Audubon Ballroom

[2][4] In the 1930s, Congregation Emes Wozedek, a synagogue whose members were predominantly immigrants from Germany, began to use basement rooms of the Audubon Ballroom to conduct its religious services.

[2] After Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam in 1964, he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), whose weekly meetings were held at the Audubon Ballroom.

[2] In 1989, Columbia University, with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as a partner,[2] reached an agreement with the city,[2] and in 1992 it began the process of demolishing the Audubon Ballroom to replace it with a medical research facility.

[2] Although many city officials, including Mayor David Dinkins, were strongly in favor of the project because of the jobs and economic impetus it would bring to the area, which had suffered greatly in the economic downturn of the 1970s,[2] community activists and Columbia University students – who occupied Hamilton Hall on campus – protested the planned demolition, and historic preservation groups unsuccessfully sued to prevent it.

[2] Eventually a compromise was reached, at least in part due to pressure brought by Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger and Malcolm X's widow, Betty Shabazz, who both favored adaptive reuse of the building.

They were supported by a report on its structural integrity produced by a pro bono team of architects assembled by the New York Landmarks Conservancy and the Municipal Art Society.