Historic Harlem Basketball Ballroom Dies, But Legendary Rens Future Lives


Did you see William C. Rhoden’s wild column, D-League Team Could Bring Rens Back To Harlem, in the New York Times today?

It will likely make you disappointed in David Stern and his N.B.A., or the Rev. Calvin Butts III and his Abyssinian Development Corporation (ADC). Or both. Stern for his seeming insincerity, and Butts for his seemingly blind capitalism.

Rhoden is a well known sports writer; he’s the guy who wrote Forty Million Dollar Slaves, that great book which explains why highly-paid athletes (NBA and other sports) have no clue about how powerless and vulnerable they really are. The veteran columnist says that N.B.A. commissioner David Stern claims he wants to put an N.B.A. Development League (D-League) team in Harlem. “The Knicks are all over it,” says Stern.

But if so, then the only place that team should play, says Rhoden, is at the old, once-famous Renaissance Ballroom and Casino on the corner of 138th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. That’s where legendary New York Renaissance, a.k.a. the Harlem Rens basketball team used to play.

John Isaacs at Renaissance

Former Rens player John Isaacs, now 93 years old, poses in front of the Renaissance Ballroom in 2005 with kids from the neighborhood. "This place means a lot to me," says Isaacs.

That building has been vacant and boarded up since the late-1970s and since 1991 its owner, the Abyssinian Baptist Church (and its related ADC), have squandered opportunities to bring the structure back to life as the magnificent jewel of Harlem that it once was.

For years the surrounding community, and Harlem extended, had been hoping to protect the rich cultural heritage of the Renaissance Ballroom and Casino by having it designated as a historical landmark.

For years, Butts, supposedly the local community leader, fought to block any efforts to memorialize and preserve the place while it rotted away.

Renaissance with tree

A recent photo of the Renaissance Ballroom shows a tree growing out of its roof, a symbol of years of neglect by Abyssinian Development Corporation. (Courtesy of Rachel Eschenbach.)

Owned and operated by African-American entrepreneurs, the Renaissance was Harlem’s first multi-purpose entertainment complex where movies, plays, assemblies, dancing, and sports could be enjoyed. At a time when black people were forced to sit in the balconies at racially segregated theaters in their own communities, the Renaissance promoted itself as the first and only theater in New York City “built by Colored capital and owned and managed by Colored people.”

Renaissance Ballroom program

The Aristocrat of Harlem. A vintage program from the Renaissance Ballroom, circa 1930.

The Rens, the brainchild of team owner and Hall of Fame member Robert Douglas, featured Hall of Fame players Charles “Tarzan” Cooper and William “Pop” Gates, as well as others deserving of enshrinement, including 93-year-old John Isaacs, who is still living (and working every day as a counselor at a Boys and Girls Club). The Rens dominated basketball from the late 1920s through the early 1940s and won the inaugural World’s Professional Basketball Tournament championship in 1939 by beating America’s ten best white teams.

Butts, who is no fool, knew that landmark designation would prevent his plans to tear down the building and replace it with high-paying condos.

Rhoden, the sentimental dreamer, says he can see a new Renaissance basketball team playing in Harlem, at the old ballroom.

Stern, the patronizing saint, thinks he is teaching us something. “Harlem represents a basketball tradition that for decades and decades and decades has given the N.B.A. so many players,” Stern explained to Rhoden. Really?!

Renaissance grand opening

An advertisement promoting the grand opening of the Renaissance in 1922.

Earlier this year, as reported in the New York Times, Butts and ADC successfully defeated landmark designation once and for all.

They did it with the unprecedented help of some surprisingly influential (but disappointing) supporters. The Landmarks Commission voted 6-1 against landmark protection after hearing opposing arguments from the Municipal Arts Society, the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the Historic Districts Council, and, of all people, former New York City Mayor Dinkins. Landmark designation “would create insurmountable obstacles to bringing ballroom and the cultural space back to life,” they argued.

The voices of the people of Harlem couldn’t stop the full scale sell out.

“It’s a great mistake to feel that modern development needs to crowd out the great history,” Morningside Heights Historic District Committee member Carolyn Kent told the New York Sun.

As Chris Rock would say, “Grand opening! Grand closing!”

ADC will gut the historic interiors of the structure and build a 19-story condo tower in its place, which reportedly will have 112 units, 27,000 square feet of cultural and performance space, 10,000 square feet of community space and 10,000 square feet of commercial space.

Some parts of the building’s facade might remain for show.

Back to basketball. Although they won’t play at the Renaissance Ballroom, of course, I would be delighted if the D-League brought the Rens back to Harlem. Fans of the Black Fives brand, especially those from Harlem, have sought an NBA-Black Fives brand collaboration for a long time because it could enable the advancement of many culturally and historically enriching basketball-related initiatives.

Major League Baseball has a long standing collabo with the Negro Leagues, and it has worked OK.

People would be really excited if something like that did go down.

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[…] Together with its neighboring Theater, the Casino and Ballroom took up an entire block of 7th Avenue between 137th and 138th Streets, on the edge of Strivers Row. Built in stages between 1921 and 1923, the “Renny” touted itself in its grand opening announcement as having been been “built by Colored capital, and owned and managed by Colored people.” Paul Robeson sang there; Oscar Micheaux’s films debuted there; Armstrong, Henderson, Ellington, Basie, and Calloway played there; and Joe Louis fought there. It was also the home of the legendary basketballers the Harlem Rens. […]

8 years ago

WHO REMEMBERS THE RENAISSANCE BALLROOM? I DO. I remember Frank Nitty aka Mike Brown (RIP) my brother Mike’s friend taking me here. Every time I hear Stairway to Heaven by the Ojays, I will remember him. That was his song. I was 15. We ate at the restaurant and then we went to the club and danced for about two hours. No id needed, no gunfights, just fly dudes wearing AJ Lester, British Walker and Quarterfield coats. Of course I had on my Marshmellow, corduroy suit and hair was in two pom poms with my lamb fur swede coat. You all know the coat with the lamb on the collar and the wrists and the bottom perimeters. Yes we ate good. I remember my dad telling him to make sure he brings me back home the way he took me. My mother was pissed that I went with him but Mike said he was rich and would not be a slime. He was right. That was a great time and I went to so many parties there after that. I met a lot of hiphop heads there and that was my first club I ever did the dance THE FREAK in and we would be breakdancing also. Me and Denise Davis my best friend and she would challenge any dude on the dance floor and we would BURN THEM. Those were the times. The last bit of my Harlem History is being taken away and no one seems to care but those that had GREAT MEMORIES THERE. WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR MEMORIES OF THE RENAISSANCE BALLROOM AND THE RESTAURANT?

Chaplain Ronald Carson
14 years ago

My uncle Spencer “Stretch” Hill was on the original Ren’s team, and I recently I came across his scrap book with some of the original news paper articles, pictures and clippings on the Rens and other historical events that took place in Harlem as it was growing and changing in the 1920’s through the 1960’s.

8 years ago

would love to see those pictures

[…] of the next block.  The Renaissance is one of old Harlem’s best-known landmarks (but, sadly, without official landmark status).  Aside from being a famous dance- and entertainment hall, it’s also the former home court […]

JERMAINE
15 years ago

hi my name is jermaine and i would like to have my mom party there and i would like to know how much would it be for me to have a pary there for about 100 to 150 people

[…] team, debuted on November 3, 1923, beating the Collegiate Five, an all-white team, at the Renaissance Ballroom in […]

15 years ago

As a Harlemite and a collector of Harlem history, for as long as I can remember I have hoped for the Renaissance to be restored. Butts and all concerned should be ashamed of themselves. Why is it that our community that is rich in history most of the time does not think for a second about preserving our history. I havr this same hope for The Hotel Theresa and other LANDMARKS that are the richness of our neighborhoods. I could say more but my heart is broken

[…] on the inside of the tongue, is an iconic logo of a couple dancing, the same graphic depicted on a Renaissance Ballroom dance program from that […]

john
16 years ago

That’s an interesting point about the similarities to Negro League Baseball and the difference in how each sport has handled their segregated pasts. It is hard to have any mention of baseball’s past without a mention of the Negro Leagues, while I hear little if anything about the Black Fives or any black basketball association when the NBA comes up.

It seems to me this could definitely stem from the aggressive standpoint Stern has had on race, shown by the draconian clothing laws put in place last year. The MLB clearly has not been saintly in regards to their prior segregation, but at least they’re making an effort to fix it.

16 years ago

I would be happy if they just honored the space. For example, they could reconstruct the ticket window, or one end of the court as part of a meeting space, or include a lobby gallery that exhibits historical items or facts. Do they have this in mind? If so then why not address it up front so people who care won’t be so upset. If not, then why not?

Suzanne
16 years ago

This is such a tragedy. The city of New York has been so cavalier about its historic and architectural heritage, it’s unbeleivable!

steve
16 years ago

ADC kept the shell of the former Jazz Club Small’s Paradise for the Thurgood Marshall Academy (http://www.adcorp.org/tma.html). If they built a basketball space in the new tower and kept the Ren shell, would it keep the historical connection?