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11, 1996
P age A 5
¡idueatien
Harlem, the village light rail built
In case you were on another planet
and therefore missed his melodic
advice, the great Duke Ellington,
musician, composer and orchestra
leader, long ago advised us in his best
rhythmic style to “Take The A Train”
[to Harlem).
And a different Light Rail, in
deed, was this colorful and Unitarian
public transport in the 1920s and
1930s when, above ground and be
low ground, the fare was one nickel.
The elevated sections of the system
dwell mostly in nostalgia and old
movies, but the Subway is of very
great interest to many because the
invention of the “Third Rail” by black
engineer Granville T. Woods made
possible the elimination of overhead
Trolley. “Greatest electrician in the
world!”, American Catholic Tribune,
1888.
There were other remarkable as
pects to the clean, economical steel
ribboned arteries that served New
York and its environs. In his urban
masterpiece, “Subway,” the Harlem
Renaissance painter, Palmer Hayden,
portrayed a group of black and white
passengers crammed together dur
ing rush hour who felt no sense of
apprehension. Artists had a new
genre-rolling theatres ready for a
canvas.
In his 1934 wood engraving, “Sub
way”, Fritz Eichenberg conveyed a
similar impression of riders travel
ing on a Broadway-Seventh train late
at night. The passengers are divided
evenly between black and white and
between men and women, nearly
everyone fast asleep. The absence of
fear was essential to the popul ist idea
of a peoples underground’. Holly
wood occasionally uses this older
theme— a kinder urban America. In
this very condensed version of a la
bor of love that will appear in a
national publ ication and on CD-ROM
in late winter and spring, I will at-
[7
tempt to convey some idea of the
serendipity circumstances that gave
birth to the vibrant "urban village”
we know as Harlem. Patently a con
tradiction inter ms. perhaps even an
oxymoron, but, then, this is America.
The "Interurban Rapid Transit
Co.” received a 35 million dollar
contract to begin construction on a
subway system for New York on
March 16, ¡894 and immediately
was faced with formidable obstacles
Cliton Hood, a transportation histo
rian, has described New York City as
“The Urban Archipelago," sprawl
ing across several big islands and
divided by three major waterways —
the upper bay, the Hudson River and
the East River.
It took ten years for the Rapid
Transit Co. to surmount the difficul
ties presented by a ‘crazy quilt’ ge
ography, unpredictable terrain at low -
er depths and a series o f catastrophic
accidents. Finally on October 28.
tipsy Mayor McClellan taking the
controls ofthe inaugural train loaded
with dignitaries.
Things went rather smoothly for
the next several years, though the
light rail pioneers unknowingly were
fast approaching a financial moment
oftruth. Just as is happening in Port
land, Oregon today, a number of
highly speculative real estate invest
ments were made at promising loca
tions around the transit stops. The
company faced economic disaster,
having built a huge area of middle-
class apartments they could not rent,
but a black man came to their rescue
and Harlem was born.
A very sharp black real estate op
erator by the name of Pickens saw
this situation as the opportunity of a
lifetime. He persuaded the Rapid
T ransit board of directors to give him
an exclusive contract as rental agent,
then promptly mounted a high-pow
ered, sophisticated marketing pro-
tz 4/ //
/
7
rl
Call To Advertize With
®li c ^.lnrflatth ODhseruer
At 503-288-0033
[ D
I V E R
S I T Y ]
Photography
workshop offered
An al l-day photography workshop
ight by instructor Jane Keating has
en rescheduled to take place Sat-
Jay, December 15, from 9:30 am .
4:00 pin. In the morning, students
II learn the process of Polaroid
lage Transfer; in the afternoon,
nulsion Transfer will be explored.
>th processes allow students to cre-
: full-color, painterly photographs
tine art papers from slides. Partic-
ints are asked to bring their favor-
35mm slides.
No photography or darkroom ex
perience is necessary.
The cost of this workshop is $60
for members and $70 for non-mem
bers.
The Maude Kerns Art Center, lo
cated at 1910 E. 15th Avenue, is
Eugene's only non-profit communi
ty center for the visual arts. Hours are
from9:00 a m. to 5:00p.m. Monday,
Friday, and Saturday and from 9:00
a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Tuesday through
Thursday.
For more information, call (541)
345-1571.
gram that Madison Avenue huck
sters would have admired.
The resourceful Pickens dis
patched a platoon of smooth, well-
dressed subagents of color to every
environ within 150 miles where ex
perience or demographics indicated
the presence of African Americans
who would be very amenable to the
kind of upward mobility offered by
the Rapid Transit real estate They
came by the thousands in an initial
wave and soon the boundaries ofthe
fecund uptown cultural cradle ex
panded to accept less affluent Afri
can Americans.
Harlem had been born, kicking
and screaming and creating and sig
nifying from the ’get-go’-destined
to reach a cultural pinnacle in the
1920s and 1930s known worldwide
as the "Harlem Renaissance”. Liter
ature, poetry, painting sculpture,
music and dance were the forte of
this I’enfant terrible that grew to in
tellectual maturity in a few short de
cades: Langston Hughes, Claude
M cKay, Alain Locke, Duke
Ellington. Jacob Lawrence, Eliza
beth Catlett, Rornare Bearden, and
many, many others.
And just as the power and vitality
o f African art and sculpture had so
heavily influenced the French Im
pressionists, the tune smiths of Broad
way embraced the pulse of Harlem:
George and Ira Gershwin, Rogers
and Hart, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter,
Oscar Hammerstein, et al.
(C) 1996, Mckinley Run
continued next week
Cassie Packard (left) and Teddy Pittman (right), try out the brand new recycled
plastic playground donated to Sitton Elementary School by the American Plastcs
Council (APC). APC and the City o f Portland Bureau o f Environmental Services,
challenged residents to recycle more plastic bottle at curbside. As a result o f the
increased recycling, two playgrounds were awarded, one to Sitton and the other to
Whitman Elementary. As soon as the final 5.6 percent goal is achieved, a third
school also will receive playground equipment. Citizens are reminded to “check the
neck" and recycle all plastic bottles with threaded necks and screw-type caps in
their curbside bins.
Call (503) 288-0033 to advertise in
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