We have a detailed history of Tin Pan Alley thanks to invaluable information from the Historic Districts Council in their “Brief-ish History of Tin Pan Alley” written in 2008, and Michael Minn in his piece “Tin Pan Alley”, part of his “New York City” photography collection project. As both accounts cover both overlapping and different information, we present them both below. Many thanks to them both for their thorough and dogged research and insightful presentation.
Upcoming Events
Poster House Walking Tour of Harlem
with Historian, John T. Reddick
Sunday, July 26, 11 am to 1 pm
On-site address provided with ticket purchase
Celebrating the exhibition, Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen, and our partnering museum, Poster House, join Tin Pan Alley American Popular Music Project Board Member, John T. Reddick for a walking tour in Harlem. Explore the historic institutions, cultural landmarks, and architectural icons that shaped Black performance and public life in the neighborhood under the guidance of a true expert!
Participants will stop at key sites like Strivers’ Row, the Schomburg Center, and Harlem Hospital’s WPA murals, investigating the ways in which Harlem’s built environment served as both backdrop and catalyst for the Harlem Renaissance and the cultural flourishing of the area. Along the way, Reddick will connect the imagery in Act Black to the streets where Black actors, musicians, and cultural leaders transformed American stage and screen, highlighting the powerful intersection of place, performance, and poster art.
John T. Reddick is an architectural preservationist, historian, and collector of Harlem-related documents and ephemera, several Tin Pan Alley sheet music pieces of which are on view in Act Black. He has contributed his knowledge of Harlem’s culture and architecture to a number of public art and open space projects in that community, among them the Ralph Ellison Memorial, Harriet Tubman Square, and the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Circle. Supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, Reddick is currently working with the Central Park Conservancy to encourage public discussion around the history of Seneca Village as the basis for a formal commemoration of that predominantly African American community, established before the founding of Central Park itself.
Reddick received his BS in Architecture from Ohio State University and his MA in Architecture from Yale University.
For more tickets and information about this event, click here
Information on visiting Poster House and seeing Act Black, visit:
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