bet the views are still spectacular on that level. 🙂
Thanks, Elizabeth. It’s a beautiful hotel. Yes, it’s still a commercial building. I plan on seeing if I can go inside – maybe even up to the top floor.
Will let you know what I find.