Jungle Fever, 1991
Director
Cast
- Wesley Snipes
- Annabella Sciorra
- Spike Lee
- Ossie Davis
- Anthony Quinn
- Samuel L Jackson
- John Turturro
- Queen Latifah
- Brad Dourif
visit the film locations
New York: Flights: JFK Airport
Sylvia’s Restaurant, 328 Lenox Avenue at 125th Street (tel: 212.996.0660), Harlem’s legendary soulfood restaurant
Trivia
Jungle Fever location: Sylvia’s Restaurant, Lenox Avenue, Harlem
Wesley Snipes is a New York architect who has an affair with Italian-American secretary Annabella Sciorra in Spike Lee’s excellent film about the complications of an inter-racial relationship.
Snipes’ neighbourhood is one of Harlem’s middle class enclaves, Strivers’ Row, around West 138th and West 139th Streets. Built as houses for upper-middle class white families in the Harlem real estate boom of 1919, they became the focus for well-to-do African Americans – the ‘Strivers’ – who included the likes of WC Handy, Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake.
Sciorra’s area is Bensonhurst, South Central Brooklyn. Traditionally an Italian-Jewish community, it was here that Yusuf Hawkins, a young black man, was beaten to death in August 1989. Lee determined to film in Bensonhurst despite intense local animosity, including bomb threats and disruption, during which cinematographer Ernest Dickerson was hit by a rock.
Featured is Sylvia’s Restaurant, 328 Lenox Avenue at 125th Street, Harlem’s legendary soulfood restaurant. Get there early on Wednesdays, for free tickets to amateur night at the Apollo Theater.
