SAVOY BALLROOM AND PAYING HOMAGE

Paying homage to the past is much more important to me than my plumpness. The picture above was taken back in August 2016 after a Jazz mobile block party down the street from the where the Savoy Ballroom once stood. The Savoy Ballroom remembrance plaque stands between 140^th and 141^st and Lenox Avenue in Harlem, NYC. After doing research and listening to Ms. Norma Miller, I discovered that the Savoy Ballroom extended for an entire block. The Savoy was owned by a Jewish man named Moe Gale, but managed by an African American man named Charles Buchanan.The Savoy Ballroom was on the second floor of a two-story building stretching the entire block.  It easily could hold up to 5,000 patrons.  It opened up in 1926 and was one of the first racially integrated public places or dance spaces in the country. If you were African American you could only work at places like the Cotton Club. Ms. Norma Miller said what she loved about the Savoy was that people of all races would come to dance.  She loved watching the Italian guys from the Bronx dance. It is where lindy hopping legends came from all of the boroughs to showcase their abilities and have plenty of fun.  They graced the dance floors with unique style and grace. According to Ms. Norma; Frankie Manning, Al Minns, Leon James, Shorty George Bearden, Leroy “Stretch”Jones, Twistmouth George, and Edith Matthews and so many others would assemble to listen and dance to Chick Webb Savoys greatest band leader and drummer. Competitions and social dancing came alive on any given night. Today sadly all that remains of this “Home of Happy Feet” is this stone plaque. But I will remember and help to share in its memory.