March 12, 1926: The Savoy Ballroom Opens

March 12, 1926: The Savoy Ballroom opens at 596 Lenox Avenue, between 140th and 141st Streets in Harlem, in Upper Manhattan. More than any other place, including Preservation Hall in New Orleans, it became the capital of jazz music.

The Savoy Ballroom was named after the Savoy Hotel in London as those who named the ballroom felt this gave the ballroom a classy, upscale feeling, as the hotel, which opened in 1889, is a very elite, upscale hotel. The hotel was named for the House of Savoy, once one of the ruling houses of Europe, including in Italy from 1713 to 1946.

It was owned by a white man, Jay Faggen, who modeled it after a Midtown Manhattan facility he owned, Roseland, which also became a legendary music venue. It was managed by African-American businessman and civic leader Charles Buchanan. He sought to run a "luxury ballroom to accommodate the many thousands who wished to dance in an atmosphere of tasteful refinement, rather than in the small stuffy halls and the foul smelling, smoke laden cellar nightclubs."

Like Roseland, the Savoy became known as a venue not just the "swing" bands that played there, but the people dancing to the music. It popularized the dance known as the Lindy Hop. Unlike the nearby Cotton Club, there were no "white nights" and "colored nights." The usual ratio was about 85 percent black and 15 percent white.

Frankie Manning, who became a dance star, was interviewed for Ken Burns' 2001 documentary Jazz, and lived until 2009 as a living link to the Savoy and its era, remembered: "One night somebody came over and said, 'Hey man, Clark Gable just walked in the house.' Somebody else said, 'Oh, yeah, can he dance?' All they wanted to know when you came into the Savoy was, do you dance?"

(Could Clark Gable dance? In 1939, he starred in the film Idiot's Delight. Wearing top hat, white tie and tails, and carrying a dancer's cane, he sang "Puttin' On the Ritz" and did a swing dance. Let's just say he was no Fred Astaire.)

That became the standard for every New York dance club to come, including the Peppermint Lounge with The Twist in the early 1960s, and Studio 54 with disco in the late 1970s: It didn't matter who you were, what you did, or how famous you were, all that matters was, could you dance?

There was a double bandstand, which allowed for an occasional "battle of the bands." It was useless, as the house band, led by a dwarf drummer, William "Chick" Webb, would take the opposing band -- even Count Basie's in 1938 -- and, in the parlance of the era, "cut them to ribbons." Only Duke Ellington's band, in 1937, was ever said to have beaten Webb's band.

Langston Hughes, the leading poet of "The Harlem Renaissance," called the Savoy "The Heartbeat of Harlem." But times change, as they always do, and it was closed on July 10, 1958. The Delano Village housing complex is on the site today.

From 1927 to 1948, Chicago also had a Savoy Ballroom, at 4733 South Parkway (now Martin Luther King Drive) on the South Side. Promoter Abe Saperstein sponsored a basketball team that played on its stage, called the Savoy Hot Five. The name was soon changed to the Harlem Globetrotters. Chicago's Savoy was renamed the Regal Theatre, demolished in 1973, and replaced by a venue named for a native son of the neighborhood, the Lou Rawls Theater Cultural Center.

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March 12, 1926 was a Tuesday. George Ariyoshi was born that day. He was the 1st Asian-American elected Governor of any State, elected in Hawaii in 1974, 1978 and 1982. He remains his State's longest-serving Governor. (UPDATE: On March 12, 2026, he turned 100.)

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. One game was played in the NHL: The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Boston Bruins, 2-1 at the Duquesne Gardens in Pittsburgh. Harold Darragh scored the winning goal at 11:51 of overtime.

At the time, the NHL had a 10-minute overtime period for regular-season games, and potentially unlimited overtime for Playoff games. For the 1942-43 season, the League eliminated regular-season overtime, as a nod to World War II travel restrictions. For the 1982-83 season, it brought back 5-minute overtime.

Named for the city's baseball team, the Pirates were a first-year expansion team. They lasted until 1930, moved to become the Philadelphia Quakers, had a horrible season, and went out of business due to the Great Depression.