Here's what became of Madam C. J. Walker's grand Harlem mansion (see new photos)
- Mar 19
- 2 min read
Madam C. J. Walker, the entrepreneur who launched a hair care business that made her one of America's first Black female success stories—the subject of the 2020 Netflix series "Self Made," starring Octavia Spencer—first came to Harlem in the early 1910s.
After growing her business in the Midwest, she bought two townhouses on W 136th Street near Lenox Avenue and hired African American architect Vertner Tandy to transform them into a single residence that included a retail store on the ground floor.
The Madam C.J. Walker mansion, an elegant red-brick double-wide townhouse at 108 W 136th Street, was erected in 1915.
Suffering from ill health, Walker died a mere four years later. But she left the Harlem residence and a second mansion she had built in the suburbs to her daughter, A'lelia Walker Robinson, who took over the business.
In the 1920s the townhouse in Harlem became a famous literary salon called the Dark Tower, visited by poet Langston Hughes and others.
A'Lelia eventually leased the building to the city, which installed a series of health clinics.
But in 1941, the mansion, which by then belonged to the city, was torn down and replaced by a branch of the New York Public Library. It was renamed the Countee Cullen Branch in 1951.
Today the library still stands (in fact, the branch was renovated in 2025; see photo above), and the only physical reminder of the magnificent building that once stood there before can be found on a street sign at the corner of W 136th Street and Lenox Avenue—in 2019 it was renamed Madam C. J. & A'Lelia Walker Place.
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