NYC Jazz Clubs Lost & Found

Listings for NYC jazz clubs that have come and gone over the years

I’m sure that many jazz and music fans have had the experience of entering a store or office in a former neighborhood and had the realization that the establishment had formerly been a beloved music club. It happened to me more than 10 years ago when my wife and I were moving our daughter into Weinstein, her freshman dorm at NYU, made semi-famous by its former residents Adam Sandler, Judd Apatow and Rick Rubin. We went with her to the local branch of Capital One to open a bank account there and as I walked up to the door there at 8^th and University Place, I realized that it was the site of the Cookery, where vocalists like Maxine Sullivan and Alberta Hunter held forth through the 70s and into the 80s. People looked at me funny as I pointed to a corner of the room and said, “That’s where the stage was.”

I’m sure some old-timers had a similar experience walking into the CVS at the corner of Bleecker and Thompson in the Village when they realized that they had been there years before for shows at the Village Gate. It’s a funny feeling. We all know things change, places change, people change. But sometimes the physical contrast between the past and the present can be jarring. Or even depressing.

I had already compiled a list of former jazz clubs in Manhattan for a piece to run in JazzTimes, but we never got around to it. Ashley Kahn did a very nice job with “After Hours: New York’s Jazz Joints,” a history of New York City jazz clubs from the '20s to the '90s, which you can read here. I thought about writing short histories or comments about each venue in the listing below, but realized that would take time that I didn’t have at present. Maybe I’ll update it later.

The clubs are listed in order of the year of their founding. And I stuck to Manhattan, and not the other boroughs. I did include a few venues like the Bottom Line and The Lone Star Café that presented more than jazz, but in each case they hosted many notable jazz artists. And, yes, I have a list of former folk/rock/pop venues that I’ll post at some point.

I welcome any suggestions for former NYC jazz clubs I may have missed, as well as any comments with memories of favorite spots. I hope you find it an interesting document and use it to come up with your own walking tour of jazz sites in the city.

Thanks to legendary jazz radio host Gary Walker for his input.

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The Cotton Club (1923-1936)
644 Lenox Avenue (at 142nd Street)

Kelly’s Stables
141 W. 51st Street (1925-1939)
137 W. 52nd Street (1940-19??)

Smalls Paradise (1925-1986)
2294 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (at 134th Street)

The Savoy Ballroom (1926-1958)
596 Lenox Avenue (between 140^th and 141^st Streets)

The Onyx Club (1927-1949)
35 W. 52nd Street (1927–1934)
72 W. 52nd Street (1934–1937)
62 W. 52nd Street (1937–1939)
57 W. 52nd Street (1942–1949)

The Stork Club (1929-1965)
3 E. 53rd Street (between 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue)

Paradise Cabaret (1931-1944)
1619 Broadway (at 49th Street) THE BRILL BUILDING!

El Morocco (1930-1959)
154 E. 54^th Street (between 3rd and Lexington Avenues)

Hickory House (1933-1964)
144 W. 52^nd Street

Jimmy Ryan’s (1934-1983)
53 W. 52^nd Street (1934-1962)
154 W. 54^th Street (1962-1983)

The Rainbow Room (1934-2009)
30 Rockefeller Plaza, 65th floor

Café Society (1938-1948)
1 Sheridan Square

The Lenox Lounge (1939-2012)
288 Lenox Avenue (between 124^th and 125^th Streets)

Hurricane (1940-1944)
1619 Broadway

Copacabana (1940-1992)
10 E. 60th Street (between 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue)

Latin Quarter (1942-1970s)
1580 Broadway (between 47^th and 48^th Streets)

Zanzibar (1944-1948)
1619 Broadway (at 49th Street)

Eddie Condon’s (1945-1967)
W. 3rd Street

The Royal Roost (1948-1952)
1580 Broadway (at 47th Street)

Bop City (1949-1951)
1619 Broadway (at 49th Street)

Birdland (1949-1965)
1678 Broadway (between 52^nd and 53^rd Streets)

Café Bohemia (1955-1960)
15 Barrow Street

The Cookery (1955-1984)
21 University Place (at 8^th Street)

The Five Spot Café (1956-1962)
5 Cooper Square (near Astor Place)

The Half Note (1957-1972)
296 Spring Street (corner of Hudson Street)

The Village Gate (1958-1996)
160 Bleecker Street (corner of Thompson Street)

Slugs’ Saloon (1964-1972)
242 E. 3rd Street (between Avenue B and C)

Studio Rivbea (1969-1978)
24 Bond Street

Mikell’s (1969-1991)
760 Columbus Avenue (at 97^th Street)

Bradley’s (1969-1996)
70 University Place (at 11th Street)

The Tin Palace (1973-1979)
The Bowery and 2^nd Street

Sweet Basil (1974-2001)
88 7^th Avenue South

The Bottom Line (1974-2004)
15 W. 4^th Street (between Mercer and Greene Streets)

Eddie Condon’s (1975-1985)
144 W. 54th Street

Lone Star Café (1976-1989)
61 Fifth Avenue (at 13th Street)

Seventh Avenue South (1977-1987)
21 7^th Avenue South

Cornelia Street Cafe (1977-2019)
29 Cornelia Street

Fat Tuesday’s (1979-1995)
190 Third Avenue (at E. 13^th Street)

55 Bar (1983-2022)
55 Christopher Street

Birdland (1986-1996)
2745 Broadway (at W. 105th Street)

Whippoorwill (1986-????)
18 E. 18^th Street

The Knitting Factory (1987-1994)
47 E. Houston Street (between Mulberry and Mott Streets)

Indigo Blues Club (1980s)
221 W. 46^th Street

Lush Life (1980s)
184 Thompson Street

Visiones (1987-1998)
125 MacDougal (at W. 3rd Street)

Cleopatra’s Needle (1989-2019)
2485 Broadway

The Fez Under the Time Café (1991-2005)
380 Lafayette Street

Jazz Standard (1997-2020)
116 E. 27^th Street

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Over the years, JazzTimes ran several outstanding oral history pieces on NYC venues, including ones on 55 Bar, Seventh Avenue South (not online at present) and the Knitting Factory by Shaun Brady, and Bradley’s by Dan Bilawsky. In addition, James Gavin wrote an award-winning story on Slugs’ Saloon, the site of Lee Morgan’s violent and untimely death.

Finally, in a series for JazzTimes.com, Sylvia Levine interviewed many people who worked at jazz clubs. She has posted several of them on her Substack newsletter “In Service of Jazz - The Supporting Cast” here.