A HAT STORE FOR OLD SCHOOL HARLEM
Cap USA has been standing in Harlem for decades now. As the neighborhood changes, can it stay there?
A FEW DAYS into Black History Month, as the wind in Harlem produced a force so fierce that a scarf was a necessity, and noise — parts of Jay-Z’s “Imginary Players” to be exact — traveled on the block of Lenox Avenue, the owner of the infamous fitted hat store, Cap USA, was in a reflective mood. Thierno Diallo, 28, was sitting in his small office, during those curious hours where the early afternoon rush was starting to dissipate and he had time to attend to personal, or professional, business in his backroom cubicle. That’s allowed when you are the boss. He felt increasingly sentimental about his start in the business; the son of two West African immigrants, he is now the “big willie” at a store that has a direct line to New Era, thus has a hockey assist-line to the professional sport teams that bear the logo of the hats he produces. His parents started the store on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard on a small corner stand. Mind you, the store did not look like Cap USA; it was the clothing equivalent to a hot dog stand — just a little something that travelers used to get essential items before they went about their day. It was socks, bobby pins that were first supplying Harlem the tools they needed for survival. “At first, it was just that, then my mom started going downtown to pick up some hats”, says Diallo. “Lines started to go down the block for the corner stand. When we incorporated the hats, and everything else, we got a store. Once we were able to afford it, we had a store on Lenox Avenue.” When he was fifteen, Diallo started working in the store. You can say that he grew up in the community; he’s from Saint Nicholas Avenue, and while he’s seen the neighborhood change, Cap USA has always been the constant.
Granted, community has been the standing system of Harlem since the renaissance happened, the slang and the deeply black aesthetic populating the street at a time where Black people were migrating up north so they could start a life, a life away from the backbreaking white supremacy of the South. A love for all things Black — our food, the music that runs through our minds and mouths, and the clothing that made us unique — is what makes people in Harlem tick. Cap USA, which is located on 125th Street between Lenox Avenue and Fifth avenue, is right in the center of Harlem. It functions as the Mecca, the place where everyone goes to shop and worship the neighborhood they built, despite its changing; the stranglehold of white supremacy — from overpolicing to gentrification — has yet to defeat Cap USA. It’s still standing. “At first, we didn’t have a name: we didn’t have a sign. Eventually, it became Cap USA in 2004. We used to be at Bed and Body Works”, Diallo explains. “Every time I see Bed and Body Works, I laugh like that used to be us.”
Just like every other small business, Cap USA has had the deal with the long arm of the city’s real estate planning. Only in New York can a store be so successful and tinkered with by the city planners at the same time. Diallo sees himself as someone who only operates a successful store but someone who has had to be resilient in order to keep his store. At one point, a landlord told Diallo’s family that they had six months to pack all of their belongings, and leave that previous location. For Diallo’s parents, who did not know that being required to leave when the city said so was in the contract, it was a tough move for them to process. Diallo still has intense feelings about the situation. You can see it through his eyes, which are normally so calm that it’s like he is on the beach at all times. “My parents didn’t even have a high school education; they know business. They know the customers”, Diallo says. “The landlord sold us out at one point, and we moved to a different place and we’re growing. If you are paying your rent and not having any issues with law enforcement, you should be good.”
The store that Cap USA is in currently is smaller. Diallo remembers packing up all the stuff and bringing it down the block, then doing that over and over, until every product from the previous store had moved into the new one. Blood, sweat, and tears he said. “That’s all I can really say about that bro”, Diallo says, softly.
While everyone is grateful that the store is still standing, the previous store was glamorous: athletes such as Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire came in, shopped, and said hello to the locals. Even Dwight Howard, Nate Robinson, and Chauncey Billups have made an appearance. Diallo says seeing someone on television and seeing someone in person is different, but when you run a good business, people will come in and show love. This is reminiscent of what Harlem used to be: a place for Black celebrity to flourish without white resistance and the loneliness of a white space.
Method Man, for example, did a show at the Apollo Theater with Dave East, and along with right hand man, Nutt, bought some hats from the store. Diallo was invited to the Apollo by Method Man, and they discussed how Meth is able to keep the aura that he has. “Stay happy; choose to be happy”, Meth said. “Every time he sees a hat, he tells Nutt, and Nutt orders it.” Diallo says that Method Man and Cap USA are looking to collaborate on a specific Wu-Tang based hat.
WALKING INTO CAP USA is just as charmingly eye-opening as buying something from the store. First, to get to the back of the store, where Diallo is usually huddled up with his employees, you have to get past the Five Percenter in a wheelchair who is delightful to discuss conspiracies, hip-hop, and sports with. The store often plays Arabic prayers, a nod to the fact that Diallo is an African Muslim. Hats are to the right, all lined up and sequenced by the sport. Yankee hats have their own column — because, of course. Along the row, you might see special edition Yankee hats with patches commemorating the accomplishments of Derek Jeter; you could also see a hat, like the one that I own, that has all the Yankee World Series championships from the late 1990’s era. This is for the sport fans who are inclined to be fashionable; style is king, the golden age reigns supreme. For people who go to the store regularly, a favorite hat is a must. Fitteds are an example of social grace, currensy that you can bank for street credit. “There are a lot of hats that I fuck with, the 1996 hat is the classic. That’s when I was born, and that is Jeter’s first title. It brought us into the 21st century. Put a Yankee hat on the Statue of Liberty. It literally bought us in the millennium.”, says Diallo, from his chair.
Diallo’s head is in the right direction: Part of what the store is good at is capturing the moment where your hat is fitting smoothly on your dome, giving your face an extra accessory for whatever beau you are trying to get. Yankee hats can come in many different colors; my orange one is my designated hitter for summer days sitting on the Great Lawn. Fans look at drops that command a certain Cap USA fandom — these hats are unique to the store and you can find them online and more. They even did Negro League drops for Black History Month. To see Cap USA is to see a place for people of color, and they play to that. People respond to the drops, often sending each other Instagram messages of the drops when they get to posted to Cap USA’s Instagram account. Awake New York’s Hugo Mendoza told me that he had known about Cap USA because it was convenient to get to from The Bronx, where he grew up at. “My first job was at Yankee Stadium and it was part of my literal uniform. Our uniform came with a free hat but it was some sort of dad hat, and I wasn’t wearing it”, Mendoza says. “For me, the fitted is the crown, it is the on the field joint, the field being the best city in the world.”
DIALLO claims that he grew up thinking that Harlem was a zoo, a place that people used to be scared to come to. There’s a reason why Dipset’s music was so crass, and so chaotic — a lightning in a bottle for the early 2000’s, when rap music was becoming a tad bit more corporate than it ought to have become. Harlem was still feared, still a place you could go to and have to maneuver your way out of immediate danger. “A lot of people can’t say that they are from Harlem”, Diallo says. “It hits when you are on the same street as the Apollo Theater. I am never going to forget where I am from. My parents came from Guinea; so I have two perspectives.”
Admittedly now, during the time where Harlem has become another filtered version of the Upper West Side for PHD Columbia students, and theater kids, Cap USA standing, with their XXL font-sized sign, is like the Apollo Theater still hosting rap shows: it has a historical significance that goes beyond just the neighorhood itself, it is now a defiance to white supremacy. “Home and heart”, Diallo says. “We’re the bleeding heart.”