Lenox Lounge

This review first appeared in All About Jazz: New York.

Although Duke Ellington urged everyone to take the A-train up to Harlem, the 2 or 3 train to 125th Street will drop you off right at the legendary Lenox Lounge, a jazz club, bar and restaurant that bridges the glory days of the Swing Era and the current generation thriving in Harlem's second renaissance. The Lenox Lounge, originally opened in 1939, was voted Best of the Best in the 2002 Zagat Survey Nightlife Guide.

Al Reid, Sr., along with his son, Al Reid, Jr., has run the Lenox Lounge since 1988

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This review first appeared in All About Jazz: New York.

Although Duke Ellington urged everyone to take the A-train up to Harlem, the 2 or 3 train to 125th Street will drop you off right at the legendary Lenox Lounge, a jazz club, bar and restaurant that bridges the glory days of the Swing Era and the current generation thriving in Harlem's second renaissance. The Lenox Lounge, originally opened in 1939, was voted Best of the Best in the 2002 Zagat Survey Nightlife Guide.

Al Reid, Sr., along with his son, Al Reid, Jr., has run the Lenox Lounge since 1988. “I wanted to do something to bring back the Harlem I once knew,” Reid said. “I wanted these young people to see that we had a vibrant, clean, and respectful community.” But even his late wife was skeptical about the prospects of running a jazz club in Harlem.

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