Hi-Hat Club opens.

Operated by bandleader Sabby Lewis and drummer/jazz writer Ray Barron, it is located on the second floor above a barbecue restaurant at 572 Columbus Avenue. Al Vega is the house pianist, and it soon becomes the city’s busiest jazz spot. Performers include Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Erroll Garner, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Billie Holiday, Illinois Jacquet, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughn and Lester Young. The club offers live Sunday afternoon concerts hosted by “Symphony Sid” Torin on WILD beginning in May 1952. The building is damaged by a fire on December 19, 1955, and when the club reopens in January 1957, it features jazz along with other music. The building is destroyed by another fire on March 10, 1959. A mural to memorialize the club is subsequently installed on the building that replaces it.