Lenox Lounge

Last updated

The Lenox Lounge Lenoxlounge.jpg
The Lenox Lounge

Lenox Lounge was a long-standing bar in Harlem, New York City. It was located in 288 Lenox Avenue, between 124th and 125th. The bar was founded in 1939 by Ralph Greco and served as a venue for performances by many great jazz artists, including Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane. Harlem Renaissance writers James Baldwin and Langston Hughes were both patrons, [1] as was Malcolm X. [2]

The bar deteriorated through the middle of the 20th century. Alvin Reid, Sr. purchased it in 1988 and restored the original Art Deco interior from September 1999 to March 2000, during the only closure in the bar's history. [3]

The Lenox Lounge was voted "Best of the Best" by the 2002 Zagat Survey Nightlife Guide and by the 2001 New York Magazine .

In 2012, a rent increase threatened to shutter the establishment. [4] In December 2012, it was announced that it would close at the end of the year. [5] However in January 2013 Reid said he was reopening at 333 Lenox Avenue and that it would have its iconic neon sign there. [6] Richard Notar, who owned the Nobu Restaurant chain and who took over the lease on the original 288 Lenox location, said he would maintain the decor of the original 288 lounge which does not yet have a name. [7] In May 2017 the building was demolished.

The Zebra Room was used for a key scene in the Mad Men pilot, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Savoy Ballroom</span> Historic Harlem music venue

The Savoy Ballroom was a large ballroom for music and public dancing located at 596 Lenox Avenue, between 140th and 141st Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Lenox Avenue was the main thoroughfare through upper Harlem. Poet Langston Hughes calls it the "Heartbeat of Harlem" in Juke Box Love Song, and he set his work "Lenox Avenue: Midnight" on the legendary street. The Savoy was one of many Harlem hot spots along Lenox, but it was the one to be called the "World's Finest Ballroom". It was in operation from March 12, 1926, to July 10, 1958, and as Barbara Englebrecht writes in her article "Swinging at the Savoy", it was "a building, a geographic place, a ballroom, and the 'soul' of a neighborhood". It was opened and owned by white entrepreneur Jay Faggen and Jewish businessman Moe Gale. It was managed by African-American businessman and civic leader Charles Buchanan. Buchanan, who was born in the British West Indies, sought to run a "luxury ballroom to accommodate the many thousands who wished to dance in an atmosphere of tasteful refinement, rather than in the small stuffy halls and the foul smelling, smoke laden cellar nightclubs ..."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harlem</span> Neighborhood in New York City

Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harlem area encompasses several other neighborhoods and extends west and north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and East 96th Street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cotton Club</span> Jazz club in New York City

The Cotton Club was a New York City nightclub from 1923 to 1940. It was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue (1923–1936), then briefly in the midtown Theater District (1936–1940). The club operated during the United States' era of Prohibition and Jim Crow era racial segregation. Black people initially could not patronize the Cotton Club, but the venue featured many of the most popular black entertainers of the era, including musicians Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Willie Bryant; vocalists Adelaide Hall, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Lillie Delk Christian, Aida Ward, Avon Long, the Dandridge Sisters, the Will Vodery choir, The Mills Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, Billie Holiday, Midge Williams, Lena Horne, and dancers such as Katherine Dunham, Bill Robinson, The Nicholas Brothers, Charles 'Honi' Coles, Leonard Reed, Stepin Fetchit, the Berry Brothers, The Four Step Brothers, Jeni Le Gon and Earl Snakehips Tucker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minton's Playhouse</span> Jazz club and bar in New York City

Minton's Playhouse is a jazz club and bar located on the first floor of the Cecil Hotel at 210 West 118th Street in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. It is a registered trademark of Housing and Services, Inc. a New York City nonprofit provider of supportive housing. The door to the actual club itself is at 206 West 118th Street where there is a small plaque. Minton's was founded by tenor saxophonist Henry Minton in 1938. Minton's is known for its role in the development of modern jazz, also known as bebop, where in its jam sessions in the early 1940s, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie pioneered the new music. Minton's thrived for three decades until its decline near the end of the 1960s, and its eventual closure in 1974. After being closed for more than 30 years, the newly remodeled club reopened on May 19, 2006, under the name Uptown Lounge at Minton's Playhouse. However, the reopened club was closed again in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">125th Street (Manhattan)</span> West-east street in Manhattan, New York

125th Street, co-named Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, is a two-way street that runs east–west in the New York City borough of Manhattan, from First Avenue on the east to Marginal Street, a service road for the Henry Hudson Parkway along the Hudson River in the west. It is often considered to be the "Main Street" of Harlem.

The Lenox Avenue Line is a line of the New York City Subway, part of the A Division, mostly built as part of the first subway line. Located in Manhattan, New York City, it consists of six stations between Central Park North–110th Street and Harlem–148th Street, all of which are situated within the neighborhood of Harlem in Upper Manhattan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abyssinian Baptist Church</span> Church in Harlem, New York, New York, United States

The Abyssinian Baptist Church is a Baptist megachurch located at 132 West 138th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, USA and American Baptist Churches USA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lenox Avenue</span> North-south avenue in Manhattan, New York

Lenox Avenue – also named Malcolm X Boulevard; both names are officially recognized – is the primary north–south route through Harlem in the upper portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan. This two-way street runs from Farmers' Gate at Central Park North to 147th Street. Its traffic is figuratively described as "Harlem's heartbeat" by Langston Hughes in his poem Juke Box Love Song. The IRT Lenox Avenue Line runs under the entire length of the street, serving the New York City Subway's 2 and ​3 trains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">110th Street (Manhattan)</span> West-east street in Manhattan, New York

110th Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is commonly known as the boundary between Harlem and Central Park, along which it is known as Central Park North. In the west, between Central Park West/Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Riverside Drive, it is co-signed as Cathedral Parkway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Nicholas Avenue</span> Avenue in Manhattan, New York

St. Nicholas Avenue is a major street that runs obliquely north-south through several blocks between 111th and 193rd Streets in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The route, which follows a course that is much older than the grid pattern of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, passes through the neighborhoods of Harlem, Hamilton Heights, and Washington Heights. It is believed to follow the course of an old Indian trail that became an important road in the 17th century between the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam and the British New England Colonies. In the post colonial era, it became the western end of the Boston Post Road. The road became a street when row housing was being built in Harlem during its rapid urban expansion following the end of the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lafayette Theatre (Harlem)</span>

The Lafayette Theatre(1912–1951), known locally as "the House Beautiful", was one of the most famous theaters in Harlem. It was an entertainment venue located at 132nd Street and 7th Avenue in Harlem, New York. The structure was demolished in 2013.

The Harlem shake is a style of hip-hop dance and is characterized by jerky arm and shoulder movements in time to music. The dance was created by Harlem resident Al B. in 1981; the dance was initially called "The Albee" or "The Al. B.". As indicated by the name, it is associated with the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Harlem, in New York City. The dance became known as the Harlem Shake as its prominence grew beyond the neighborhood. In 2001 G. Dep's music video for the song "Let's Get It" introduced the dance to the mainstream.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">116th Street (Manhattan)</span> West-east street in Manhattan, New York

116th Street runs from Riverside Drive, overlooking the Hudson River, to the East River, through the New York City borough of Manhattan. It traverses the neighborhoods of Morningside Heights, Harlem, and Spanish Harlem; the street is interrupted between Morningside Heights and Harlem by Morningside Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lenox Hill</span> Neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City

Lenox Hill is a neighborhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It forms the lower section of the Upper East Side, east of Park Avenue in the 60s and 70s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">145th Street (Manhattan)</span> West-east street in Manhattan, New York

145th Street is a major crosstown street in the Harlem neighborhood, in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is one of the 15 crosstown streets mapped out in the Commissioner's Plan of 1811 that established the numbered street grid in Manhattan. It forms the southern border of the Sugar Hill neighborhood within Harlem.

74th Street is an east–west street carrying pedestrian traffic and eastbound automotive/bicycle traffic in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs through the Upper East Side neighborhood, and the Upper West Side neighborhood, on both sides of Central Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">133rd Street (Manhattan)</span> West-east street in Manhattan and the Bronx, New York

133rd Street is a street in Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City. In Harlem, Manhattan, it begins at Riverside Drive on its western side and crosses Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue, and ends at Convent Avenue, before resuming on the eastern side, crossing Seventh Avenue, and ending at Lenox Avenue. In Port Morris in the Bronx, it runs from Bruckner Boulevard/St. Ann's Place to Locust Avenue. The block between Seventh Avenue and Lenox Avenues was once a thriving night spot, known as "Swing Street", with numerous cabarets, jazz clubs, and speakeasies. The street is described in modern times as "a quiet stretch of brownstones and tenement-style apartment houses, the kind of block that typifies this section of central Harlem".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smoke (jazz club)</span> Restaurant in New York City

Smoke Jazz Club is a jazz club located at 2751 Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The club was opened on April 9, 1999 by co-founders Paul Stache and Frank Christopher and is currently owned by Stache and his wife and partner Molly Sparrow Johnson. The venue has hosted numerous renowned jazz artists and in 2014 launched an associated record label, Smoke Sessions Records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patience Higgins</span> Musical artist

Patience Higgins is a New York-based jazz saxophonist, flutist, and multi-reed musician. He also plays clarinet, oboe, and English horn. He has performed with Duke Ellington Orchestra, Barry Harris, Archie Shepp, Jimmy Scott, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Paquito D’Rivera, Cleo Laine, and The Sugar Hill Jazz Quartet. Higgins has a history as a Broadway musician. He is a music educator and teaches at the New York Jazz Workshop Music School. Higgins has toured with the tour with Duke Ellington and Count Basie Orchestras.

References

  1. Official site Archived 2001-04-01 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Souter, Tessa (June 8, 1997). "The New Heyday of Harlem". The Independent.
  3. "Lenox Lounge - Place Matters". www.placematters.net. Retrieved February 24, 2019.
  4. Feeney, Michael J. (March 8, 2012). "Lenox Lounge, Harlem's famed jazz club, could be on last set: Longtime owner wants to keep legacy alive". Daily News. New York. Archived from the original on March 10, 2012.
  5. Gregory, Kia (December 7, 2012). "Harlem to Say Goodbye to the Lenox Lounge". The New York Times. Retrieved February 24, 2019.
  6. Harlem club moving to new spot - AM New York - January 4-6, 2013
  7. Gregory, Kia (January 9, 2013). "In Harlem, a Nightspot So Iconic They'll Reopen It. Twice". The New York Times. Retrieved February 24, 2019.
  8. Commentary for "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", Mad Men Season 1 DVD, 2008.

40°48′26.2″N73°56′43.8″W / 40.807278°N 73.945500°W / 40.807278; -73.945500