Addisleigh Park, a historic Queens neighborhood, was once dubbed "Black Hollywood East"
NEW YORK -- Ruth Harrell Wade was raised on a farm in North Carolina, but when the 98-year-old moved to Addisleigh Park, Queens in the 1960s, it didn't take long to adjust.
"I was really not coming to a strange place. It was like coming home," she said.
When she arrived, the neighborhood lived up to its glittering reputation.
"The neighborhood was beautiful. I'd always heard of it because I like jazz," Wade said.
Celebrities were seemingly everywhere
Musicians from James Brown to Lena Horne and athletes Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis all made a home in Addisleigh Park, a suburban sliver of St. Albans that earned the nickname "Black Hollywood East."
Wade said Illinois Jacquet was a member of her church, Ella Fitzgerald loved to throw parties, and Count Basie opened his swimming pool to the neighborhood kids.
"It became a family," her daughter, Lisa Wade, said.
With stately homes and manicured lawns, the Black enclave came to symbolize the American dream. But it wasn't always an inclusive place.
"When the first Black celebrities moved into the neighborhood, it was their agents and managers that would buy the property under another name," Queens Historical Society executive director Jason Antos said.
He says racist covenants kept the neighborhood exclusively white until the Supreme Court overturned restrictions in 1948. He says in the years that followed, African-Americans moving into the area continued to endure hostility.
Addisleigh Park represented "generational wealth"
Author and educator Claire Serant wrote a book about St. Albans and Addisleigh Park. She says community resilience triumphed over racial barriers.
"There were so many educators and lawyers and doctors," she said. "Addisleigh Park and St. Albans, they represent generational wealth."
For Lisa Wade, the legend of Addisleigh Park is bigger than the legends who called it home.
"The rest of the people that lived here are the important folks," she said.
She says those who stayed to live, work, and raise families are defining the neighborhood's future.
Through community gatherings and events, she and fellow members of the Addisleigh Park Civic Association are working to maintain a spirit of unity and belonging. Together, they created Live End Plaza, a car-free space with a colorful mural and Little Free Library.
"The elders come down, and they tell us stories about the neighborhood, and it keeps the story alive," Olney Marie Ryland said.
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