04/27/2026
The artist George Nelson Preston sometimes can’t believe the characters he has crossed paths with in nearly nine decades of living in New York. Growing up in Sugar Hill in the 1940s, his neighbors included icons from the Harlem Renaissance such as Lena Horne, Count Basie, and Paul Robeson.
“This whole neighborhood was full of Black luminaries,” says Preston. “We had salons on the weekends. We’d meet in someone’s apartment, and there would be music and people would bring food.”
His parents, Mildred and John Lee, the latter a musician, encouraged an early interest in painting, and Preston attended the High School of Music & Art. Later, while studying at City College, he taught at Camp Woodland in the Catskills and met Pete Seeger and the percussionist Babatunde Olatunji. They introduced him to the burgeoning Village scene, where Preston hosted poetry readings at his storefront loft on East 3rd Street. It was called the Artist’s Studio, and Beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, Gregory Corso, and Frank O’Hara were regulars. “The thick of it went on for two years,” Preston recalls. “Every Sunday afternoon.”
Read more about Preston’s history-filled rowhouse: https://nymag.visitlink.me/UqlyD3
