New York on Tap 2008
Archive · modern edition Every bar New York on Tap knew, as it stood around 2008, with a 2026 check on each one. This page in the 2008 edition

No photo of this bar survives from the 2008 site.

Paris Blues Bar

2021 7th Ave. · at 121st
Central Harlem, Manhattan

In 2026

Closed

Last licensed here under this name: 2019–21.

Checked October 15, 2026.

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Overview

This locals dive is one of the oldest bars in Harlem. It's not so much a destination as a place to end up. But it you find yourself here, there's a pool table, a game on the TV, and even a piano against the wall if you've got the chops.

History

Fifty-two years of commuting downstairs

For 52 years, Samuel Hargress Jr would come down from his apartment upstairs to Paris Blues, the bar he founded on Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard1, 2. Our old review called it a locals' dive and one of the oldest bars in Harlem, less a destination than a place to end up, with a pool table, a game on the TV and a piano against the wall for anyone with the chops.

Its last night of business was March 15, 20202. Hargress died that April, the day after his 84th birthday, of what doctors, lacking tests at the time, presumed to be COVID-191, 2.

In December 2020 his son, Little Sam, had taken the reins while working full-time for New York City Children's Services, and intended to reopen1. The Hargress family owned the landmarked building and had no intention of selling it1. As of August 2026, the jazz bar at 2021 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard has not reopened2.

Sources

  1. curbed.com
  2. nynightlife.com

Researched October 2026.

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