Club Harlem was a nightclub at 32 North Kentucky Avenue in the Northside neighborhood of Atlantic City, New Jersey.

An elaborate all-black revue called Smart Affairs, produced by Larry Steele and headquartered at the club from 1946 to 1971, featured 40 to 50 acts and was on a par with Broadway productions.

Club Harlem was founded in 1935 by Leroy "Pop" Williams on the site of a dance hall called Fitzgerald's Auditorium.

[a] Williams was a medical student at University of Pennsylvania when he managed to acquire enough money to buy Fitzgerald's; he left college after becoming the owner of the nightclub.

[3][4] The district, known as "Kentucky Avenue and the Curb", had become the home for African Americans in the racially segregated city since the end of World War I.

[5] The new nightspot joined other popular black entertainment venues in the district such as Grace's Little Belmont, the Wintergarten, and the Paradise Club.

The elaborate show, featuring 40 to 50 acts including comedians, singers, showgirls, chorus lines, and dance numbers, was headquartered at the club through 1970, and also toured throughout the United States and abroad between the 1940s and 1960s, including venues in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Adelaide, Australia, and Toronto, Canada.

On the weekends, between 20 and 25 buses from areas in the Northeastern United States arrived, bringing guests who wanted to see the club's shows.

He wrote an open letter to baseball star Jackie Robinson, who had a regular column in the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper.

"[22] Weekends at Club Harlem started on Friday night, with the two bands alternating sets; the music kept going until Monday morning.

[27][f] Long-time Atlantic City disc jockey Pinky Kravitz recalled that by 3 a.m., there were up to 1,000 people in line, waiting for the breakfast show to begin.

[2] The leading black entertainers of the day appeared at Club Harlem, including comedians Dick Gregory, George Kirby, Moms Mabley, and Slappy White; singers Cab Calloway, Billy Daniels, Billy Eckstine, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, and Ethel Waters; and jazz musicians Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Wild Bill Davis, and Duke Ellington.

[3] Guitarist Pat Martino has stated that as a younger man he would play at Smalls Paradise in New York City for six months and then perform in the summer at the Club Harlem.

[33] Even in its waning years in the 1970s, Club Harlem continued to attract contemporary black stars such as Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Redd Foxx, Marvin Gaye, Leslie Uggams, and Dionne Warwick.

[34] Club Harlem was the site of the 1972 Easter morning assassination of the Black Mafia's "Fat" Tyrone Palmer, in full view of a show audience estimated at 600 people.

[38] Four rival operatives entered the club and one shot Palmer in the face after the featured singer, Billy Paul, finished his opening song.

[2][3][40] In the winter of 1986 it was purchased by a developer for $200,000–well below its valuation of $673,000–and shuttered; it had last opened for two weeks in the summer of 1986; it was the last of Atlantic City's major golden age nightclubs still in operation.

Atlantic City's mayor at the time, James Usry, was among those who wanted to preserve the club and took part in a private effort to do so.

[41] The African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey, founded by Ralph Hunter, and the Noyes Arts Garage at Stockton University are in possession of the mementos rescued from the club, including "costumes, posters, ashtrays, the neon sign", and a set of red padded leather double doors illustrated with full-size drawings of Pop Williams and Sammy Davis Jr.[21][42] The museum has lent the artifacts to a traveling exhibition that appeared at the Atlantic City Public Library in 2010 under the name "A Pictorial of Club Harlem and the Way We Were".