Landmarks Preservation Commission August 11, 1981, Designation List 146 LP-1135 LANGSTON HUGHES HOUSE, 20 East 127th Street, Borough of Manhattan. Built 1869, architect Alexander Wilson. Landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan, Tax Map Block 1751, Lot 64. On May 13, 1980, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the Langston Hughes House and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (No. 7). The hearing had been duly adver tised in accordance with the provisions of law. Four witnesses spoke in favor of designation. There were no speakers in opposition to designation. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS This modest brownstone rowhouse, built in 1869, was designed in the Italianate style by architect Alexander Wilson. Built by two real estate developers, James Meagher and Thomas Hanson, it is typical of rowhouses built in Harlem during the period after the Civil War. The house ach.ieves its significance, however, as the home for 20 years of Langston Hughes, author and poet and one of the foremost figures of the Harlem Renaissance, a literary movement of the 1920s-30s that focused on the question of Negro Identity. Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902, son of James Nathaniel Hughes and Carrie Mercer Langston Hughes. The family moved frequently during his youth; he graduated from grammer school in Lincoln, Illinois, in 1915, and from high school in Cleveland where he lived with his mother. At that time his father was manager for an electric company in Toluca, Mexico. Hughes came to New York to attend Columbia College during the academic year 1921-22; he transferred to Lincoln University in Philadelphia the following year~ finally graduating in 1929. While at Columbia, Hughes established friendships with young Harlem writers who participated in the Harlem Renaissance movement and began to write himself. His book about the blues and jazz scene, The Weary Blues, was published in 1926, while Fine Clothes to The Jew was published in 1927. The 1930s were a productive time as Hughes published four books, wrote the play "Mulatto" which was produced at the Vanderbilt Theater in New York in 1935, and established the Harlem Suitcase Theater as a showcase for plays by black writers with black actors, directors, and scene designers. Hughes continued to travel, working as a seaman on voyages to Europe and Africa, sp~nd­ ing a year in the Soviet Union in 1932-33, and serving as the Madrid correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American in 1937. He always returned to Harlem from which came the greatest source of his literary imagination. Even as a youth Harlem had fascinated him: "More than Paris, or the Shakespeare country, or Berlin, or the Alps, I wanted to see Harlem." 1 Sometime during the 1930s Hughes met Emerson and Ethel (Toy) Harper whom he came to regard as his adopted uncle and aunt. In 1940 he dedicated his autobiography, The Big Sea, to them. In 1942 when he was finally able to afford a studio apartment on 14lst Street, he took his meals with them at their residence at 634 St. Nicholas Avenue. The Harpers purchased the house at 20 East 127th Street in 1947, and Hughes moved in with them occupying the top floor as a workroom.

-2- Hughes' years with the Harpers were most productive. He continued to publish poetry, most notably Shakespeare in Harlem (1942) and Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951). He documented the common man of Harlem through the character of Jess B. Semple (Just Be Simple),in a series of humorous books beginning with Simple Speaks His Mind (1950) through Simple Uncle Sam (1965). Hughes also explored various aspects of black culture in such books as The First Book of Negroes (1952), Famous American Negroes (1954), First Book of Rhythms (1954), First Book of Jazz (1954), First Book of the West Indies (1955), Book of Negro Folklore (1958), and First Book of Africa (1960). He also enjoyed a career as a librettist and lyricist for the op

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