Up All Night.

Harlem

I met the dapper Walter DeForest at the 116th St. stop on the Lexington line, and we headed toward Lenox, stopping at CuchiFrito, where we treated ourselves to a half chicken with baked potato, $3.75, and a reliably greasy empanada. It's one of those tiny Hispanic places where you get to eat at the counter, and the chicken was better than I remember that mutated beast being in a long time. Walter blew his bankroll of one dollar on an alcapuma, which I wasn't crazy about. I popped into the famous Lenox Lounge, at 288 Lenox, but drinks were pricey, as was the back room with live music?$15! Feeling a bit outclassed, I wanted to at least look at the outside of Sylvia's, which isn't really that expensive?$7.65 for chicken and waffles?before heading to Jimmy's Uptown.

I was starting at the famous places, but Jimmy's had a $3 mandatory coat check and an "unsigned r&b act" playing upstairs for $20. It seemed like a place to dress up and have dinner, if you've got it like that, but me and Walter, an unsigned actor, filmmaker, comedian and single guy with several unsigned friends, split to walk around some more. I tried to visit the tiny Seville Lounge, with dressed-up professional drinkers, but was told "No soda, no juice!" right off the bat by the assertive barmaid. "What about selzer, can I get a selzer?" I pushed on. "No soda, no juice!"

Outside of the Apollo, guys with club invites stood around eyeing the door, along with a Polaroid photo hustler ($7 per) named Billy Hemmings, who told me he'd been in National Geographic's issue on Harlem (really!) in 1990. "Are you making sure the area is secure?" asked one of the kids outside with the flyers, the second time my pale skin and memo pad have identified me as some kind of city worker with blue-streaked hair. The first time was in the suspicious immigrant haven of Woodside, Queens.

Walter looks like a cop, with short red hair, a sturdy build and generic clothing, so when we walked by an interesting illegal party, a man loudly warned "Po-Lice!" I couldn't get hold of any flavor, so I decided to head over to the OTB for some action. The guys in there, older with drooping hats, were alone and worried-looking or conducting solo monologues?"A negro is a negro is a negro," one pundit was proclaiming on a bench, looking straight ahead. I lost $5 on Conquistador Lad, 7th race, in less than a minute. The guys reminded me of a smoky udon noodle shop in Osaka where the gamblers gazed at the horse races on tv with the same lovely worn look.

Finally at Luci's, on 124th and 8th Avenue, I hit paydirt. It was the most fabulous bar ever with an empty dance floor, and I returned the next Monday to see the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra, a jazz-style big band with a swing emphasis that plays there every Monday night. Luci, the owner, is an elegant Caribbean woman who designed the whole bar and has been running it since 1988, except for 1996 through 1999, after a violent period as a Jamaican disco did too much damage. She's set up an ambitious VIP section, but when the 17-piece orchestra plays, they take up about half of the room.

Old men in classic suits do the swing dances that bandleader Ron Allen?who has temporarily given up the alto sax flute for the cellphone?says they probably did when they were young, 50 years ago, at places like the Savoy, Alhambra and the Renaissance Ballroom. "Those old brothers are cool as shit," says Pete, a cute hick visiting from Florida. "I wanna learn how to dance!" They do look pretty good, and Ron thinks it has something to do with dancing, all that oxygen, the way they are so well-kempt. "It's their day to have fun, reminisce, go back to the old days, and do it together." Whites are kindly tolerated, and anyone interested in more information about the 23-year-old orchestra can look them up at HROJazz.com. They've been playing at Luci's since 1999, when Wells Restaurant, a chicken and waffle joint at Adam Clayton Blvd. and 132nd St., closed down.

For a downtown person to say that people are moving up to Harlem is implicitly racist. It means, of course, that white people are moving up to Harlem and driving up the rents, and a lot of longtime Harlem residents have had to move out. Pete stood outside on 117th and Lenox, having a smoke, when a guy walked up to him and asked him if he was investigating. "You want crack, hydro, dope, water?" But of course Pete isn't your white drug addict of old, looking to cop in a foreign land. He's there to stay.