A movie poster for the 1943 film "Stormy Weather", featuring the Nicholas Brothers
The Nicholas Brothers are a dance team fondly remembered by those old enough to have seen them live. But they are often overlooked today.
But their incredible, acrobatic style is unique. This dance sequence from the 1943 film "Stormy Weather" is considered to be one of their masterpieces. In fact, Fred Astaire called it "the greatest dance scene in movie history".
Here's the start of that famous dance, where the Nicholas Brothers (Fayard and Harold) leap over the band members of the Cab Calloway Orchestra:
This is a thrilling part of the dance sequence, where the Nicholas Brothers jump over two sections of the orchestra, leap to a split on the floor and then continue their routine:
After their incredible choreography over the orchestra, the brother leap to center stage, where they continue their routine, running up the center staircase and proceeding with a complex series of steps that includes a series of splits. Remember this scene, because they will replicate it in this routine's remarkable conclusion:
The brothers then go from the stage to the top of pianist Bennie Payne's piano and then back to the main floor, executing a series of complicated tap steps throughout:
After the curtains open on the stage, the Nicholas Brothers culminate their performance with a series of splits in a large centerstage staircase which has to been seen to be believed:
The climax of this dance, again featuring that elaborate staircase, needs no words. It still astonishes, almost 80 years after it was filmed.
I was born in the Avalon Park neighborhood of Chicago in 1965. During that time, the neighborhood was beginning to change.
The neighborhood was first populated by Germans and Swedes in the 1880s. And for the next 80 years, it was predominantly white. But African-Americans began moving in the neighborhood in the early to mid-1960s. Chicago, one of the nation's most segregated cities, was experiencing white flight throughout the city, a phenomenon which was encouraged by unscrupulous real estate agents who engaged in panic peddling among white families. This happened in Avalon Park as well, which was well-documented by this 1963 article in a real estate journal, "How Marynook Meets the Negro", which looked at how a relatively new community in Avalon Park called "Marynook" addressed integration.
Despite the best intentions of many, white families in Avalon Park were almost non-existent by 1980. But the neighborhood is still a middle class community, with 65 percent of its African-American residents employed in white collar jobs, a much higher number than when the neighborhood was all white.
The neighborhood also maintains some of its wonderful landmark attractions, from the beautiful Avalon-Regal Theatre, designed by noted theater architect John Eberson in 1927; to the imposing Chicago Vocational High School, a mammoth institution built in 1940, with a still-extant airplane hangar; and the hundreds of handsome bungalows built in the 1920s.
Hurricane Dorian, which hit the East Coast with a vengeance last week, continues to wreak havoc, especially in Carolinas. National Weather Service images show the intensity of the storm:
Satellite imagery of Hurricane Dorian on Sept. 1, 2019. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)
President Donald Trump had incorrectly stated that Alabama was in the center of the storm. But the president later backpedaled on that statement.
Sen. Rick Scott (R- Fla.) with President Donald Trump at Camp David, responding to press questions about Hurricane Dorian. (White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Meanwhile, residents in the Bahamas continue to recover from the intense storm.
The U.S. Coast Guard helps Hurricane Dorian victims in the Bahamas on Sept. 1, 2019 (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
