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The Beginning of Harlem's Savoy Ballroom and the 400 Club

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The Beginning of Harlem's Savoy Ballroom and the 400 Club Harri Heinilä, Doctor of Social Sciences, Political history, Jazz dance historian The Beginning of Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom and the 400 Club Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom at Lenox Avenue opened its doors 95 years ago on Friday, March 12, 1926. The late Savoy Ballroom historian Terry Monaghan argued that the “[e]arly press reports describe[d], or impl[ied],” that white businessmen Moe Gale and I. Jay Faggen “launch[ed]” the Savoy. African American Charles Buchanan was mentioned as its manager. Also Charles Galewski, Moe Gale’s cousin, and Larry Spier, a songwriter, were involved in the Savoy. The story of who created and owned the Savoy was rewritten through the years. At the very beginning, Faggen’s role in creating the Savoy Ballroom was emphasized in the press, but later his role in that regard was downplayed.1 The reason for that could have been his resignation: Moe Gale and his family obviously bought Faggen out at some point because it was reported in 1939 that Faggen was coming back to Harlem with his Golden Gate Ballroom project, and already in August 1927 Variety reported that Faggen and Spier were “out of the Savoy”. In 1929, Faggen was mentioned in the past tense as a “former managing director” of Harlem’s Savoy.2 Charles Buchanan was referred to both as a co-owner and as an owner of the Savoy Ballroom starting at the latest from 1940. Much later, likely, at the end of the 1970s, Buchanan told that he owned 35 % of the corporation that owned the Savoy. Moe Gale and his father owned the rest of the corporation.3 Historian Russell Gold suggests that Buchanan got the 35 % share prior to the year 1943,4 which could mean the year 1940 as the starting point of Buchanan’s co-ownership. A co- ownership sounds more plausible than a full ownership considering the fact that both Moe Gale and Charles Buchanan were depicted in 1951 as the “founders” of the Savoy Ballroom, and when Gale died in 1964, he and Faggen were described as the “founders” of the ballroom. According to The New York Times, Gale “sold his interest” in the Savoy “to make a way for a housing project”, which could have taken place in 1953 when the Savoy Ballroom was sold to the City of New York. Probably, because of problems in financing the new housing project and problems in the relocation of the tenants who lived in the old buildings, the ballroom was kept open until 1958.5 Most likely the changes in the ownership and ultimately Moe Gale’s death led into the changes in the “official” Savoy story. The Savoy Ballroom announced in The New York Age in March 1926 that the ballroom was “dedicated exclusively to” African Americans.6 When Moe Gale passed away in 1964, Newsday reported that it was Jay Faggen who “wanted “a ballroom in Harlem for” ” African Americans.7 The Savoy Story booklet, which the Savoy management released in 1951 for the Savoy’s 25th birthday, stated that both Moe Gale and Charles Buchanan simultaneously had an idea of a luxury ballroom in Harlem, but it was Buchanan who “was going to give” it to Harlem. Both of them had “plans and ideas that were to cause a revolutionary trend in public ballrooms and in dance styles” also outside Harlem, and practically everywhere where there was dancing.8 The latter suggests that the ballroom was not originally only for Harlemites. The mention of Buchanan’s role in giving a ballroom to Harlem might have been 1 included in the Savoy Story for assuring Harlemites that the ballroom still was theirs. That is especially when considering the ratio of African American and white patrons at the Savoy in the 1940s, which was 85 % African Americans and 15 % whites by 19469. Because the booklet and the article about Jay Faggen were published decades after the opening of the Savoy, they possibly do not resemble the original ideas. The previously mentioned New York Age announcement from March 1926 suggests that there existed at the very least an idea of relying on an African American customer base. Terry Monaghan proposed in his Savoy Ballroom thesis that it should be asked: “Did two white downtown [businessmen] [obviously Moe Gale and I. Jay Faggen] really decide to open the Savoy just out of the goodness of their hearts?”10 Therefore, it could be asked how much the ballroom actually was for Harlemites and how much it was about making a profit by exploiting Harlemites financially? There have not been definite answers to those questions. However, it is likely that making a profit played an important role in the Savoy management’s actions because the ballroom was related to successful financial figures in 1928.11 Whatever were the original intentions, ultimately, the ballroom was not only for Harlemites because millions of customers from outside Harlem, both black and white, also visited the Savoy.12 Terry Monaghan has suggested that the Savoy management was initially reluctant to advertise the Savoy’s dance forms because it was more interested to create a picture of a “high class” ballroom which was distinguished to some extent from ordinary Harlemites’ activities, and which could provide the kind of “social uplift” for African Americans. The idea of the management’s distaste for “popular” dancing is reinforced by its attempt to restrict the Charleston and other “wild" dancing among the Savoy regulars at the time of the ballroom’s opening.13 However, from the get-go, dancing became connected with the Savoy in the press reports. The New York Age in March 1926 reported that there were the Charleston contests at the Savoy during the opening week14. In June 1926, The Savoy advertised in The New York Amsterdam News that it had planned to organize the Charleston contests every Tuesday in July- August 1926, which simultaneously were going to be combined with the Bathing Beauty contests. There was also a Charleston performance at the Savoy in December 1926.15 Perhaps, the Charleston contests were intended to control the Charleston dancers at the Savoy? Combining the Charleston contests with the Bathing Beauty Contests could have been for reducing the interest in the Charleston. Anyway, the Charleston was surely allowed to some degree at the ballroom. In March 1926, also Variety described the Savoy’s dancing by stating contradictorily that although African Americans took their dancing seriously, however, they were not “good dancers”. The magazine found an exception in an ambiguous “wicked stepper” who danced like “a hound”. Despite the criticism, the article stated positively that the ballroom is going to success in the future. This was not the first time when the US press criticized African American jazz dancing. The African American Broadway plays since the beginning of the 1920 had received quite mixed reviews. In those reviews, African American dancers were not unequivocally considered to possess “natural” dancing skills because they were referred to both as “trained” dancers and “untrained” dancers.16 2 Thus, at the very beginning, the Savoy’s dancing activities were not always respected by outsiders and the ballroom’s management. According to Monaghan, by fall 1929, the Savoy management had begun to see potential benefits which could be accrued from working with Savoy dancers. That was possibly first connected with the Corner for “skilled dancers” in 1927, and after that particularly with Harlem’s Lindy Hop dancing, which had become popular since the Harlem Lindy Hop’s inception in 1928. Monaghan claimed that the Lindy Hop became part of the Savoy’s 400 Club promotion in fall 1929.17 The Savoy Story mentions that the 400 Club was established in 1927, but in reality it could have been established in 1928 because newspapers probably started to report on the club in fall 1928 when the “rules” of the 400 Club were published in the Inter- State Tattler in September-October 1928. According to them, the club could have only 400 members from “both sexes between the ages of 16 and 116” who met once a week on Tuesday nights. The applicant filled a “standard club application” for the membership. After the applicant was accepted, an initiation followed, although it was explained that no examinations were needed. It seems that it was not so important to be serious because the club was for “fun and fraternalism” and happiness, as the first 400 Club articles emphasized. By October 1928, the club had already 350 members. The rule was broken or amended later because in 1951 the club had at least 17,234 members in total. The “initiation ceremony”, which was described in general to be “just too bad”, was taken care by a crew that consisted of otherwise unknown names, “Johnny Wright, “Sparky”, “Brown Suit” and Lewis”. However, one of the club members, George Ganaway, who became to be known as ‘Twistmouth George’, was praised in October 1928 as a prime example of dancing that could be seen in the club events and at the Savoy.18 Ganaway worked with George ‘Shorty’ Snowden on Broadway plays and elsewhere between the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, and nowadays he is known as the dancer who introduced a Savoy Lindy Hopper and Jazz Dancer Norma Miller to the Savoy Ballroom in 1932.19 A few outsiders, who visited the Savoy at the beginning of the 1930s, have described briefly the 400 Club and its dancing. At the time, the club consisted of the best Lindy Hoppers who tried to outdance each other. The Lindy Hop was described as violent, but beautiful as British Nancy Cunard put it.
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