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Cotton Club site

Also Known As: Original Cotton Club Site

Address: 644 Lenox Ave
Vicinity: W 142nd St
Neighborhood of East Harlem in Manhattan NYC
Borough of Manhattan NYC in New York City

Travel Genus: Sight
Sight Category: Site

Theme Group: Harlem Renaissance
Theme Group: Historic Jazz Clubs
Theme Group: Jim Crow Segregation
Theme Group: The Jazz Age

White people began to come to Harlem in droves. For several years they packed the expensive Cotton Club on Lenox Avenue. But I was never there, because the Cotton Club was a Jim Crow club for gangsters and monied whites. They were not cordial to Negro patronage, unless you were a celebrity like Bojangles. So Harlem Negroes did not like the Cotton Club and never appreciated its Jim Crow policy in the very heart of their dark community. Langston Hughes

Y/M/D	Person	Association	Description	Composition	Food	Event
Y/M/D	Person	Association	Description	Composition	Food	Event
1920/00/00	Jack Johnson	Owner	Cotton Club opens as the 'Club Deluxe' by heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson
1927/00/00	Duke Ellington	Work	Duke Ellington and his orchestra become the house band at the Cotton Club, 1927-1931
1930/02/00	Cab Calloway	Work	Cab Calloway and the Missourians open at the Cotton Club, house band from 1931-1934
1933/00/00	Lena Horne	Work	Lena Horne becomes a dancer in the chorus of Harlem's Cotton Club
1933/00/00	Ethel Waters	Performer	Ethel Waters debuts "Stormy Weather" at The Cotton Club night club, Harlem	Stormy Weather
1935/00/00	Bill Robinson	Work	Bill Bojangles Robinson begins headlining at the Cotton Club.
1936/02/16			Cotton Club closes and moves downtown, Harlem is considered too unsafe for its customers			Harlem Riot of 1935

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