Thursday, March 5, 2015

REMEMBER: HARLEM NEON AT NIGHT CIRCA 1964

We found this set of silent footage taken of Harlem circa 1964 on youtube and it provides a glimpse of the nightlife that uptown was famous for back in those days. Big Wilt's Smalls Paradise, Baby Grand, The West End Theatre, The Apollo, Loew's Victoria Theatre, Harlem Moon, Lido Bar, Silver Rail, Sugar Ray's, Blumestein's and the Chow Mein sign over at the Renaissance Ballroom are all featured after the 3:30 minute mark.   There were also many barbecue spot in Harlem back then and this was the last decade when business was still booming uptown before years of decline up until the late 90s.  Watching the footage is somewhat mundane without sound so we recommend playing The Ronettes in the background to help put things into perspective.

1 comment:

  1. love love love.

    thank you for that.

    hard to believe how things would look less then a decade later.

    someone bring back that Baby Grand facade.

    please Owners, not too late to keep the facade or part of the Reny.....Do the right thing.


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