NYC Arts: The Complete Guide to Art and Culture

The Schomburg Center is one of the most important locations outside of Africa for the study of the history and culture of peoples of African descent. Among its five million volumes are rarities like a handwritten prayer by Phillis Wheatley, one of the first known African-American poets, a reprint of Jupiter Hammon's 1781 Address to the Negroes of the State of New York, the original typescript of Richard Wright's novel Native Son and the scrapbook of Ira Aldridge, a 19th-century Shakespearean actor. The center also collects rare African art as well as works by contemporary artists. Moreover, there are displays of sculpture and painting throughout the center by Romare Bearden, Augusta Savage and others. Four or five exhibitions each year draw on the collections. These have included JazzArts, paintings and photographs exploring the influence of jazz on the visual arts; New World Africans: 19th-Century Images of Blacks in South America and the Caribbean; and Mandela in New York, photographs of that freedom fighter's 1991 visit to the city.

The center was named after Arthur Alfonso Schomburg. Born in Puerto Rico in 1874, he spent much of his life collecting and documenting the history of persons of African descent. He was spurred on to this work by an early teacher who said that black people had no history. He was an active figure during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, hosting scholars, playwrights and philosophers. In 1925 the Division of Negro History was opened with Schomburg's private collection at its core. In 1932 he was appointed curator. The center is actively involved in the surrounding community. Every year the center's Langston Hughes Auditorium reaches out the neighborhood with a broad slate of offerings including dance, literary readings, lectures and scholarly symposia.

• Directions: Subway: 2, 3 to 135th Street

• Disability Access: Partially accessible: Langston Hughes Auditorium and Latimer Gallery are accessible; the Exhibition Hall and the American Negro Theatre are not.