The real one’s on the stage, the young man behind the podium in the lobby of Harlem’s Apollo Theater was saying to me. I was enchanted with the figures carved into the slick surface of a stump not far from the double doors to the famed theater.
I have been to Harlem many times over the years, have driven along 125th Street, have seen the red vertical neon letters “Apollo” high against the skyline, but had never set foot in this theater of a million dreams and as many shattering hopes.
But here I was – inside the Apollo Theater in New York! – focusing at that moment on the carved figures in the stump. As the young man noted, this wasn’t the real stump. It was a replica of the one that I had seen many performers rub as they stepped out on the stage of the Apollo to be cheered or booed during “Showtime at the Apollo.” Amateur Night is still going strong at the theater every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. for folks hoping for a $10,000 prize and stardom.
While the performers had access to the real stump on stage, the one in the lobby, I suppose, was for the rest of us. So I couldn’t resist rubbing it.
The young man told me a little about the origin of the stump. I was instantly intrigued, so I wanted to fill out the story.
But first, I had to see the real stump, and I found it on stage sitting atop a gold-leaf pillar about 3 feet tall. The stump itself was rather unassuming, about 12 inches tall and just as wide, slanted across the top with a big hole in the center. I know that things are not always as they look; I knew that this simple piece of wood was imprinted with history from the sweat, nervousness, anticipation and brashness of human fingers.
So, I couldn’t resist rubbing it, either.
The “Tree of Hope” is both legend and tradition, noted the Apollo website.
The original elm tree stood on the sidewalk between the Lafayette Theater – Harlem’s top venue for African American performers in the 1930s – and Connie’s Inn on Seventh Avenue between 131st and 132nd Streets, known as the Boulevard of Dreams. The Lafayette was the place for aspiring performers, and the tree offered a spot for them to stand for good luck.
The city of New York in 1934 broadened Seventh Avenue and cut down the trees along the boulevard, including the Tree of Hope, riling Harlem residents. The tree was chopped into pieces, and sold as souvenir and firewood. A stump was retrieved by Ralph Cooper Sr., who had hosted the “Harlem Amateur Hour” at the Lafayette. He had the stump shellacked and placed at right stage at the new Apollo, which was just about to start its own “Amateur Night at the Apollo,” debuting in 1934.
As I stood there examining the stump and peering inside its hole, I could hear the laughter of children coming from the mezzanine. The young man in the lobby had said that a school group was watching a movie about the theater. A school chaperone later told me that they were watching comedian Dave Chappelle when I heard the laughter.
The children were second graders from the Neighborhood Charter School of Harlem on a field trip.
Once the children had finished watching the film, they were paraded onto the stage where they sat in three rows on the floor. The Apollo tour guide told them they would next walk up the stairs to the dressing rooms and then return to the stage to sing a song.
“This is the one time you’ll get to perform on stage without getting booed,” she said jokingly. Booing has been a tradition on Amateur Night since it began at the Apollo.
Michael Jackson and his brothers played on those stairs, she said, and she’d heard that Aretha Franklin made cheese sandwiches on a hot plate in the dressing room. “If I ever have a chance, I’ll ask her,” the tour guide said.
Then she offered to answer questions from the students:
Who built the theater?
The tour guide wasn’t sure about the name of the architect, but I assumed the child was asking about the owner.
The neo-classical 1,500-seat Apollo Theater was designed in 1913 by architect George Keister and built in 1914. It was first an Irish music hall and then a whites-only burlesque club called Hurtig and Seamon’s New Burlesque Theater. Burlesque was losing its audience by the early 1930s and the mayor wasn’t too keen on the venues, either. The theater shut down, and the new owner Sidney Cohen reopened it as the Apollo in 1934 as a venue for African American entertainers performing in front of a mixed audience.
How did it get its name?
From the Greek god of music, Apollo.
Near the Seamon and Hurtig building was another smaller burlesque hall called the Apollo, which was also forced to close. Cohen decided to use that name for his new theater, according to an encyclopedia on the Harlem Renaissance.
How did they get the tree here?
The tree was cut down in pieces and only the stump was brought to the Apollo, not the entire tree.
Did Duke Ellington form his band here?
No. Duke Ellington and his band played here often, starting in the 1930s. He had formed his band in 1923, and in 1927 became the house band at the whites-only Cotton Club in Harlem. He stayed there for about four years.
The Apollo has made the careers of many stars: Ella Fitzgerald was among the first. A teenager when she stood on the stage in 1934, she came to dance at Amateur Night but decided to sing after the group that preceded her did so well. James Brown first stepped out on stage in 1959 but got his big break when he recorded the album “Live at the Apollo” in 1962. Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 drove to New York City in the family van in 1967 to perform.
The students marched up the steps that the Jacksons had played on, looked at the autographs in white on a door and walls, and went up to the dressing rooms. I followed because I wanted to see, too. The two dressing rooms were austere and nondescript, but I’m sure they served their purpose decades ago and now.
Returning to the stage, the students sang a tune that I did not recognize. “They were singing the days of the week in Spanish,” a chaperone told me later. “They’re learning Spanish.”
No one would dare boo them from the stage.
