In 1927, there were perhaps 300.000 African Americans living in the vicinity of Fifth and Seventh Avenues, roughly from 130th to 155th Streets. They lived, according to census and Urban League studies of the period, in housing designed for 16,000. . . . Many lived in tenements so “unspeakable” and “incredible,” in the words of a 1927 city housing commission report, “the state would not allow cows to live in some of these apartments.”
—Black and Blue: The Life and Lyrics of Andy Razaf, by Barry Singer
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