40°50′21″N73°56′26″W / 40.83917°N 73.94056°W /40.83917; -73.94056
TheMalcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, also called theShabazz Center, is a memorial toMalcolm X andBetty Shabazz located at 3940Broadway andWest 165th Street in theWashington Heights neighborhood ofManhattan,New York City. The building which once housed theAudubon Ballroom, where Malcolm X wasassassinated on February 21, 1965.[1] It opened on May 19, 2005, the 80th anniversary of Malcolm X's birth.[1][2]
The center is home to documents related to Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz.[3] The center is decorated with a 63-foot (19-meter) mural depicting the life of Malcolm X and a life-size bronze statue of the human rights activist.[4] It includes sixinteractive kiosks that provide information about the lives of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz.[5] The kiosks were developed byColumbia University's Digital Knowledge Ventures and ProfessorManning Marable of the university'sAfrican American Studies department.[2][5]
The Audubon Ballroom had fallen into disrepair after the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, and by the mid-1970s it had become the property of New York City. In the early 1980s,Columbia University proposed the construction of a modernbiotechnology center on the site, a plan that later grew to include aresearch park.[6] After community protests and legal attempts bypreservationists to save the building,[7] Columbia sought Betty Shabazz's approval for the project. She appealed for the preservation of the ballroom where her husband had been shot,[8] and a compromise was worked out which allowed the building of the biotechnology center, but also preserved and restored the facade of the Audubon Ballroom building, which would be developed into a museum.[7]
After a decade of wrangling between the university, the city, andhistoric preservation organizations, the Audubon Business and Technology Center was completed. Betty Shabazz oversaw the development of the Malcolm X Educational Foundation, which she hoped would host international conferences and educate the public about human rights.[9] Plans for the site briefly stalled after Shabazz's death in 1997, but the scope of the center was expanded and it eventually was completed although it struggled in its early years.[10][5][11][12]
The daughters of Malcolm and Betty Shabazz continue the family's advocacy work through the museum.[13]
