108-110 West 136th Street, 1936.

In 1913 and 1915 Madam C.J. Walker, the African American businesswoman who made millions selling hair care products purchased two brownstones in Harlem. She was prompted to move to Harlem by her daughter A'Lelia, who had arrived in the city a few years earlier. Walker hired African American architect Vertner Tandy, the first black architect registered in New York State, to redesign the buildings. The resulting structure was a handsome, single, Georgian style townhouse.

The building not only served as Walker's home, but the garden level was used as a beauty parlor, college, and spa. Women were able to receive training in the use of Walker's products, while also providing services to clients in an upscale locale. Walker died in 1919. Her daughter, who by the mid-1920s had become an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance (known for hosting well-attended and extravagant parties), turned the 136th Street home into an event space and cultural salon she called the Dark Tower. Lasting only a year as the Dark Tower, the house was later rented to the city for use as a health clinic (pictured here as the Harlem Health Center).

In 1941, the home, then owned by the city, was demolished for a branch of the New York Public Library, which in 1951 would be renamed for Countee Cullen, black poet, and friend of A'Lelia Walker.