Amsterdam News HQ Reimagining

Architectural Reimagining and Preservation of Historic Black Newspaper Building

Jerome Haferd Studio & AYON Studio

Client: Amsterdam News Foundation
Location: Harlem, NY
Status: In Development
Schematic Design completion February 2026
Size: 15,000 sq ft
Year: 2025-ongoing
Team: Jerome Haferd Studio & AYON Studio team

Jerome Haferd has been commissioned as co-lead architect and interpretive designer alongside Angel Ayon, historic preservation specialist and the team at AYON Studio on the “Reimagining” of the historic Amsterdam News Headquarters, located on Frederick Douglass Blvd. in the heart of Harlem’s historic 125th street cultural district.

Marking Harlem’s Renaissance centennial and the Black Press bicentennial, the Amsterdam News Educational Foundation is reactivating and transforming the historic building home to one of the nation’s oldest and most influential Black newspapers—rooted in Harlem since 1909 and at this site since 1936—the building will become a story- and place-based hub for Black and Brown communities in New York City and beyond.

This project is part of an increasing number of sites around the country and world that are seeking to set a new model for living cultural infrastructure and Black/African American heritage while also curating a space for speculation on the future - in this case, the future of Black Media.

Haferd and his team are working in collaboration with Ayon studio and Publisher Elinor Tatum on conceiving of the unique programmatic, architectural, and preservation vision for this site : one part community and cultural gathering place, broadcast hub for local and national media, and a living exhibition that will transcend the multiple levels of the building. The curatorial vision for the building is a testing ground for ideas of “Radical Preservation”, and how the history and archive of the Amsterdam News can exist alongside a working Newspaper, and the ongoing creation of new media.

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