Monday 19 September 2016

A trip to Harlem and where was Mr Big's HQ?

Fleming's second book, Live And Let Die, contains far more real life locations than in Casino Royale and it is evident that the author did a considerable amount of research to provide the intricate detail that would become one of the hallmarks of his work.


Bus Ride

Leiter and Bond venture uptown from the St Regis hotel to explore Harlem or "Mr Big's back-yard". They take the bus, probably the most un-Bond like transport in all the novels, which would most likely be route no. 2 of the Fifth Avenue Coach Company (route would have been Fifth Avenue, West 110th Street (Cathedral Parkway), 7th Avenue)


Bar Crawl

After a scotch-and-soda at Sugar Ray's, Bond and Leiter eat "Little Neck Clams and Fried Chicken Maryland with bacon and sweet corn" at Ma Frazier's.  This long closed restaurant was owned by Lula (Ma) Frazier and also known as Ma Frazier's Dining Room and Frazier's Restaurant.  Accounts vary as to the exact location although most accounts place it at 124th and 7th.  This is however, slightly contradicted by Fleming who implies it is further up the street from Sugar Ray's.  Other sources put it on the same block as Sugar Ray's, or opposite Sugar Ray's and also down the street from the Hotel Theresa (between 124th & 125th Streets),


After a another scotch at the Savoy Ballroom, Bond and Leiter skip Smalls Paradise and visit Yeah Man on West 136th Street before moving on to the fictional Boneyard on Lenox Avenue (since 1987 also known as Malcolm X Boulevard).

For more background to Bond's visit to Harlem, this is an excellent bit of research on Bruce Allen's site, Fleming's Bond.


So where is Mr Big's HQ?  

From Bond's escape, the HQ must be located between 7th Avenue and Lenox Avenue "He came to some red traffic lights and jumped them (Lenox Avenue). Several more dark blocks (5th Avenue, Madison Avenue) and then there was a lighted avenue (Park Avenue). There was traffic and he paused until the lights went green. He turned left (actually right) and was rewarded by a succession of green lights, each one sweeping him on and further away from the enemy."

As Bond turns right into Park Avenue, he can be no further North than 132nd Street (any higher than or no further South than 124th Street as Marcus Garvey Park is in the way.

Unfortunately the book gives no more clues as to the location of Mr Big's HQ but maybe there is something in Bruce Allen's suggestion that the Boneyard could well have been based on the real life Lenox Lounge at 288 Lenox Avenue.  If correct, this would place Mr Big's warehouse (which is about a block away) on either 124th Street or 125th Street (Dr Martin Luther King Boulevard).


I have placed Mr Big's Headquarters on 125th Street.  See my Google map to track Bond's routes to and from Harlem, plus over 850 other locations from Ian Fleming's Bond novels.








1 comment:

  1. From 1943-1959, Frazier's was definitely located at 2067 Seventh Avenue. The restaurant, and its address, were mentioned in a number of articles that appeared in the New York Age, New York's African-American newspaper. 2067 Seventh Avenue was not "further up the Avenue" from Sugar Ray's, as stated by Felix Leiter. It was across the avenue, and probably slightly to the south off (i.e., "down" the Avenue), from Sugar Ray's, which was located at 2074 Seventh Avenue.

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