Some remember St. Nick’s Pub as simply magical. Perhaps the jazz greats who played there, blowing, singing and sweating into the early hours of the morning, left something in the tattered walls and creaky floors of the little Harlem nightspot on St. Nicholas Avenue at 149th Street. That magic went on, like a saxophone riff, until March 4, 2011. That night, the place was jumping, dark, smoky and loud. Beer and liquor flowed and platters of soul food were eaten.

A band called the Skillet Show performed to a packed house. But though few patrons were aware of it, St. Nick’s, one of the few remaining jazz clubs in Harlem, had been teetering for some time. The police shut it down during a raid before another act, the Donald Smith Ensemble, could finish its set. Since then the magic has existed only in memory.

Rumors float and questions linger on exactly why the pub closed and when, if ever, it will come back.