Smalls Paradise

The story

The waiters at Smalls Paradise roller-skated orders to your table, then broke into the Charleston between deliveries. Ed Smalls opened this basement club on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in 1925, and during the Harlem Renaissance it stood apart as the only well-known Harlem nightclub both owned by an African-American and integrated. Other clubs turned away Black patrons unless they were celebrities. Smalls never closed before dawn — a breakfast dance with a full floor show began at six in the morning, making it a place where the night had no real ending.