Cotton Club (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / Edgewater / New York City, New York / West 125th Street - Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, 656
 bar, Streamline Moderne (architecture), interesting place, movie / film / TV location
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56 West 125th Street opened as a Shell Gas Station in 1920. By 1978, the building was repurposed as a reincarnation of Harlem's Cotton Club which operated from 1923 to 1940. The current itineration of the Cotton Club was opened on December 12, 1977. Its best years were from 1922 to 1935. Following the Harlem riots of 1935, the establishment moved to West 48th Street, but the club never regained its earlier success and was closed in 1940.
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The original Cotton Club, located on Lenox Avenue and 142nd Street, was a segregated establishment where an all-white audience watched black dancers, comedians, and musicians. Acts reproduced entertainment that cast performers as exotic, savage, or "darkies" from the plantation south. Artists such as Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington enjoyed increased popularity after performing at the Cotton Club, though Langston Hughes criticized it as "authentic black entertainment to a wealthy, whites-only audience."

The interior and exterior were used as a filming location for S4E13 of the USA Network series "White Collar". Peter and Neal worked a forgery and money laundering case which brought them to the club.

cottonclub-newyork.com/
www.nydailynews.com/cotton-club-article-1.786163
www.urbanarchive.org/sites/4pkMzMDFqJE
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Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_Club
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Coordinates:   40°49'3"N   73°57'36"W

Comments

  • The most famous jazz bar in the world. Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ethel Waters, .....they all came here... Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker....the list is endless. Hi De Ho!
  • Has since closed. Not the original, which is supposed to have been on W. 136th St. off 5th Av.
This article was last modified 3 years ago