Jazz on Fifty Second Street Swing Street in New York City was a hub for jazz in the 1930s and 1940s, with many famous jazz musicians like Dizzy Gillespie performing in clubs along the block. By the time the document was written, Fifty Second Street had lost its vibrancy as the center of jazz and swing music in Manhattan, with the green-and-white "Swing Street" sign now one of the only remnants of its jazz heyday.