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In 1935, Leroy “Pop” Williams and Cliff Williams purchased Fitzgerald’s Auditorium, a dance hall. The father-son duo transformed the hall, re-opening it as Club Harlem – its name referring to the vibrant black community in New York City. Club Harlem could sit 900 customers. Its front bar alone sat nearly 100, and the space boasted two bandstands on which alternating acts would perform for an always packed house. The summer months were the most exciting season at Club Harlem. During the summer, music began on Saturdays at 10 pm and wouldn’t stop until 6 am on Monday morning. Four shows played on Saturday and Sunday nights: 10 pm, 12 am, 2:30 am, and the famous 6 am breakfast show. The acts at Club Harlem were hard to beat. Larry Steele’s Smart Affairs, Sepia Revue, and Beige Beauties featured “fabulous Club Harlem girls” performing dance numbers and show girl routines. Headlining acts included famous performers such as: Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls, Cab Calloway, Sammy Davis Jr., James Brown, Sam Cooke, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, the Temptations, Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Stylistics, and Ella Fitzgerald. The club remained popular through the early 1970s, but the opening of the casinos with entertainment venues spelled the end of the independent nightclubs in Atlantic City. Club Harlem closed in the late 1980s.