Sports loomed large among the entertainments patronized by
Harlem’s residents in the 1920s. Basketball occupied the most
prominent place. Romeo Dougherty, sportswriter for the Amsterdam
News, argued that, “Here in Greater New York and New Jersey
basketball has meant more to us than baseball for the latter
sport among colored people has been so closely allied to the
saloon and underground dives…[whereas basketball] is fostered by
religious and other institutions working for the uplift of our
people (Crusader, Jan., 1921, cited in Kuska, p. 90).” The first
teams had been formed by athletic clubs, with the most prominent
the St. Christopher Club (based at St. Philip’s Episcopal
Church, whose parish house included the best gymnasium available
to any club) and the Alpha Physical Culture Club, which had club
rooms first on 134th Street and then at 126 West 131st Street.
The early members came from among the small black middle class,
with West Indians prominent among them, and the clubs also
operated as social organ