The Langston Hughes House

[20 E. 127th Street, Harlem, New York City, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

It’s now the Langston Hughes House, not yet open to the public except for scheduled events. Here from New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, is some history about Hughes and this address, his home from 1948 until his death in 1967.

The NYC Municipal Archives recently posted this photograph with a 1957 recording of Hughes speaking about “The Writer’s Place in America.”

Another Hughes location in a tax photograph: the Harlem Branch Y.

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)

[Some sources give 1947 as the year Hughes moved in. Arnold Rampersad’s The Life of Langston Hughes (2002) notes that Emerson Harper, whom Hughes regarded as his uncle, made the purchase on December 23, 1947, evidently keeping Hughes’s name out of the transaction to keep down the price. Harper and Hughes then became joint owners, as did Harper’s wife Toy, whom Hughes regarded as his aunt. Hughes moved to this address in July 1948.]