The Mecca of Harlem

The Maysles Documentary Center keeps the spark of Harlem’s art film scene alive.

By Caroline Nieto

Illustration by Selin Ho

I ran to the M60+ to hitch a ride to the intersection at 125th street and Malcolm X Boulevard–a locale that was once called “the Mecca of Harlem,” an artistic hub that spawned from the fallout of the Harlem Renaissance. The intersection got its name from the inception of performance spaces there during the latter half of the twentieth century, with the Apollo Theater and The Baby Grand leading the charge in purveying local musicians. The Apollo is still around, hosting big names in music and comedy. The Baby Grand shut down in the ’70s—it was turned into a Radio Shack.

These days, the trip inland is quieter. When I stepped off the bus, I was met with the typical neighborhood hubbub—restaurants with chatting patrons, mothers pushing strollers down the block, and the kinetic movement of daily life. 125th street has become increasingly residential since the onset of the 21st century, when real estate developers identified the market potential of Upper Manhattan’s building spaces. Small businesses and local dives were pushed out and high-rise apartments were erected with higher rents than the neighborhood had ever seen. The Mecca of Harlem dimmed its lights and shuttered its doors.

The remains of an artist community show up in traces, though. Each night, a rotation of guests flock to 127th and Malcolm X to visit the Maysles Documentary Center. During the day it might be easy to miss, but after dark the place comes alive—its red-trimmed windows make up the majority of the facade, illuminating the entire block come nightfall. When I walked in, I was greeted by my friend Junnie Bae, CC ’27, Maysles’ newest house manager, who handed me a ticket, telling me he’d already checked me in. Above the welcome desk was a sign that lists Maysles’ ticket prices—a suggested donation from $7-$15. 

a reduced ticket price of $7.

The MDC was founded in 2005 by the documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles, perhaps best known for making the cult phenomenon Grey Gardens. A pioneer of direct cinema, Maysles shooed in a messier, confrontational take on the documentary style. Outside of his work as a filmmaker, Maysles was attuned to the rich filmmaking history of New York City and its shortcomings in representing the perspectives of its inhabitants above 96th street. He and his wife, Gillian Walker, set out to construct a space that could help preserve Harlem’s vibrant cultural output. Maysles’ style of filmmaking is deeply intertwined with the missions of the MDC—no scripts, sets, or narration. The MDC champions the work of artists that capture reality without the rose-colored tint of Hollywood filmmaking—those that turn their cameras onto the streets of the city.

The screening room fits about 50 seats, around half of which were filled by lone patrons and the occasional pair of friends. From my seat, I overheard a girl in her 20s making small talk with the older woman sitting beside her, asking where she was from (Harlem), and how long she’d lived there (several decades). The girl described herself as a third generation New Yorker, born and bred to two New Yorker parents. It was clear I’d stumbled on a space that had been well worn in, filled with longtime fans and locals. When the executive director of Maysles, Kazembe Balagun, came in to introduce the film, he lovingly deemed Maysles’ “Harlem’s living room,” a place for people to chat, share, and spread the gospel of local cinema. Maysles’ special projects manager, Nia Whitmal, attributes Maysles’ community impact to a previously unfulfilled need in the community. “To document is incredibly important in a place like Harlem, where there’s such cultural and historical richness, and when the place is changing so much,” she said.

I came to watch Changing Face of Harlem, a documentary film by the director Shawn Batey, which captured the rapidly shifting culture of Harlem over the decade-long span from 2000 to 2010. The film foregrounds interviews with longtime residents, city property developers, and academics who share their perspectives on Harlem’s historical context and its modern state of evolution. Batey includes footage from a 2007 town hall meeting on a rezoning project by the Department of City Planning, where residents expressed their objections to a proposal that would displace vendors that had inhabited 125th street for the better part of a century. 

Since its release, Batey has screened the film across the country, but audiences have predictably resonated with the film most when it has been shown locally. “To have the opportunity to show [the film] here in Harlem [evokes] a different feeling even than showing it downtown,” Batey noted in the Q&A after the screening. She remembers the first time she screened the film in Harlem. “People were tearing up because they were seeing themselves,” said Batey. “They were speaking from the heart, whether they were angry, crying or joyous.” 

The MDC’s focus on local diasporas makes the theater a hub for radical cinema, targeting the fierce political strain of the identities represented in Harlem. Junnie first started working at Maysles this year during the Black Panther Party Film Festival, an experience he called “trial by fire.” The center boasts a hefty slate of film festivals, not only the Black Panther Festival, which just had its fourteenth iteration this past fall, but the Congo in Harlem Festival, which celebrated its seventeenth year this October. The Congo in Harlem Festival was one of the biggest events at Maysles—it’s the biggest English language archive of Congo and its diaspora to date. Each day of the week-long slate, guests would return night after night, bringing new friends with them in a true word of mouth fashion. The festival ended with a closing night reception in the cinema’s downstairs multipurpose space, with drinks, Congolese music, and dancing that lasted for hours.

The MDC doesn’t just champion the work of a diverse crop of filmmakers, but offers education programs to aspiring artists ages 13-24, all of which are free of charge. They currently offer a Teen DocMakers Lab, a partnership with the Harlem Photo League, and the Vanguard DocMakers program, which provides a paid stipend to its participants. Their HPL program allows for students to experiment with film photography and access darkrooms, which are hard to come by in New York, let alone for free. Akeema-Zane, Maysles’ film educator, emphasized that the theater is focused on “removing the barriers to entry” for their students, especially since she’s pointed to the “economic shift in terms of the income of black folks who were born and raised here or have lived here for a long time.” Akeema noted that to her knowledge, she’s the only member of Maysles’ staff that’s born and raised in Harlem, so her experience with the theater is imbued with a truly personal connection. “As a young person in Harlem, I wasn’t being championed to think about film as a career path,” said Akeema. Her goal with the education department is to provide an avenue for young people to have a voice on topics that concern them, especially due to the ongoing displacement that impacts Harlem and its residents.

Akeema told me one of the best student projects she’s seen was a short film by a 14 year-old boy that mainly consisted of him filming around his neighborhood and eating dinner with his father and younger brother. A series of events that might be mundane in any other circumstance was steeped with the care and observation of a burgeoning artist. Documentary is a vital tool to interpret life as it transpires without the lens of narrative to fall back on. Due to the work of the MDC and the lingering locality of artists, Harlem’s contemporary character is preserved in time amidst all its changes—and there is always something to preserve. “Harlem is a place where you can’t throw a rock without hitting history,” said Nia. “It’s just everywhere.”