Travel Tips

You can go here for lunch, but the best thing here is JAZZ.

SOME GOOD PLACES:
WEST SIDE:
- ARTHUR TAVERN, friday-sat 7pm
- CAJUN (16th street), thurs 8pm
- LA LANTERNA (Wash Sq.), sat 8pm
- GARAGE (down town), 8pm
- KAVEHAZ (Wash SQ.), 8pm
- School of Jazz (16th st)

EAST SIDE:
- LE DETOUR (16th), 10pm
- LIVING ROOM (down town), 7pm
- RODEO BAR (27th), 10pm
- BARGE MUSIC (chamber music) at Bklynn
-

There is always something to do or to see.

Music, theater, etc....
Cheap tickets : go to TIME SQUARE TICKET OFFICE.

I miss NYC.
I miss my friend.

Jazz history tour with my friend Paul.

I made the tour on June 16th,2002 - it was so faboulous to see all the places where jazzmen lived...

I had my breakfast at 9am then I went to the appointment at 11am, in Harlem.

Contact Paul, if you want to spend a good day insight Jazz history, he may organize a tour every month in Harlem, on saturday or sunday ...

Paul is a kind guide and he knows a lot of stories about Harlem !

History of some Jazzmen:
Edmond Hall, clarinetist
Meade Lux Lewis, pianist
Mary Lou Williams
John Kirby, bassist
Lionel Hampton
Dinah Washington, or Ruth Jones
Charlie Parker
Duke Ellington
Ray Nance
Paul Gonsalves
Harry Carney, saxophonist
Jimmy Rushing
Coleman Hawkins
Luckey Roberts

After a cup of cafe, we walked to DUke Ellington's house.
it is easier with a map.
Take A train , and stop at 168th.

it is a beautiful house
the area is very nice and quiet, I would like to live in a pretty house like this.

The good guide is a good guy, my friend PAUL

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Below is an invitation I've e-mailed to the 80+ members of the Jazz Journalists Association who live in the NYC area. It indicates the times and meeting places for two different jazz-focused walking tours that I'll be leading in different areas of Harlem this weekend. Care to come along for either or both? You'd be most welcome!

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Ready for a weekend stroll (or two) along New York streets redolent of jazz history?

Join me and other metro-area Jazz Journalists Association members on the weekend for a pair of walks through Harlem.

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Ever wonder exactly where the Savoy Ballroom and the Cotton Club were located? How about Count Basie’s Lounge? Monroe’s Uptown House? Tillie’s Chicken Shack? Dickie Wells’ Shim-Sham? The Woodside Hotel? Connie’s Inn? Jelly Roll Morton’s home? Strivers Row? Minton’s? Abyssinian Baptist Church? The brownstone where that “Great Day in Harlem” photo was taken? OK, come see for yourself.

On Saturday, we’ll meet at 11:00 AM in front of the reborn Lenox Lounge at 288 Malcolm X Blvd. (just steps from the 125th St. stop on the No. 2 / No. 3 subway station), then walk for about two hours.

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The next day, our route will take us from the site where Malcolm X was assassinated (also a jazz venue at various times) down Sugar Hill, past a couple of Ellington residences, the site of Luckey Robert’s Rendezvous Club, the former homes of Bud Powell, Mary Lou Williams, Billy Strayhorn, Harry Carney, Lil Armstrong and Fats Navarro, a church Monk was terrified to enter, a series of great Senegalese restaurants and a bar where one Gillespie colleague met his untimely end.

On Sunday the 11:00 AM meeting place is in front of the Audubon Ballroom at 3940 Broadway (between W. 165th and W. 166th, not far from the 168th street station on either the A or C train). This second walk will also last around two hours and is primarily downhill.

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Join us for either excursion and you’re guaranteed to see the former residences of at least two-dozen jazz greats, the locations of at least twenty clubs where they played and several funeral parlors out of which they were buried, along with numerous sites associated with the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights struggle plus some of New York’s most gorgeous residential blocks.

Or you could show up on both days. Save the dates.
No charge. And bring anyone you like.
And by the way, we’re going rain or shine.
Want further info?

Contact me at 718/680-6677 or pempek@mindspring.com
Paul Blair

Paul and his wife.
After the tour, we stopped in a nice and sweet cafe to drink a glass of fresh orange juice and eat a good sandwich. the place is nice !

NYC and Jazz tour with Paul.

African party with my friends.
we had a lot of african food and dance and music.
it was FORMIDABLE and EXOTIC !

Look at the crazy guy on your left...it's me.

Food, food, and food !!!

116th street above CPW.

dance !

KAVEHAZ (Houston street)

Mike Di Rubbo Quartet.
we had good food, good jazz.

Thanks Mike.

new dance !
Golf dance show in Harlem.

Hello,
do you remeber this evening when I provided wine, meal, entertainment, reading....
it is my very best memory of NYC !

NYC is multi-cultural !

My american friends in Manhattan are American, Haitian, Jamaican, African, Vietnamese, Libanese, Maroccan, Peruvian, French...

Here you can listen the good jazz and have good food.

Do you kno the METLIFE Tower ?
A French Company was managing the renovation of this great tower ...during nearly 2 years.

Because French people have lots of old buildings and castles to clean....good practice, isn't ?

Tired .... by the subway.

I am homeless, because I am always moving.
it is good if you can share your sandwich or your drink with people who needs...but you must avoid stupidity...and think also about yourself: it is more IMPORTANT.

I am dancing some irish dance.
I know, you like to dance salsa and tango !!!

I love Spring, because I love LIFE and FLOWERS, for you !

Paris is wonderful in Spring.
Milano is wonderful in Summer.

Poor animal...

KAVEHAZ = JAZZ + DINNER

Very good dessert (cakes).

it was an italian mascarade

the camel looks like Africa, isn't ?

the path towards LIVING ROOM.

I am hanging to www.LivingRoomNY.com !

This scene might have taken place in 1946, or 67...in 1980 even, it would have starred 2 Jewish men of a certain age. On this day, the customer was black and the counterman, Dominican.
PASTRAMI is deli food, and deli food is something New Yorkers have argued about - and loved - for as long as there have been delis in NY. (Ne pas aimer est un deli).
PASTRAMI is a food developped by and for JEWS, it's a comfort for all New Yorkers, male and female, black and white, Vietnamese, Asian and Latino.
But where did Pastrami come from ? Joan Nathan says the word PASTRAMI comes from a Turkish word: BASTURMA; it describes a meat that is sliced, wind-dried, pickled with dried spices, then pressed.
The technique was adopted by itinerant Jewish pedlers, who began to cure kosher meat in the same manner. ..Most pstrami in NYC is made by large meat sellers. Incredible pastrami can be had at BEN's BEST, founded in 1945 in Queens. The owner of Ben's Best is Jay Parker. He took over the business from his father, Ben Parker, in 1980, he wanted to serve old fashion pastrami, cured by hands in barrels, with Ed Weinberg.
How the meat is treated once it arrives at the delicatessen is paramount. They steam his pastramis for up to 6 hours. He steams not once, but twice. That is the key to the richness of hot spicy smoked pastrami. "it is a science that takes years to master" .
(it's like the ART OF LOVING, isn't ?)

This park is just behind the big library.
you can have a lunch or a sandwich in this park, but it is difficult to get a chair.

in summer you may come here during the night just to watch some good movies...