Harlem’s Tree of Hope: 90th Anniversary: November 4th 1934

Big Apple Jazz Tours takes visitors to see where the Tree of Hope stump was placed and explains what happened to it.  Visit the jazz tour pages and select the Harlem Juke Joint Tour.

Happy 90th Anniversary wishes are due Harlem’s Tree of Hope stump which was relocated to the southern spot on the median island dividing Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. back on November 4, 1934 in a ceremony that brought out thousands of Harlemites.

I just discovered this podcast that brings to life the story of Harlem’s lucky tree that brought hope to all who rubbed it.  Known as the Tree of Hope, it was cut down in 1934 from in front of the Lafayette Theater and Connie’s Inn.  A small log off the original tree still provides for the entertainers’ ambitions of success weekly on the Amateur Night at the Apollo stage as a 90-year tradition – dating back even earlier from Amateur Night’s origination at the Lafayette Theater.

Harlem’s Tree of Hope – This Old Tree Podcast

The stump is long gone – it had been biologically discombobulating for 3 decades when a car finally destroyed it back in the summer of 1968. Fortunately for current generations, artist Algernon Miller offered a replacement in 1972: Tree of Hope III, a painted metal sculpture he had created and petitioned the Park’s Department to display on the same spot.  The original plaque, with a signature and quote from Bill “Bojangles” Robinson had been stolen, but the Harlem Chamber of Commerce faithfully recreated it and had it installed in a grand ceremony in 2007  that also celebrated the planting of a short-lived Tree of Hope IV.

Students on a Big Apple Jazz Tour got a lucky chance to rub Tree of Hope IV before it was mortally wounded during the construction of the present day condo standing on the location of  the historic Lafayette Theater and Connies Inn.

Archival photo of the Tree of Hope Stump and friends where it
stood strong for a while on the median at 131st Street and 7th Ave.