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GUS HILL'S MINSTRELS On the same day she photographed Andrew Carnegie's Fifth Avenue mansion, Abbott made her first photographs in Harlem. One subject was a public hall that once belonged to the infamous Tammany Hall leader "Boss" Tweed. The hall was conveniently located near the Harlem Railroad, built in the 1830s to connect the village of Harlem to downtown Manhattan, ten miles south. The 1869 wooden structure simulated the stone-clad structures of the French Second Empire. It served as political club, dance hall, vaudeville theater, jail, and gymnasium. Among the vaudeville troupes who performed there were Gus Hill's Minstrels, and among the fighters who trained there were heavyweight champions Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney. At the time of Abbott's photograph, the first-floor storefronts included a drugstore, paint store, luncheonette, Chinese laundry, auto repair shop, and fruit and vegetable stand; the public hall on the two upper floors, however, had been condemned. Today the lot is vacant, except for a small auto repair station at the southern end, and the neighborhood is run down. Return to North of 59th Street |