Bill's Place

On our lists of the best speakeasies and live music venues in New York.

Bill Saxton, a saxophonist born and raised in Harlem, opened this room inside a real brownstone on West 133rd Street between 2003 and 2006, on the block once known as Jungle Alley. The building was Tillie's Chicken Shack in the 1920s and Monette's Supper Club not long after, where a seventeen-year-old Billie Holiday once filled in for the regular singer; a plaque by the door marks it. The room holds around thirty people on folding chairs set close together, and most nights the quartet plays without amplification. There's no liquor license, so bring your own bottle, and buy tickets ahead for the Friday and Saturday sets at 7 and 9:30.