The street is described in modern times as "a quiet stretch of brownstones and tenement-style apartment houses, the kind of block that typifies this section of central Harlem".

[2][4] During the Jazz Age there were at least 20 jazz clubs on the street, mainly concentrated between Lenox Avenue (Malcolm X Boulevard) and Seventh Avenue, and a young Billie Holiday performed here and was discovered here at the age of 17.

The Nest Club opened in 1923 when Melville Frazier and John Carey leased the building at 169 West 133rd Street and established the Barbecue Club on the main floor and The Nest on the downstairs floor, which opened on October 18, 1923.

[2] Nightclubs of note include Tillie's Chicken Shack, known for torch singer Elmira, Bank's Club, Harry Hansberry's Clam House at 146 W. 133rd St., one of New York City's most notorious LGBT speakeasies established in 1928,[6] featuring Gladys Bentley in a tuxedo singing "her own risque lyrics to popular songs", and Catagonia Club, better known as Pod's and Jerry's, [7] which featured jazz pianist and composer Willie "The Lion" Smith.

The New York Structural Biology Center is situated in the Park Building at 89 Convent Avenue opposite the street.