Wednesday, August 10, 2011

☞ INTRODUCING: Plans for Minton's Playhouse


We received a tip which reveals the possibility of Minton's Playhouse opening up again in a bigger way for Spring 2012.  The iconic jazz venue within the former Cecil Hotel at 210 West 118th Street has been closed for the past year but a certain Citigroup chair has bigger plans for its transformation.  According to an article published this month in Ebony magazine on Richard D. Parsons, the old venue will be transformed into a 10,000-square-foot entertainment complex that will include a supper club and lounge.

Mr. Parson's personal venture to bring back jazz to this corner of 118th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue has reportedly secured the lease for the space and will move forward in the next few months.  Our source mentions that negotiations still are ongoing so nothing is set at this point.  We were also informed that the lounge and supper club will actually be located at the retails space adjacent to Minton's which would make sense since the floor space has to increase dramatically for all of the new elements to be set in place (lower photo).  Ebony has part of the article up on line but the part about Minton's is not featured: LINK 

4 comments:

  1. nice!!! can't wait to see the new evolution of harlem history

    ReplyDelete
  2. He certainly has the money to do it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. As long as you can just sidle up to the bar and listen to the music without much fuss and downtown pretension, then I'm all for it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. very exciting plan. The space is wonderful and we need some of the ground floor retail to spread out and east from FDB.

    ReplyDelete