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Once Harlem became occupied by African Americans, the Harlem Renaissance began. Fueled by a booming media industry and music industry, Harlem became the epicenter for success in NYC. Blacks were driven by ambition to create a better living, doing all kinds of jobs and creating new forms of music, like Jazz. The creation of famous places like the Cotton Club, the NAACP building and the Apollo theater were all located on or around Lenox avenue, dazzling first time new comers in Harlem. The ambition brought on by generations of living oppressed lives and now having the chance to change the history of African American life in NYC.
What made this all possible was the subway line that connected Harlem to various parts within the city, allowing all ethnicities, who now had their own areas within the city to claim as their own, to come and take part in the excitement that was the Harlem Renaissance and the Roaring TwentyÕs. The success of Harlem was important to the growth of the subway line in the city. By this time the IRT and BMT became entirely dependent on funding from the city where previously, it was funded by the state and run by the NY senators in Albany. The success of Harlem attracted attention to NYC sparking investments, new business in the city. This added to the economic success the city had already been experiencing and allowed the IRT to continue expanding its subway line into other parts of Manhattan as well as other boroughs, making it easier to get to Harlem. The easier it was to get to Harlem, the more the city gained from it. Without the subway line allowing people to get around the cityÕs constantly congested grid designed roads, the city would not have been able to become the unique city that it is today. |
