Month: March 2017

A share­hold­er may only sub­let an apart­ment with the express approval in writ­ing from the Board of Direc­tors or the Man­ag­ing Agent, and pro­vid­ed the share­hold­er has been res­i­dent for at least one year. The max­i­mum peri­od of the sub­let shall be for one year. Appli­ca­tions to extend the sub­let for sub­se­quent peri­ods beyond the ini­tial one year shall be sub­ject to a re-appli­ca­tion process and fee. Any share­hold­er wish­ing to sub­let their unit shall pay the Coop­er­a­tive a Sub­let Fee. That fee shall be the equiv­a­lent of one month’s main­te­nance for the said unit for each peri­od of sub­let. (Adopt­ed by a res­o­lu­tion of the Board on 12 Sep­tem­ber 2005).

BOARD MEMBERS, 2013–2014

Ms. Cath­leen Price [Pres­i­dent] Ms. Rebec­ca Fried­man [Vice-Pres­i­dent] Ms. Sharon Rueb­steck [Sec­re­tary] Dr. Eliz­a­beth Castel­li [Trea­sur­er]

Ms. Martha Bro­phy [Com­mu­ni­ca­tions]

BOARD MEMBERS, 2012–2013

Dr. Eliz­a­beth Castel­li [Pres­i­dent] Mr. Bob Drake [Vice-Pres­i­dent] Ms. Sharon Rueb­steck [Sec­re­tary] Dr. Don­ald Lee [Trea­sur­er]

Ms. Cath­leen Price [Com­mu­ni­ca­tions]

BOARD MEMBERS, 2011–2012

Dr. Eliz­a­beth Castel­li [Pres­i­dent] Mr. Bob Drake [Vice-Pres­i­dent] Ms. Cath­leen Price [Sec­re­tary] Mr. Stan DeMag­nienville [Trea­sur­er]

Dr. Don­ald Lee [Com­mu­ni­ca­tions]

BOARD MEMBERS, 2010–2011 Dr. Eliz­a­beth Castel­li (Pres­i­dent) Mr. Alex Saave­dra (Vice-Pres­i­dent) Ms. Cath­leen Price (Sec­re­tary) Dr. Don­ald Lee (Trea­sur­er)

Ms. Sandy Dorsey (Com­mu­ni­ca­tions)

BOARD MEMBERS, 2009–2010
Dr. Don­ald Lee [Pres­i­dent] Dr. Jide Williams [Vice-Pres­i­dent] Ms. Lisa Wil­son [Sec­re­tary] Mr. Andy Hadel [Trea­sur­er]

Dr. Eliz­a­beth Castel­li [Com­mu­ni­ca­tions]

BOARD MEMBERS, 2008–2009
Dr. Don­ald Lee [Pres­i­dent] Dr. Jide Williams [Vice-Pres­i­dent] Ms. Lisa Wil­son [Sec­re­tary] Mr. Andy Hadel [Trea­sur­er]

Dr. Eliz­a­beth Castel­li [Com­mu­ni­ca­tions]

BOARD MEMBERS, 2007–2008 Dr. Don­ald Lee [Pres­i­dent] Dr. Jide Williams [Vice-Pres­i­dent] Ms. Lisa Wil­son [Sec­re­tary] Mr. Andy Hadel [Trea­sur­er]

Dr. Eliz­a­beth Castel­li [Com­mu­ni­ca­tions]

BOARD MEMBERS, 2006–2007 Dr Ola­jide Williams [Pres­i­dent] Dr Don­ald Lee [Vice Pres­i­dent] Mr Andrew Hadel [Trea­sur­er] Ms Lisa Wil­son [Sec­re­tary]

Mr Ekker­hart Schwarz [Spon­sor]

BOARD MEMBERS, 2005–2006 Dr Ola­jide Williams [Pres­i­dent] Mr Neil Nash [Vice Pres­i­dent] Dr Don­ald Lee [Trea­sur­er] Ms Lisa Wil­son [Sec­re­tary]

Mr Ekker­hart Schwarz [Spon­sor]

BOARD MEMBERS, 2004–2005 Dr Ola­jide Williams [Pres­i­dent] Mr Neil Nash [Vice-Pres­i­dent] Dr Don­ald Lee [Trea­sur­er] Ms Stacey Mor­ris [Sec­re­tary]

Mr Ekker­hart Schwarz [Spon­sor]

WHOM TO CONTACT AND WHEN

• MEDICAL OR LIFE-THREATENING SITUATIONS

CALL 911

For oth­er emer­gen­cies and prob­lems with the build­ing or your apart­ment the
first per­son to con­tact is:

Build­ing Porter, Mr Lazaro Vil­tres (917) 731‑6125

Fail­ing this, please con­tact the fol­low­ing per­sons in the fol­low­ing order:

Man­ag­ing Agent Mr Jer­ry Edel­man (212) 721‑0424

Con­tact a Mem­ber of the Board.

Please email com­plaints to the fol­low­ing address: 311@edgecombe.us

Smok­ing in pub­lic spaces in the build­ing is not per­mit­ted for any­one, includ­ing share­hold­ers:  it cre­ates a health and fire haz­ard; it caus­es a nui­sance for peo­ple who are try­ing to climb the stairs; and it pos­es an extra­or­di­nary chal­lenge to our effort to keep the pub­lic areas decent­ly clean.

If you do not per­mit peo­ple to smoke with­in the con­fines of your apart­ment, then please under­stand that you need to ensure that they go all the way out­side of the build­ing before they light up.  You can­not smoke in the stair­well, nor can your guests or vis­i­tors.  And you can­not leave your cig­a­rette butts on the stairs.

Please note the rel­e­vant House Rule:
“16. (d) No one may smoke in the pub­lic halls, stair­ways, ele­va­tors, laun­dry rooms or oth­er Pub­lic Spaces of the Build­ing”

The 100 year old Wash­ing­ton Heights Library final­ly reopened on Mon­day, 3 March 2014 after a four years $12.4 mil­lion ren­o­va­tion and new tech­nol­o­gy, includ­ing 65 com­put­ers and touch screens for pub­lic pro­grams.

The 17,000-square-foot library now has an airi­er design, with new fur­ni­ture, ele­va­tors and wheel­chair lifts. The library also fea­tures 24 Apple iMacs – only the third in the sys­tem to fea­ture Apple com­put­ers.

Wash­ing­ton Heights Library 1000 St. Nicholas Avenue (at W. 160th St.) New York, NY 10032–5202

(212) 923‑6054

Library Man­ag­er: Vianela Rivas

Mon­day	Tues­day	Wednes­day	Thurs­day	Fri­day	Sat­ur­day	Sun­day
11:00 AM – 7:00 PM	11:00 AM – 6:00 PM	11:00 AM – 7:00 PM	11:00 AM – 6:00 PM	10:00 AM – 5:00 PM	10:00 AM – 5:00 PM	CLOSED

[This post is based on the arti­cle by grownyc.org]

Around 40% of NYC’s waste can be recy­cled through the curb­side recy­cling pro­gram.

Recy­clable Paper
Near­ly a quar­ter of NYC’s waste is recy­clable paper! Be sure to recy­cle all clean paper. Reduce your car­bon foot­print fur­ther by tak­ing your name off of mass mail­ing lists, reduc­ing cat­a­log waste, opt­ing out of offers for cred­it cards and insur­ance and stop­ping unwant­ed tele­phone books–learn how at NYCWaste­Less.

Met­al & Met­al Appli­ances
Recy­cle cans, clean alu­minum foil and “most­ly met­al” house­hold items with at least 50% met­al con­tent. Bulky met­al such as shelves and appli­ances should be placed next to your recy­cling bins or bags on recy­cling day (call 311 first for appli­ances that require CFC removal such as air con­di­tion­ers and refrig­er­a­tors). Con­serve even more resources by donat­ing reusable met­al items. For exam­ple, bikes and bike parts can be used by Recy­cle a Bicy­cle or Time’s UP! to get more New York­ers on two wheels.

Con­tain­er Glass
Unbro­ken bot­tles and jars are recy­clable through NYC’s curb­side recy­cling pro­gram. Emp­ty and rinse con­tain­ers and remove, then recy­cle, met­al caps and lids. Recy­cle nat­ur­al corks with Cork Rehar­vest using bins locat­ed at Whole Foods mar­kets in NYC.

Rigid Plas­tics
As of April 23, 2013, New York­ers can recy­cle all rigid plas­tics, includ­ing yogurt cups, plas­tic toys, sal­ad con­tain­ers, sham­poo bot­tles, plas­tic fur­ni­ture and plas­tic appli­ances.  Learn more.

Bev­er­age Car­tons
Gable-top and asep­tic con­tain­ers (think O.J., milk, soy milk and box­es of soup stock) are includ­ed in the City’s recy­cling pro­gram. Rinse and place with your glass, met­al and plas­tic recy­clables.

Tex­tiles
Mate­ri­als such as old cloth­ing and linens rep­re­sent almost 6% of NYC’s waste. Recy­cle your unwant­ed tex­tiles at one of GrowNYC’s week­ly tex­tile col­lec­tions at select Green­mar­kets. Large apart­ment build­ings can sign up for an in-build­ing pro­gram through Wear­able Col­lec­tions or Refash­ioNYC. If your run­ning shoes are worn com­plete­ly, you can also recy­cle them through the Reuse-a-Shoe pro­gram, which makes them into ath­let­ic sur­faces.

Yard Waste
4% of the res­i­den­tial waste in our con­crete jun­gle actu­al­ly comes from yards and green spaces. If you’re lucky enough to have a patch of grass, leave it on the lawn after mow­ing. Col­lect fall leaves for com­post and be sure to con­tact the Parks Depart­ment for prop­er removal of any tree prun­ings and oth­er organ­ic woody debris if you live in Brook­lyn, Man­hat­tan, Queens or Stat­en Island.

Food Waste
Why let your food scraps go to waste? There are sev­er­al local pro­grams offer­ing com­post­ing to turn your cof­fee grounds, veg­etable trim­mings and oth­er organ­ic mate­ri­als into “black gold” to fer­til­ize flow­ers, veg­eta­bles and trees sans harm­ful chem­i­cals. 35 of GrowNYC’s Green­mar­kets now accept res­i­den­tial kitchen scraps for com­post­ing. Click here to find oth­er com­mu­ni­ty drop-off sites. You can also learn to make your own com­post at home. Vis­it NYC Waste­Less for more resources.

For food that is still edi­ble, check out this handy inter­ac­tive map from the NYC Coali­tion Against Hunger to find a soup kitchen or food pantry near you. Large vol­umes of canned food can be donat­ed through the Food Bank for NYC. Con­tact City Har­vest for infor­ma­tion on donat­ing large amounts of fresh, per­ish­able and pre­pared food.

Oth­er Paper
Cer­tain types of paper such as tis­sues, nap­kins, food-soiled paper, lam­i­nat­ed papers, cups, plates, and take-out con­tain­ers are not recy­clable in NYC. Reduce your use of sin­gle-use, dis­pos­able items and com­post food-soiled nap­kins and paper tow­els that are free of tox­ic clean­ers or oth­er harm­ful chem­i­cals.

Oth­er Plas­tic
New York­ers dis­card near­ly 2,000 tons of plas­tic bags every week, not to men­tion the ones that land in trees and sew­ers rather than the trash recep­ta­cle. The key is to reduce your use of plas­tic bags.  Use bags a sec­ond time for shop­ping, tak­ing out the trash, or clean­ing up after the dog.  Clean and dry bags can be recy­cled at large retail stores and chains around the city, thanks to a recent law that requires recy­cling of plas­tic film such as shop­ping bags, dry clean­ing bags and news­pa­per bags.  Look for ways to reduce Sty­ro­foam waste by bring­ing your own to-go cup, buy­ing wise­ly at the super­mar­ket and ask­ing restau­rants to use alter­na­tive pack­ag­ing.

Con­struc­tion and Demo­li­tion (C&D)
Reduce and reuse when you ren­o­vate. Save mon­ey by buy­ing from and donat­ing to NYC’s build­ing mate­ri­als reuse cen­ter, Build It Green!. Vis­it their web­site to view the inven­to­ry of items like cab­i­nets, doors, appli­ances, paint and even decon­struc­tion ser­vices.

Elec­tron­ics
Although they are a small por­tion of the waste stream by vol­ume, com­put­ers and elec­tron­ics con­tribute about 70% of the heavy met­als in land­fills. Con­sid­er donat­ing work­ing elec­tron­ics. If bro­ken, there are many recy­cling oppor­tu­ni­ties for these items. Find upcom­ing col­lec­tion days on our Recy­cling Events page, vis­it Take It Back NYC for info on man­u­fac­tur­er and retail recy­cling at loca­tions such as Best Buy, Sta­ples and Good­will stores.  Recy­cling is eas­i­er than ever with the Low­er East Side Ecol­o­gy Center’s new e‑waste drop-off ware­house in the Gowanus sec­tion of Brook­lyn.  As of April 1, 2011, New York State Law requires man­u­fac­tur­ers of many elec­tron­ics to col­lect their prod­ucts from res­i­dents at no charge. Be pre­pared for 2015, when cer­tain elec­tron­ics will be pro­hib­it­ed from res­i­den­tial trash.

Cell phones are easy to recy­cle, due to a NY State law requir­ing any store sell­ing cell phones to take them back for recy­cling. You can also recy­cle or refur­bish your old phone for a cause through many char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions.

Recy­cle CDs, flop­py disks, VHS tapes, etc. by pur­chas­ing a Tech­no­trash bin from Green Disk or recy­cle select media at Best Buy.

House­hold Haz­ardous Waste (HHW)
Most of NYC’s HHW con­sists of dry cell bat­ter­ies and water-based paints & adhe­sives, but also includes oil fil­ters, antifreeze, wet cell bat­ter­ies, motor oil, fuel, mer­cury wastes, oil-based sol­vents, paint, pes­ti­cides and fire extin­guish­ers. When­ev­er pos­si­ble, avoid buy­ing harm­ful mate­ri­als that cre­ate dis­pos­al haz­ards. Learn more about reduc­ing tox­ins in your waste.

The NYC Depart­ment of Sanitation’s Spe­cial Waste Drop-Off Sites accept house­hold and auto­mo­tive bat­ter­ies, flu­o­res­cent bulbs, mer­cury ther­mome­ters and ther­mostats, motor oil, trans­mis­sion flu­id, latex paint and pas­sen­ger car tires.  In Spring 2013, DSNY’s NYC SAFE Dis­pos­al events will accept elec­tron­ics and oth­er poten­tial­ly harm­ful house­hold prod­ucts like bat­ter­ies, paint, pes­ti­cides and med­i­cine.  

Recharge­able bat­ter­ies are pro­hib­it­ed from house­hold garbage and must be recy­cled. NYC stores must recy­cle the same type of recharge­able bat­ter­ies that they sell. Cell phones and their bat­ter­ies can be returned to any store that sells these mobile devices. Select Green­mar­kets have col­lec­tion bins for cell phones and recharge­able bat­ter­ies or you can vis­it www.RBRC.org to get a bin for your apart­ment build­ing.

Com­pact Flu­o­res­cent Light bulbs (CFLs) save ener­gy and last much longer, but con­tain mer­cury and should be dis­posed of respon­si­bly. Get more info on light bulb recy­cling and find a drop-off site at www.grownyc.org/CFL.

Some local mem­bers and part­ners of the Nation­al Com­mu­ni­ty Phar­ma­cists Asso­ci­a­tion accept phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals for safe dis­pos­al. For more infor­ma­tion on safe han­dling of house­hold med­ical wastes vis­it NYC WasteLe$$.
Mis­cel­la­neous Inor­gan­ics and Non-Recy­clable Glass
Reuse old win­dows (see C&D), mir­rors and unwant­ed ceram­ics where pos­si­ble.

Fur­ni­ture
Many thrift stores and non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions can help pro­vide good homes for unwant­ed fur­ni­ture. Search by bor­ough, zip code or find city­wide list­ings using NYC Stuff Exchange. You can also look for tak­ers through Craigslist.org and Freecycle.org.

We con­tin­ue to receive fines from NYC for hun­dreds of dol­lars for recy­cling. The cost of each fine con­tin­ues to rise with each vio­la­tion. It is imper­a­tive that we all pay close atten­tion to our recy­cling respon­si­bil­i­ties. Please take anoth­er look at the fly­ers that will be dis­trib­uted.

Cat­e­go­ry: Lat­est News

NOTICE OF ANNUAL SHAREHOLDERS’ MEETING

515 EDGECOMBE OWNERS CORPORATION

To the Share­hold­ers:

In accor­dance with the Bylaws of this Cor­po­ra­tion, the annu­al meet­ing of Share­hold­ers will be held at7:30pm, on Tues­day the 14th day of May 2013, at 515 Edge­combe Avenue, in the City of New York, State of New York.

The pur­pose of this meet­ing is to elect Direc­tors and to trans­act any oth­er nec­es­sary busi­ness. Nom­i­na­tions for Board Direc­tors are request­ed by Fri­day, May 10.

Share­hold­ers of record at the close of busi­ness on Fri­day, 10 May 2013 are enti­tled to vote in per­son or by proxy at the meet­ing or any adjourn­ment or adjourn­ments there­of.

Dat­ed:  1 April 2013

Click here to down­load the Proxy Form.

Cat­e­go­ry: Lat­est News

515 Edge­combe Avenue (“combe” is derived from an Anglo-Sax­on word mean­ing “hill”) is locat­ed in a neigh­bor­hood bathed in his­to­ry.

Morris-Jumel Mansion

Just 2 blocks north of our build­ing is the his­toric Mor­ris-Jumel Man­sion. Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton used Mor­ris-Jumel Man­sion (MJM) as his head­quar­ters dur­ing the fall of 1776. It was dur­ing this peri­od that the General’s troops forced a British retreat at the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War Bat­tle of Harlem Heights

The house was built eleven years before the rev­o­lu­tion, in 1765, by British Colonel Roger Mor­ris and his Amer­i­can wife, Mary Philipse. The breezy hill­top loca­tion proved an ide­al loca­tion for the family’s sum­mer home. Known as Mount Mor­ris, this north­ern Man­hat­tan estate stretched from the Harlem to the Hud­son Rivers and cov­ered more than 130 acres. Because they were loy­al to the crown, the Mor­ris­es were even­tu­al­ly forced to return to Eng­land.

Dur­ing the war, the hill­top loca­tion of the Man­sion was val­ued for more than its cool sum­mer breezes. With views of the Harlem Riv­er, the Bronx, and Long Island Sound to the east, New York City and the har­bor to the south, and the Hud­son Riv­er and Jer­sey Pal­isades to the west, Mount Mor­ris proved to be a strate­gic mil­i­tary head­quar­ters. Short­ly after the Bat­tle of Harlem Heights, Wash­ing­ton and his troops left the Man­sion and, for a time, it was occu­pied by British and Hes­s­ian forces.

Pres­i­dent Wash­ing­ton returned to the Man­sion on July 10, 1790, and dined with mem­bers of his cab­i­net. Guests at the table includ­ed two future Pres­i­dents of the Unit­ed States: Vice Pres­i­dent John Adams and Sec­re­tary of State Thomas Jef­fer­son. Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury Alexan­der Hamil­ton and Sec­re­tary of War Hen­ry Knox  also attend­ed.

The Man­sion is built in the Pal­la­di­an style, with a sec­ond sto­ry bal­cony and a two-sto­ry front por­ti­co sup­port­ed by clas­si­cal columns. The two-sto­ry octa­gon at the rear of the house is believed to be the first of its kind any­where in the colonies. The first floor of the 8,500 square foot house fea­tures rooms for fam­i­ly and social gath­er­ings, and includes the par­lor in which Madame Eliza Jumel mar­ried Aaron Burr in 1833. Across the hall stands the din­ing room where Wash­ing­ton like­ly enter­tained his guests in 1790. At the far end of the hall, the octag­o­nal draw­ing room, or with­draw­ing room as it is prop­er­ly known, pro­vid­ed a grand set­ting for social gath­er­ings. Bed­rooms on the sec­ond floor include those of George Wash­ing­ton, Eliza Jumel, and Aaron Burr. The base­ment hous­es the colo­nial-era kitchen and tells the sto­ry of domes­tic servi­tude at the Man­sion. The room fea­tures the orig­i­nal hearth and a bee-hive oven as well as a col­lec­tion of ear­ly Amer­i­can cook­ing uten­sils. Through archi­tec­ture and a diverse col­lec­tion of dec­o­ra­tive arts objects, each room of the Mor­ris-Jumel Man­sion reveals a spe­cif­ic aspect of its col­or­ful his­to­ry from the 18th through the 19th cen­turies.

[This text is tak­en from the Mor­ris-Jumel Man­sion web­site.]

Coogan’s Bluff

Coogan’s Bluff, a large cliff extend­ing north­ward from 155th Street in Man­hat­tan, once was the site of the fabled Polo Grounds, the home of the New York Giants (base­ball) for over 5 decades, and the first home of the New York Mets. 

To the north of High­bridge park is a wood­ed area with­in which lies a land­mark schist rock that pokes through the dirt called Coogan’s Bluff.  It is named after James Coogan, Man­hat­tan Bor­ough Pres­i­dent, who sold the land to New York Giants own­er John T. Brush, who moved the Giants to the sec­ond Polo Grounds in 1891.

It sits atop a steep escarp­ment that descends 175 feet to the Harlem Riv­er Val­ley below.  In 1891, John T. Brush (1845–1912), the Giants’ own­er, bought the land for the sta­di­um from James J. Coogan (1845–1915), a real estate mer­chant and Man­hat­tan Bor­ough Pres­i­dent (1899–1901).

The Giants orig­i­nal­ly played in a polo field on 111th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Brush kept the name, Polo Grounds, when he moved the team to Coogan’s Bluff in 1891. In April 1911, the Polo Grounds, an elab­o­rate wood­en struc­ture, burned to the ground. By Octo­ber, the Giants were host­ing the Philadel­phia Ath­let­ics for the 1911 World Series in a rebuilt sta­di­um of con­crete and steel. The new Polo Grounds boast­ed box seats of Ital­ian mar­ble, orna­men­tal Amer­i­can eagles on the balustrade, and blue and gold ban­ners, 30 feet apart, fly­ing from a can­tilever roof. At the time, it was the pre­mier Major League Base­ball sta­di­um.

Base­ball soon estab­lished itself as the quin­tes­sen­tial Amer­i­can game, and the New York Giants made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to 20th cen­tu­ry base­ball lore. Mel Ott (1909–1958) and Willie Mays (b.1931) are thought to be among the finest play­ers of all time; and the names of Christy Math­ew­son (1878–1925) and Carl Hubbell (1903–1988) are still men­tioned when­ev­er great pitch­ers are dis­cussed. The Giants also pro­vid­ed base­ball with one of its most dra­mat­ic moments: “the shot heard round the world.” In 1951, the Giants and their arch-rivals the Brook­lyn Dodgers were in the ninth inning of the decid­ing game in a play-off to deter­mine the Nation­al League pen­nant win­ner. With two outs left in the game, the Dodgers were ahead 4–2 when Bob­by Thom­son came to bat for the Giants and hit a 3‑run home run win­ning the game for the Giants, and mak­ing base­ball his­to­ry.

In 1957, the own­er of the Giants, Horace Stone­ham (1903–1990) broke many New York hearts when he announced that he was mov­ing the Giants to San Fran­cis­co. The Polo Grounds remained for sev­en more years, serv­ing as home to the New York Mets for the 1962 and 1963 sea­sons. In 1964 the sta­di­um was demol­ished and now the Polo Grounds Tow­ers, a hous­ing project, occu­pies the site. All that is left of the orig­i­nal Polo Grounds is an old stair­case on the side of the cliff that once led to the tick­et booth.

Today, Coogan’s Bluff is part of High­bridge Park, which was assem­bled piece­meal between 1867 and the 1960s, with the bulk being acquired through con­dem­na­tion from 1895 to 1901. The cliff­side area from West 181st Street to Dyck­man Street was acquired in 1902, and the par­cel includ­ing Fort George Hill was acquired in 1928. The park extends from 155th Street in North Harlem to Dyck­man Street in Wash­ing­ton Heights/Inwood. The Friends of High­bridge Park are involved in pre­serv­ing the park’s his­to­ry and the New York Restora­tion Project has cleaned the park and restored its trails.

[This text is part of Parks’ His­tor­i­cal Signs Project and can be found post­ed with­in the park.]

Paul Robeson Residence

The Paul Robe­son Res­i­dence, a Nation­al His­toric Land­mark, is locat­ed at 555 Edge­combe Avenue in New York City.

Paul Robe­son (1898–1976) — actor, singer, civ­il rights advo­cate — lived in an apart­ment in this 13 sto­ry apart­ment build­ing from 1939–1941, upon his return from liv­ing and per­form­ing in Europe.

Paul Robe­son was a gift­ed stu­dent and ath­lete while attend­ing Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty in New Jer­sey. He was a bril­liant Phi Beta Kap­pa stu­dent, two time All Amer­i­can foot­ball play­er (1917–1918), and won hon­ors in debat­ing and ora­to­ry. He grad­u­at­ed from Colum­bia Law School but gave up law to pur­sue a career in singing and act­ing. Robe­son per­formed on Broad­way, and is not­ed for his lead­ing roles in Oth­el­lo and Eugene O’Neill’s play, Emper­or Jones, and his stun­ning ren­di­tion of the song “Ole Man Riv­er” in the musi­cal Show­boat. In 1934, he vis­it­ed the Sovi­et Union, where he felt ful­ly accept­ed as a black artist. Dur­ing World War II, he enter­tained troops at the front and sang bat­tle songs on the radio.

In 1937, Robe­son wrote, “the artist must elect to fight for free­dom or for slav­ery. I have made my choice. I have no alter­na­tive.” He con­tin­ued this fight for free­dom, both polit­i­cal and artis­tic, until his death in 1976.

Despite his war efforts, he was labeled “sub­ver­sive” by McCarthyites, who were wary of his ear­li­er trip to the Sovi­et Union, his sup­port of the 1947 St. Louis pick­et­ing against seg­re­ga­tion of black actors and a Pana­ma effort to orga­nize the most­ly-black Pana­man­ian work­ers. Robe­son began receiv­ing death threats from the Ku Klux Klan while cam­paign­ing for the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty can­di­date in the 1948 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. When he pub­licly opposed the Cold War, even the nation­al sec­re­tary of the NAACP ques­tioned his loy­al­ty as an Amer­i­can. Con­necti­cut state offi­cials also went to court to pre­vent him from vis­it­ing his fam­i­ly home in Enfield. Undaunt­ed, Robe­son for­mal­ly denounced the action and on August 27, 1949, trav­eled to Peek­skill, New York, to sing before a group of African Amer­i­can and Jew­ish trade union­ists. A KKK-led riot can­celed the con­cert but Robe­son returned the fol­low­ing week with 25,000 sup­port­ers. A “human wall” pro­tect­ed Robe­son while he sang, though after­wards many of the con­cert goers were ambushed and beat­en while local police and state troop­ers stood by.

In March 1950, NBC barred Robe­son from appear­ing on a tele­vi­sion show with Eleanor Roo­sevelt. Con­cert halls closed their doors to him, and his records began to dis­ap­pear from stores. After eight years, an inter­na­tion­al out­cry, and the Supreme Court’s rever­sal of the same sit­u­a­tion for the artist Rock­well Kent in 1958, Robe­son won.