In Sugar Hill, a Street Nurtured Black Talent When the World Wouldn’t

clipped from www.nytimes.com In Sugar Hill, a Street Nurtured Black Talent When the World Wouldn’t Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times PRODIGY Roy Eaton with the piano on which he learned to play. By DAVID GONZALEZ New York is a city of blocks, each with its own history, customs and characters. Yet from these small stages spring large talents. Anyone who doubts that need look no further than a stretch of Edgecombe Avenue perched on a bluff near 155th Street. It was part of Sugar Hill, the neighborhood of choice for elegant black musicians, dapper actors, successful professionals — and those who aspired to be like them. A red-brick tower at 409 Edgecombe was home to Thurgood Marshall, W. E. B. DuBois and Aaron Douglas, who has been called “the father of black American art.” A few blocks farther north, the building at 555 Edgecombe burst with musical talent: Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Lena Horne and others.