The windows are broken in the building where the New York Amsterdam News has been put together for generations. The paper wants $44 million to fix it, and to turn it into a center for the history of the Black press.
The Amsterdam News Educational Foundation unveiled the plan at a breakfast in Harlem on Nov. 9, as the New York Amsterdam News itself reported. The headquarters at 2340 Frederick Douglass Boulevard would keep the paper’s offices and add exhibitions, a research center and public archives, open in person and online. The architects, AYON Studio and Jerome Haferd Studio, are both Black-owned firms.
The stake is larger than one building. The Amsterdam News was founded on Dec. 4, 1909, when nearly 2,000 Black newspapers were publishing across the country, according to 6sqft’s report on the plans. About 200 remain. These papers covered lynchings, strikes and school boards that white dailies ignored or got wrong, and their archives are some of the only records of how Black communities saw their own history as it happened.
Money is not yet in hand. The Mellon Foundation has given two grants, $500,000 for design work and renderings and $520,000 for an archivist and preservation of the archive. That is about $1 million toward a $44 million goal. Construction could begin in 2029 if the fundraising succeeds.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal pledged six-figure funding at the breakfast and called the paper “an antidote to Fox News and endemically racist media,” as the Amsterdam News reported. State Sen. Cordell Cleare and City Councilmember Yusef Salaam were also there.
The plans keep what makes the place a newsroom. They call for preserving the historic newsroom and a 1940s publisher’s office, restoring the facade, neon sign, murals and marble staircase, and adding a cafe inspired by the civil rights era and a fifth-floor event space. Angel Ayón, founder of AYON Studio, said the building’s value is not in its looks. “This building, this facade is not distinct,” he said. “What is special about this building is what happened here.”
Publisher and editor-in-chief Elinor Tatum, who took over the paper from her father, Wilbert, in 1997, has said the paper’s story is rarely told. An earlier plan reported by CBS New York in April 2025 aimed for a museum opening by the end of 2027. The target is now later and the price is set.
New York has money for stadiums and waterfront towers. A paper that has documented Black life in the city for 117 years is asking for a fraction of that to keep its own records and its own walls. The city and the state should pay for it, and the donors who say they care about the Black press should say how much by the time the 2029 start date arrives.
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