Every day as I left home and headed up Seventh Avenue I would look across the street and see perched on his spot one of Harlem’s most beloved figures Samuel Hargress Jr. Or Sam as we called him. Sitting erect inside his down south porch like structure of his distinct and world famous bar Paris Blues. At the corner of 121st and ACP in a building he proudly owned. Always Impeccably dressed in a three piece suit, no matter the season in one of his signature fedoras of which he owned 46 and of course — with shades on. With the slightest nod, a smile that could melt diamonds and a solid hand shake. He would greet me with, “How you doin’ young man?” Never mind I was in my fifties by now. He was one of our distinguished elder statesmen, the coolest uncle on the block.
He looked out for many in the area often supporting their annual block parties. As I passed I’d slow my roll and we would talk for a few minutes. The conversations were mostly about Harlem, especially old Harlem or down South which is where he came from. Almost all of the old timers of a certain age my parents included were from somewhere else. I told him my mother (who was close to Sam’s age) was from South Carolina and my father who was from Texas was fifteen years older than Sam and arrived in Harlem in the forties and was friends with Malcolm X. He was always impressed with that. He would say to me, “You young but you get it. You get where I’m from.” He was right. I did get it.
I loved hearing the stories first hand of folks from his generation and the ones that came before him, from my parents or the neighborhood elders. Their colorful stories all shared the dreams of our people for opportunity, “packin’ up and comin’ up north”. He said, “New York City was the city of gold. They said that because to poor folks, every one living in the city dressed sharp, drove nicer cars, talked fast, they was all spit and polished.” Harlem was where the Blacks folks came to. The Mecca or Black capitol. It was where real money could be made if you worked hard and hustled. And in those days everyone had a job and side hustle. Sam was a military veteran; after he served in the Army he came to Harlem in 1960 and worked as bartender for a minute until 1969 when he opened Paris Blues, his now iconic jazz and blues bar. He named it after the city that showed love to his grandfather who was a soldier in WW1 for the legendary Harlem Hell fighters. As well as the music he listened to inside the juke joint that his mother and father had in his home town of Demopolis, Alabama.
In the beginning it was a spot for locals then eventually musicians and tourists mostly Europeans started flocking there. They all came to his spot, just a stone’s throw from the Apollo and the now shuttered Lenox Lounge to experience something they couldn’t find in too many other places; authenticity or maybe because it represented the Harlem of their dreams. Either way it was realness. “What you see, is what you get” he’d say. I recall many a nights, me and my buddies chillin inside the wooden paneled booth listening to old school R&B off the jukebox, slinging back rounds of shots, eating chicken and rice from a crock pot he prepared and chattin’ it up with the bartenders Esther and Judith. Sam was smart enough to buy the building at a time when on the surface it didn’t seem like a good investment as the neighborhood was in the decline, whole families ripped apart by poverty, heroin, then crack and AIDS and final continual epidemic – Harlem’s gentrification. Black families and businesses pushed out or forced to close due to high rent, empty brownstone shells became million dollar condos. Harlem had changed on him but he didn’t. He saw many Black homeowners selling their homes early on. But like a lot of men from his generation he’d say, “Where I’m gonna go? Back down south? I don’t know that place no more. All my friends up here. Paris Blues up here.“
The neighborhood and Paris Blues got a second wind and it became a destination spot for tourists, college students, ex pats and the occasional celebrity drive by. Sam always around to greet everyone who entered. Although the neighborhood had certainly changed he hadn’t. He was now sitting on prime real estate, property that he owned free and clear. He lived above the bar on the second floor and every morning at the crack of dawn, he’d get up to go downstairs and open up his space, eventually taking his place out front. In the early 2000s, the dawn of gentrification, he started getting all kinds of lucrative real estate offers, and every year the size of the offers increased. He told me one time, a Russian offered him five million dollars in cash. He turned him down flat but told him to come back that night listen some good jazz and he’d buy him a drink. Although Sam didn’t drink or smoke for that matter. He said to me, “Winners never quit. Can’t nobody buy me out. This here goin’ to my son. When I’m gone ain’t nothin’ I can do. But I hope he’ll pass it on to his kids.” I looked at him and said, “You ain’t going no where. You are Harlem.“ He smiled and said, “Got that right.” As far as I knew he’d always be here. He had survived everything this world could throw at a Black man with a level of unbothered ease and grace.
It’s sad to say when the world and eventually NYC was forced to shut down he did something he hadn’t done in 50 years — he was forced to close Paris Blues and “shelter in place”. As days turned to weeks he grew ill as his body started to shut down too. And then on April 10, Samuel Hargress Jr. passed away just a day after his 84th birthday. His step grandson said, “For 50 years he has gotten up at the crack of down to start his day and get Paris Blues up and running and then just one day out of the blue he has to shut down his business and stay home 24/7. It took a toll on his body. They say he’d died of the corona virus. To me he died of a broken heart.”
As a Harlemite with a long history connected here, it still irks me when I walk pass where Lenox Lounge was, which is now the site of a Wells Fargo Bank. I’ve walked by Paris Blues, a few times headed up to two fifth or 125th street for those who aren’t from here and each time I think I will see my friend, the coolest gentleman from a much cooler era. Hoping he’d say to me one more time, “Alright young man. Carry on.”
I will Sam and you’re coming with me.
- Musa Jackson, Editor
