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.

A New York on Tap pick

Minton's Playhouse

206 W. 118th St. · btwn St. Nicholas & 7th Ave
Central Harlem, Manhattan

In 2026

Closed

Last licensed here under this name: 2021–26.

Checked October 18, 2026.

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Overview

This once world famous uptown jazz club had been shuttered for 30 years, but was reopened in the Spring of 2006 and is well on its way down the long road to regaining its former glory.

History

A jazz club that keeps coming back

Minton's Playhouse has closed and reopened a few times since the 1930s, most recently in 20241. Its first run was the long one: it thrived for three decades, declined near the end of the 1960s and closed in 19742.

When we wrote it up, it had come back on May 19, 2006, as the Uptown Lounge at Minton's Playhouse, and we said it was well on its way down the long road to regaining its former glory2. The road ran out in 20102.

In 2013 Richard Parsons revived it again, this time as an upscale jazz club and restaurant2. After the 2024 reopening, a current guide to Harlem jazz lists Minton's as permanently closed, alongside Showman's and the old Cotton Club1, 3. Given its record, we'd hold off on the eulogy.

Sources

  1. theinfatuation.com
  2. en.wikipedia.org
  3. nycjazz.guide

Researched October 2026.

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