The Cedar Branch YMCA, located at Cedar Avenue and East 77th Street, always helped the young men in its community even with often limited resources. The first Cedar Branch YMCA building was constructed in 1879 and was rented from the Lend-a-Hand Mission in 1921. The YMCA purchased the building two years later along with an […]
1938 Green Book
Garden City Hotel
Green Book Details Garden City Hotel appears in the Green Book from 1938 to 1956 at Howard & Furnace Sts. in Akron under the category Hotels. See also Garden City (tavern). Additional information coming soon
Geraldine Hotel
Green Book Details Geraldine Hotel appears in the Green Book from 1938 to 1959 at 2212 E. 40th St. in the category Hotels. No further information is available.
Globe Theater
Green Book Details Globe Theater appears in the 1938 Green Book at E. 55th & Woodland under the category Theaters. Additional information coming soon.
Green Turtle Hotel
The Green Turtle Hotel operated at least between 1935 and 1967. Leonard Foreman was its proprietor. The Call & Post newspaper opened an Akron office in the hotel in 1935. Green Book Details Green Turtle Hotel appears in the Green Book from 1939 to 1967 at Federal & Howard Sts. in Akron under the category […]
Heat Wave
Heat Wave was a music club inside the Majestic Hotel at East 55th and Central Avenue. Majestic Hotel was one of the most popular African American hotels in Cleveland in the mid-20th century. Heat Wave was just one name by which the hotel’s nightclub was known over the years. Originally called the Furnace Room when […]
Lu-Zell / Lucille’s Beauty Salon
Lu-Zell Beauty Salon operated inside the Majestic Hotel at East 55th Street and Central Avenue in the 1930s. Its name was a portmanteau of the first names of its owners, Lucille Jones and Marzella Martin. The beauty parlor remained in the hotel until 1939, when it moved to its own storefront diagonally across the intersection […]
Majestic Barber Shop
Green Book Details Majestic Barber Shop appears in the 1938 Green Book at 2290 E. 55th St. in the category Barber Shops. It was actually located inside the Majestic Hotel in 2291 E. 55th St. Additional information coming soon. Resources Mills, Quincy T. Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America. […]
Majestic Hotel
The Majestic Hotel was located on East 55th Street at Central Avenue and was Cleveland’s largest Black-owned hotel in the middle decades of the 20th century. In a period when African Americans could not always obtain fair treatment at the city’s leading downtown hotels such as the Cleveland and Hollander, the Majestic Hotel offered fine […]
Mathews Hotel
The Mathews Hotel was Akron’s main Black hotel. Owned by George W. Mathews, the hotel was located at 77 N. Howard Street. Born on a farm in Thomaston, Georgia, in 1897, Mathews worked as a waiter in a Montgomery, Alabama, hotel from 1915 to 1920. He migrated to Akron in 1925 and opened the Mathews […]
Rollins Service Garage
Dempsey Rollins opened the Rollins Service Garage in 1934 at East 40th Street and Central Avenue. Pop Harris was the garage manager. Rollins was born in Atlanta in 1903. At age 15 he got a job as delivering prescriptions by motorcycle for a local druggist. His motorcycle skill led to a stint as a motorcycle […]
The Chicken Coop
The Chicken Coop was opened by two brothers, Oswald and Robert Jones, in 1937 at 9615 Cedar Avenue, a location that had previously been the Bee Club and, before that, a meat market. Specializing in shack fried chicken, the short-lived Chicken Coop was part of the bustling Cedar–East 97th area, which was emerging as the […]
The Mecca
Green Book Details The Mecca appears in the Green Book in 1938 and 1939 at 76 Furnace St. in Akron under the category Hotels. Additional information coming soon.
The Upperman
Green Book Details The Upperman appears in the Green Book from 1938 to 1950 at 197 Bluff St. in Akron under the category Hotels. Additional information coming soon.
Ward Apartment Hotel
The Ward family’s path to success was fraught with struggle. Prior to coming to Cleveland, William Ward, born in 1877 in Leesville, Virginia, was a bellhop at the Old Monongahela Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by day and attending business courses by night. Once he was done with his business courses, he decided to open the […]
Wright’s Service
Wright’s Service was a chain of Sohio service stations operated by prominent Cleveland African American entrepreneur Alonzo G. Wright in the 1930s and 1940s. Wright was an innovator in automotive services, shaping the industry far beyond Cleveland. He went on to become a major real estate investor, hotel operator, and general contractor for construction projects. […]