We haven’t had anything from the rumor mill lately, and this one is a doozy! Someone sent me an emai
l the other day asking if the Schomburg Center is moving downtown. Now, don’t run with this. We are simply asking if anyone with direct connections to the NYPL can confirm or deny the rumor before it spins too far out. It would seem that after spending money to renovate the Center, relocating the collection wouldn’t make sense.
Anyway, the author of the email supposedly did some digging around. An abbreviated version of the email is after the jump.
Dear Friends,
It has been brought to my attention, through what can very well be a rumor, that the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has plans in tandem with the New York Public Library to relocate the Schomburg Collection to a “central location” the main branch in midtown.
The premise of the collection started by Arturo Schomburg, a black Puerto Rican, was to allay claims by white America that blacks did not have a history. In an attempt to disprove this claim he began and created what would become an eighty- plus year effort to amass a comprehensive collection of books, manuscripts, artifacts, memorabilia, etc. documenting, concerning, and covering various aspects of black life from
sub-Saharan Africa through and including the western hemisphere.Not one to deliberately perpetuate rumors, I decided to go to the source and ask. What I got spoke volumes, moreover, by what was not said. Instead of refutation, after the librarian ceased stammering, it was
confirmed, through carefully chosen words, that the intent was to relocate the collection to a “central location.” Understandably, the librarian could only go so far into detail – she was using Schomburg/NYPL phones and property.However, without hesitation, she gave me the number and names of the various people with answers to my inquiry. She implied that a concerted effort on the part of the community was necessary via a campaign of telephone calls and letters.
Whatever you find out should be deposited to nomad_depot@hotmail.com so that we can centrally locate, analyze and disseminate the findings.
Anthony Calnek
September 12, 2008
This rumor is false. There is no plan to move any part of the Schomburg’s collection from its home in Harlem – not to any other location in the New York Public Library system, nor anywhere else, for that matter. The Schomburg Center has recently been expanded beautifully, and plans are in place to upgrade the facility even more in the years ahead. The collection is well taken care of, and scholars and the public have better access to its treasures than ever before.
Anthony Calnek
Vice President for Communications and Marketing
The New York Public Library
D. Bell
September 11, 2008
Look, the comments are getting very disrespectful. i’m saying that across the board and not just in this thread. In the past I’ve had to moderate ALL comments or ban certain individuals from commenting. I don’t like doing either, especially since it means more work for me. But I will. Before you comment, please read the guidelines which can found in the FAQ section. Then decide if your comment is really going to move the discussion forward or not. You need to make your point without disparaging others or addressing previous commenters directly because that just leads to online verbal wars and it detracts from the purpose of this Website. If you want to address something someone said, have them contact you off the board so we don’t get off topic. The point of this particular post was to get facts. I specifically put that in italics. Please respect the Website and other readers. I refuse to let the Website be run over by agitators.
If your comment was directed at someone else and it didn’t appear, then you will want to resubmit it without addressing the other person. We can disagree and make our points without telling others that they are stupid, ignorant, naive and that they need to eff themselves, Seriously. Please, respect this space.
And if you have a problem concerning the Website, please address it to uptownflavor@gmail.com rather than anonymously posting it in the comments section where it may or may not be read by an administrator. Thanks.
ANON
September 11, 2008
Might as well. Harlem won’t be Black in 20 years, why have it here? That would be like having the Scandanavian Archives in Harlem or the Jewish Archives in Harlem.
The Negro Tenure of Harlem is over. Seems to me proper for the place to uproot and not move to mid-town but to Brooklyn, DC, or Atlanta. Such an institution should be placed where the culture exist, no? Seems a reasonable logical extension.
Harlem has not been significant in defining Black Culture since the 60′s. Black Harlem’s great contributions to Culture in the last decade?…..what? the “Chicken Noodle Soup” dance..???
It’s High Time they pack up and make way for some Condos! Why not? I don’t tihnk I’ve ran into a person that’s actually been there in years!!! Yes, even institutions fade, their needed place declines or shifts elsewhere.
Besides let’s face it, it’s more of a place for the ‘elite’ anyway, all 2 dozen of the Black elite that still lives in Harlem. Dollar per dollar it’s pure pork, a tax payer’s wasteful expense. Just look how big it is, how expensive it must be to maintain, and I rarely see many people in it, most that go to events come from outside of Harlem anyway.
If it were gone, it might take 3 or 4 months before anyone noticed. One might even argue that “M&G’s” was in fact more of a Harlem Institution for all of Harlem than this place. What % of Harlem is actually a card carrying member? 0.0001%? I’m willing to bet they have more members that live outside of Harlem than in it!
We live in an era when every Black Church that can is selling their culture (land) to make a buck! There are no sacred institutions on Harlem, so I say in the true spirt of the American Harlem Negro, it would be fitting for the city to “evict” the Schomburg Center like a stinky drummer in Mt. Morris Park Annoying Brownstone Buying Harlemites, the Pale ones.
I support the departure of this Center from Harlem, as long as every Hair Braiding Joint, Greasy Chinese Food Hole, & Wheelie Popping Negro Juvenile Motorcross Rider on Lenox ave goes with it! That I can get behind!
We should push for this?….or much like Harlem, push of the integration of the Center to reflect Harlem today, and devote several Wings to White People and Culture! Why Not? The White people are part of Harlem and should indeed take their right wings at the Schomburg. We can have Wing of stores of how they went from 700 sq’ foot apartments on the UWS to 2500′ Condos for peanuts!
so long Schomburg Center, you too have fallen victim to the disease that’s infected Harlem since 1998, “NegroBeGoneItis”. Much like smallpox, 3 out of every 4 Negros you see will not be here in 20 years. Don’t get too happy White people, the 1 out of 4 Negroes you do see that will be here will the sacred cow “Project Negro”, the only negro incapable of being priced out, ever having to move, they are the “chosen negroes”, chosen with cheap housing…..
God Speed!