Cotton Club Cotton Club The Cotton Club was a New York City nightclub located in Harlem on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue from 1923 to 1935, then briefly in the midtown Theater District from 1936 to 1940. The club operated most notably during the United States' era of Prohibition. The club was a whites-only establishment, but featured many of the most popular black entertainers of the era, including musicians Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Willie Bryant; vocalists Adelaide Hall, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Aida Ward, Avon Long, the Dandridge Sisters, the
Hippodrome Theater (Richmond, Virginia) 1940s. During this period, Richmond's African-American community was heavily influenced by New York City's Harlem Renaissance and the theater attracted big performers who were prominent in the cultural movement's performance scene. These performers included talents such as Billie Holiday, Bill Robinson, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Moms Mabley, James Brown, Ida Cox, Ella Fitzgerald and countless others who performed on the Hippodrome's stage. In 1937, The Hippodrome Theater was purchased from Charles A. Somma by the Abe Lichtman theater chain. In 1945, The Hippodrome Theater caught fire. The origin of the fire was never fully determined, although it