Tonight! Free Screening at the Schomburg

+ The 125th Street Shoppers’ Adjustment Committee Invites Harlemites (1941 edition)

125th Street in 1936. Cooper’s Stout Shop is mentioned in the flyer below. Photo by P.L. Sperr from the New York Public Library’s Collection

TONIGHT! It’s the 100th year of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and tickets are still available at this writing for tonight’s community screening of Free for All: The Public Library. A talkback follows with its executive producers Stanley Nelson and Dominique Bravo.

MONDAY, April 28th 

6 PM: Doors Open
6:30 PM: Screening & Talkback

ABOUT THE FILM
Free for All: The Public Library is a documentary for all library lovers. It tells the story of the quiet revolutionaries who made a simple idea happen. From the pioneering women behind the “Free Library Movement” to today's librarians who service the public, despite working in a contentious age of closures and book bans. Meet those who created a civic institution where everything is free and the doors are open to all.

Presented in celebration of the Schomburg Center’s Centennial!

Free for All: The Public Library will also air on PBS's series Independent Lens on Tuesday, April 29. Check your local listings.

Head here to register for the screening and for more info. (ER)

125th Street Has Always Been the Place to Shop

Or so they claim…

According to this 2018 article on The New York Historical’s Blog, this flyer was part of a “broad-based attempt to remedy the issues on the street in the early 1940s. Representation from church and women’s groups, bankers and the local chamber of commerce, and the city council, hoped to inspire confidence among Harlem residents that they would not be subject to price gouging or discriminated in hiring and treatment as consumers.… “

None of these stores seem to be left. Look at the addresses. Can you figure out what has replaced them?

Read more about 125th Street’s shopping history at The New York Historical’s website here. (ER)

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