REMEMBER: THE LEGENDARY IMPERIAL LODGE OF ELKS
Harlem Bespoke: In celebration of Pride Month, HB will be revisiting some of the great history of uptown’s LGBT legacy that goes back to the Renaissance years. This article was previously published back in 2015 and reveals the range of diversity in Harlem seldom covered by the mainstream media.
Over the weekend, we caught up with some Harlem cultural history by watching Paris is Burning for about the 30th time and still wondered where the main ballroom in the film was located at within Harlem. There is so much going on in the amazing Jennny Livingston documentary from 1990 which showcase the underground ballroom scene of Harlem that one can miss out when the narrator mentions the Imperial Lodge of Elks at 160 West 129th Street. Viewers actually can see the taxidermy of an elk’s head up at the lacquered red balconies in many of the scenes.
Soon after, we walked by the aforementioned address just east of 7th Avenue and took the above photo which shows that the building still stands but now houses a religious institution. It would probably be feasible that the interior ballroom was actually intact nowadays since this would work for church seating but it is unclear if the interior still has the original details shown in the movie. Ballrooms have quickly disappeared in Harlem over the last few decades but at least this legendary location is still standing as a reminder of the great, diverse culture that has always been uptown.