Royal Roost

Former jazz club

The Royal Roost was a jazz club located at 1580 Broadway in the Theater District of Manhattan in New York City.

History

Ralph Watkins originally opened the Royal Roost as a chicken restaurant.^[1] After a difficult start, Watkins was persuaded by Sid Torin (D.J. Symphony Sid) to try presenting modern jazz at the club. Beginning in 1948 the club began to showcase the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Dexter Gordon, Tadd Dameron, and Max Roach. The presence of so many prominent bebop musicians performing at the Royal Roost led to the club being nicknamed "the Metropolitan Bopera House," a pun referencing the club's close proximity to the nearby Metropolitan Opera House.^[2] In 1949, a record label, Roost Records, was founded by Arthur Faden, Bill Faden, Monty Kay and Ralph Watkins, which recorded many of the musicians who performed at the club. In September 1948, Miles Davis debuted his nonet at the club, a project that would eventually give rise to the seminal cool jazz album Birth of the Cool. By the early 1950s, the jazz component of the Roost was moved to Watkins's new club, Bop City.

The Roost was the site of bootleg recordings of both Ella Fitzgerald and her then-husband, Ray Brown.^[3]

References

^ Pareles, Jon (December 3, 1982). "Pop/Jazz". The New York Times. Retrieved July 16, 2017.
^ Dahan, Charlie B. (July 16, 2002). "Charlie Parker: Best of The Complete Live Performances on Savoy (2002)". Allaboutmusic.com. p. 1. Retrieved March 20, 2014.
^ According to Ella Fitzgerald biographer, Geoffrey Fidelman.

Buildings
1 Times Square 3 Times Square 4 Times Square 5 Times Square 7 Times Square (Times Square Tower) 11 Times Square 20 Times Square 229 West 43rd Street 1500 Broadway 1501 Broadway (Paramount Building) 1515 Broadway (One Astor Plaza) 1540 Broadway (Bertelsmann Building) 1552 Broadway (I. Miller Building) 1585 Broadway (Morgan Stanley Building) Bank of America Tower Brill Building Bush Tower Candler Building Church of St. Mary the Virgin Embassy Theatre The New York Times Building Times Square Hotel TKTS TSX Broadway

Broadway theaters
Ambassador Belasco Bernard B. Jacobs Booth Broadhurst Circle in the Square Ethel Barrymore Eugene O'Neill Gerald Schoenfeld Gershwin Hayes Hudson Imperial James Earl Jones John Golden Lena Horne Longacre Lunt-Fontanne Lyceum Lyric Majestic Marquis Minskoff Music Box Nederlander New Amsterdam Palace Richard Rodgers St. James Samuel J. Friedman Shubert Stephen Sondheim Todd Haimes Walter Kerr Winter Garden

Performance venues	Palladium Times Square Sony Hall The Town Hall
Events	Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve Good Riddance Day
Sites	Madame Tussauds New York Museum of Broadway Sardi's Times Square Studios
Art and sculpture	Statue of Francis P. Duffy Statue of George M. Cohan Times Square (Neuhaus) Times Square Mural
Signs and objects	Coca-Cola sign Nasdaq MarketSite National Debt Clock Times Square Ball
Personalities	Desnudas Naked Cowboy

Hotels
The Chatwal New York Crowne Plaza Times Square Manhattan Hotel Astor Hotel Claridge Hotel Edison The Knickerbocker Hotel Millennium Times Square New York New York Marriott Marquis Row NYC Hotel Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel

Transportation

Subway stations	42nd Street–Port Authority Bus Terminal 49th Street 50th Street Times Square–42nd Street
Roads and streets	42nd Street Broadway Seventh Avenue Shubert Alley

History

Events and incidents	V-J Day in Times Square 2008 Times Square bombing 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt 2017 Times Square car attack 2017 New York City Subway bombing Stop Iran Rally
Defunct locations and attractions	Bond International Casino Discovery Times Square Hotel Carter Pabst Hotel Palladium Times Square Terminal Bar Unique Recording Studios
Defunct theaters	American Music Hall Astor Columbia Edison Fulton Gaiety Knickerbocker Liberty Loew's Lyric Morosco Olympia Paramount Rialto Strand Times Square Victoria