Harlem

This guide to Harlem in New York City opens in the winter of 1927, when a young pianist named Duke Ellington arrived to open at the Cotton Club, a Lenox Avenue nightclub run by gangster Owney Madden. You'll hear how the club drew wealthy white audiences nightly to watch Black musicians perform, under a strict rule about who was allowed to sit in the room. The guide follows Ellington's orchestra as its broadcasts began reaching living rooms far beyond New York.