Miles Davis’s New York

The city was a central character in the eccentric life of jazz's brightest star

Miles Dewey Davis III moved to New York City in September of 1944 as a teenager and spent most of his eccentric 65 years in Manhattan. This Saturday would have been the trumpeter's 92nd birthday, and while one can still find his fingerprints on the music of today, many of the landmarks from his time in New York have been razed, redeveloped, or moved.

The sites that remain tell the story of a city that was reluctant to host the post-swing maturation of jazz, and seemingly more than happy to dispel of its memory afterward.

And yet, New York was a central character in Miles's life, and by extension his music. The tiny clubs along 52nd Street did as much to shape bebop in the 1940s as the musicians playing it, and the music institutions available to Miles in New York helped him shape his sophisticated vision of jazz. Here, you'll find 12 places in New York City—some still around, others long gone—that were central to Miles Davis's life.