H. Adolph Howell Funeral Chapel, ca. 1926.

The H. Adolph Howell Funeral Chapel was considered one of the first "funeral churches" (what would come to be known as funeral parlors). Howell was a Caribbean immigrant, local Harlem businessman and undertaker, who moved to Harlem in the first decades of the 20th century. The building at 2332 Seventh Avenue became the funeral facility in the middle of the 1920s and quickly became a prominent part of the community, a space where the neighborhood's deceased were mourned and celebrated. Often the bodies of the recently departed were laid out in state for a few days before their Sunday afternoon burials (as Sunday was the traditional day for funerals).

This was the case for two famous burials that occurred at H. Adolph Howell's. In 1927 famed Harlem cabaret singer, dancer, and comedian laid in state for five days while more than 10,000 mourners passed by her coffin. In 1931 the funeral services for A'Lelia Walker, daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and mainstay of the Harlem Renaissance in her own right, also saw 10,000 mourners files passed her casket at Howell's. On the day of the funeral itself, more than 1000 people gathered outside the funeral parlor for the invite-only funeral.

In later years the building served as the John Joyce-Rodney Dade Funeral Home, which only ceased operations in 2007.