Hotel Theresa, the white brick, terra cotta, 300-room, thirteen story, steel-framed hotel, was for many years the tallest building in Harlem, New York. It opened down the street from the Apollo Theater in 1913 and was famously known as the “Waldorf of Harlem” and later the “social headquarters of Negro America.” It was located at what is now 2082–96 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard between West 124th and 125th Streets.
German-born stockbroker Gustavus Sidenberg built the Hotel and named it after his wife. For its first 27 years the hotel had an all-white clientele and staff. In 1940, however it was bought by Love B. Woods, an African American realtor who hired a Black general manager, Walter Scott, a graduate of New York university and a World War I veteran. Woods and Scott opened the Hotel Theresa to all races when most other Manhattan hotels barred Black patrons. The hotel, with its 51-foot J-shaped bar on the street level and a clothing store, hosted numerous events and gatherings, quickly becoming an iconic cultural center for the Harlem community.
By World War II the Hotel Theresa became a noted gathering place for numerous celebrities, including Josephine Baker, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. Joe Louis, then heavyweight boxing champion of the world, lived at the Hotel Theresa.
In 1960, four months before the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, Fidel Castro, the new Marxist-Leninist premier of that nation, chose the Hotel Theresa as his residence during his visit to New York for the 15th session of the United Nations General Assembly. This choice underscored the hotel’s unique position as a hub of international influence and cultural significance. It also had significant political implications, as it was a bold move by Castro to challenge the discriminatory policies of the United States.
While Castro was there with his staff, holding down eighty rooms for a cost of $800 per day, he was visited by Nikita Khrushchev, the premier of the Soviet Union, who announced: “By going to a Negro hotel in a Negro district, we would be making a double demonstration against the discriminatory policies of the United States of America toward Negroes, as well as toward Cuba.” His statement was a major embarrassment for the United States which was then in the midst of the Cold War conflict with the Soviet Union.
Other Castro visitors at Hotel Theresa were Jawaharlal Nehru, the prime minister of India, General Abdul Nasser, president of Egypt. Later in 1960, partly to counter Castro’s symbolic protest against U.S. racial discrimination, future President John Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline, made a campaign stop at the hotel.
In 1964 Malcolm X rented offices at the hotel for his newly formed Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). Eleven years later, in 1971, the hotel was converted into an office building called Theresa Towers. In 1993, it was declared a landmark by New York City. The hotel’s significant historical impact was further recognized in 2005 when it was officially inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places, affirming its status as a symbol of social progress and heritage.
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Candacy Taylor, “Sites of the Green Book: The Theresa Hotel,” https://savingplaces.org/stories/sites-of-the-green-book-the-theresa-hotel;
“Love Woods Dies: Ran the Theresa; Hotelman Served as Host to Castro During ’60 Visit,”https://www.nytimes.com/1967/05/30/archives/love-woods-dies-ran-the-theresa-hotelman-served-as-host-to-castro.html
Simon Hall, “Fidel Castro Stayed in Harlem 60 Years Ago to Highlight Racial Injustice in the U.S.,”https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fidel-castro-harlem-60-years-ago-180975863/.
