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Era6 rooms
Harlem After Dark
The ballrooms and clubs of the Renaissance and the birth of bebop.
Before downtown, there was uptown. Harlem's ballrooms and clubs were the center of American social dance and a crucible for jazz — though their stories also carry the segregation of the era. This trail maps the Renaissance-era rooms and the after-hours where bebop was born.
- 1
Savoy Ballroom
1926–1958 · Harlem, Manhattan
Home of the Lindy Hop; a rare integrated floor.
Closed - 2
Cotton Club
1923–1940 · Harlem, Manhattan
Black performers, a whites-only audience.
Closed - 3
Smalls Paradise
1925–1986 · Harlem, Manhattan
A Black-owned room of the Renaissance.
Closed - 4
Minton's Playhouse
1938–present (intermittent) · Harlem, Manhattan
After-hours jams that birthed bebop.
Transformed - 5
Lenox Lounge
1939–2012 · Harlem, Manhattan
Decades of Harlem jazz.
Closed - 6
Apollo Theater
1934–present · Harlem, Manhattan
The enduring institution.
Active