Revered Harlem jazz bar owner Samuel Hargress Jr., the ever-dapper neighborhood legend who greeted his patrons in a three-piece suit, fedora and dark sunglasses for the past half-century, has died of complications from COVID-19.
Hargress, who opened the renowned Paris Blues at the intersection of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. and 121st St. back in 1969, turned 84 just one day before his April 10 death at Mount Sinai Morningside.
“Sam Hargress is one of those people who should have lived to be 110,” wrote filmmaker Christina Kallas, who became friendly with the local fixture after moving to the neighborhood eight years ago, in a remembrance of the Harlem fixture. “He always took care of everyone … And he was a fighter.”
The natty bar owner personally met his customers at the door for decades, perpetually resplendent in his work clothes — topped by one of his 46 hats. Hargress, who received a key to the city from Mayor de Blasio, bought the bar and its surrounding building for just $35,000 in pre-gentrified Harlem.
He chased off real estate brokers in the new millennium as the property values soared into the millions of dollars, and lived in an apartment upstairs from the bar. Tourists from across Europe were now making regular appearances at Paris Blues on tours of the neighborhood, a sign of the changing times.
“It’s not good or bad,” he said about the changes in a 2010 documentary about the bar. “It just happened, and you cannot stop it.”
Bar patrons sat at wooden booths built by Hargress inside the wood-paneled environs where regular customers were annually greeted with a cake and a song on their birthdays. As Hargress and his bar endured through the decades, he began to draw more attention, including a 2016 piece in The New Yorker.
“Musicians may pass,” the story declared, “but Hargress and his bar remain the same.”
Hargress, born in Demopolis, Ala., came to Harlem in 1960 after serving in the Army, initially landing a job as a bartender. When he finally opened his own place, he decided on its name to honor the renowned World War I Harlem Hellfighters — an infantry regiment honored by France after the war.
Hargress, in the same documentary, noted that he never succumbed to the vices that can accompany the nightlife.
“I don’t drink,” he said. “Don’t drink. Don’t smoke. Never smoked.”
He is survived by his sons Sam III and Franklin; a daughter, Samantha Hargress; and stepson Michael Stewart. His namesake son hopes to keep Paris Blues running once the city begins to reopen from the coronavirus shutdown.
