☞ REMEMBER: At the Wishing Tree circa 1937

The great city photographer Aaron Siskind took a series of photos of Harlem back in the late 1930s and the above image shows the Tree of Hope as it orginally stood on 7th Avenue at 131st Street.  Old lore has it that entertainers auditioning for the local shows would rub the stump for good luck but apparently this also applied to children.  Part of original stump is kept at the Apollo Theater in modern times and the old location has a more contemporary "tree" that was erected in more recent decades: LINK

SISKIND, Aaron/Most Crowded Block, “Wishing Tree”, Harlem Document, Photographs 1932-1940, Providence, Rhode Island, Matrix Publication, 1981 via Art Icono