Another Night at the Haig




1950_0310_haig_2

Richard Koch writes:

1951_0223_haig
I have a question.  Sometime in the late 90’s I was in Los Angeles and I was researching the location where the famous Haig was.  I just wanted to stand there and take some pictures at this sacred spot in jazz history.  In Leonard Feather’s Encyclopedia of Jazz it was listed at 638 S. Kenmore Street.  This was at the time before I was on-line and of course before Google even existed.  I had a difficult time finding 638.  Between north and south at Wilshire there seemed to be some numbers missing.  I gave up out of frustration.   Do you have anything on this famous “West Coast” club?

1956_haig_3
Well, Richard, the Haig is a little before my time, but the online Los Angeles city directories show that the Haig was right where Feather said it was, 638 S. Kenmore. Times stories describe it as being across Wilshire from the Ambassador. The 1942 city directory shows there was a restaurant there, but doesn’t give the name. 

Let’s dig a bit more. The 1956 street directory also lists the Evanston Apartments at 630 S. Kenmore. So it would seem logical that if we went just south of the apartments we would find the former location. And here’s what’s on Google maps’ street view:



About lmharnisch

I am retired from the Los Angeles Times
This entry was posted in #Jazz, Music, Nightclubs. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Another Night at the Haig

  1. Arye Michael Bender says:

    If telephone exchange names came back in vogue, we’d be a whole lot more civilized.
    To quote Joni Mitchell: “…you don’t know what you’ve got
    ‘Til it’s gone.”

    Like

  2. Kirk Silsbee says:

    The Haig was on the Northeast corner of Wilshire and Kenmore–indeed, across the street from the Ambassador. The late William Claxton took a famous photo of The Haig that shows it to be right right next to the apartment building.

    Like

  3. Larry Tone says:

    In the early 50’s I went to the “Haig” many times., It has been torn down since. I remember taking in “Jerry Mulligan”. Just thinking about it brings back a great rush and memories of better days.

    Like

Leave a Reply. Note: Your IP is logged with your comment so a fake name and email address are useless.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s