[3]Among the tap dancers who appeared at the club were Bill Robinson,[4] Jack Wiggins, Maceo Anderson,[3] "Buddy" Bradley,[4] John Bubbles,[2] Honi Coles,[4] Eddie Rector,[4] Leonard Reed,[3] Dewey Washington,[4] Raymond Winfield,[4] Roland Holder,[4] Hal Leroy (one of the only White dancers ever invited in),[3] Harold Mablin,[2] "Sandman" Sims, "Slappy" Wallace,[4] Warren Berry, "Baby" Laurence Jackson,[2] Buster Brown, and other black tap dancing greats.
[4][5] At the Hoofers Club, rookie and veteran, mostly [B]lack male tap dancers assembled to share with, steal from, and challenge each other; there, new standards were set for competition.
These were nothing like the formalized buck-dancing competitions of Tammany Hall, where judges sat beside, before, and beneath the stage to evaluate the [dancers'] clarity, speed, and presentation.
The Hoofers Club comprised a more informal panel of peers, whose judgments could be cruel and mocking and were driven by an insistence on innovation.
The "Tree of Hope," a piece of which is still touched by performers for good luck on the stage of the Apollo Theater, originally stood outside the Hoofers Club and the nearby Lafayette Theatre.