The Hoofers Club was an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

entertainment establishment and dancers' club hangout in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

, New York, that ran from the early 1920s until the early 1940s. It was founded and managed by Lonnie Hicks (1882–1953), an

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

-born ragtime pianist.

History

The Hoofers Club was a legendary site of some of the best of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

and tap performers, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s. It was located on Harlem's "Swing Street," the stretch of 133rd Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenues known for its music and dance venues. The Hoofers Club was actually a small room in the back of a comedy club.

When you walked down the stairs of the Hoofers Club ... you would go into a little room. The room was no bigger than 30x20 feet. It had a piano in the corner and a good floor. All the dancers around town came in. You could hear dancing the minute you got in the building. There was always dancin' going on, known dancers and unknown dancers.

Among the tap dancers who appeared at the club were

Bill Robinson Bill Robinson, nicknamed Bojangles (born Luther Robinson; May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949), was an American tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and the most highly paid African-American entertainer in the United States during the f ...

, Jack Wiggins,

Maceo Anderson Maceo Anderson (September 3, 1910 – July 4, 2001 in Los Angeles, California) expressed an interest in dancing at the age of three. As a child, he used to sneak into the Lafayette Theatre to watch performances with his young friends. He and h ...

, "Buddy" Bradley,

John Bubbles John William Sublett (February 19, 1902 – May 18, 1986), known by his stage name John W. Bubbles, was an American tap dancer, vaudevillian, movie actor, and television performer. He performed in the duo "Buck and Bubbles", who were the fi ...

, Honi Coles, Eddie Rector,

Leonard Reed Leonard Reed (January 7, 1907 in Lightning Creek, Oklahoma – April 5, 2004 in West Covina, California) was an American tap dancer, co-creator with his partner, Willie Bryant, of the famous Shim Sham Shimmy (Goofus) tap dance routine. He was s ...

, Dewey Washington, Raymond Winfield, Roland Holder, Hal Leroy (one of the only White dancers ever invited in), Harold Mablin, "Sandman" Sims, "Slappy" Wallace, Warren Berry, "Baby" Laurence Jackson, Buster Brown, and other black tap dancing greats.

At the Hoofers Club, rookie and veteran, mostly ack male tap dancers assembled to share with, steal from, and challenge each other; there, new standards were set for competition. These were nothing like the formalized buck-dancing competitions of Tammany Hall, where judges sat beside, before, and beneath the stage to evaluate the ancers'clarity, speed, and presentation. The Hoofers Club comprised a more informal panel of peers, whose judgments could be cruel and mocking and were driven by an insistence on innovation. "Survive or die" was the credo. In an eccentric fusion of imitation and innovation, young dancers were forced to find their style and rhythmic voice. It was said that on the wall of the Hoofers Club was written: "Thou shalt not copy each other's steps — Exactly."

In popular culture

A fictionalized version of the Hoofers Club was depicted in Francis Ford Coppola's 1984 film '' The Cotton Club''. The " Tree of Hope," a piece of which is still touched by performers for good luck on the stage of the Apollo Theater, originally stood outside the Hoofers Club and the nearby Lafayette Theatre.

Notes and references

Notes

References

{{Coord, 40.813, -73.943, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-NY, display=title Former music venues in New York City Cultural history of New York City Harlem Renaissance Dance venues in the United States Tap dance