tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11702425.post514401676096587643..comments2024-01-25T16:12:51.925-08:00Comments on Almost 50: The Uprooted - Chronicling the Great MigrationAlmost 50 by Alvin Blackshearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08204681666588685544noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11702425.post-45183784837779946652010-09-17T22:58:43.954-07:002010-09-17T22:58:43.954-07:00That's a really interesting connection between...That's a really interesting connection between the WPA interview and the minor character in Invisible Man (which, if I'm not mistaken, won the National Book Award in 1953, the year after it was published). <br /><br />According to the biography by Lawrence Jackson ("Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius"), Ellison lived for a time at 749 St. Nicholas Avenue (between 147th and 148 Streets). I think that's the "tiny-ground floor-rear apartment" he recalls in his 1955 essay "Living With Music." It sounds like you may already know that!<br /><br />I think he was probably living at that address at the time of the Harlem Riot of 1935 (which he reported on for the NY Post), because according to the same biographer, he had been out of town, and upon returning to Harlem, he "exited the A train subway station at 145th and St. Nicholas Ave. [...] When he reached his apartment, he received a message from the New York Post..[and then].. hastened out of his apartment into the early morning of August 2 to cover the story, catching the subway down to 127th Street and Eighth Avenue."<br /><br />I found the apartment building on the Internet:<br /><br />http://www.corcoran.com/property/listing.aspx?ListingID=810678&Region=NYC<br /><br />It's interesting to me because I used to have a regular 3-night-a-week gig at a club on the next block working with a Hammond organist named Jack McDuff. It was called "Dude's Lounge" at the time but later changed to "St. Nick's Pub." That was in the early 1980s but since that time I've read most of Ellison's work, but at that time, of course, I didn't make the connection.<br /><br />I read Invisible Man around 1975-'76 while living in Cambridge, Mass. At that time I was working in the house band at a newly-opened Inman Sq. jazz club called the 1369 Club (currently a coffee house). Here's a photo:<br /><br />http://tinyurl.com/2ubejzx<br /><br />You might recall that that's the number of light bulbs in the Invisible Man's apartment. How's that for a bizarre connection?<br /><br />I noticed the review of this particular history of the Great Migration in the NY Times and if the library gets it in I may read it, however, I already have a copy of Columbia University professor Nicholas Lemann's "The Promised Land," which I've yet to read.<br /><br />Anyway, thank you for the really interesting blog post.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com