Green Book Details 40 Club appears in the Green Book from 1946 to 1955, variously listed at 369 or 399 E. Federal St. in Youngstown under the category Night Clubs. Additional information coming soon.
Green Book Details Alberta’s Beauty Shop appears in the Green Book from 1946 to 1955 at 8203 Cedar Ave. under the category Beauty Parlors. Additional information coming soon.
Green Book Details B. H. Tapisco appears in the Green Book from 1939 to 1946 at 115 W. 17th St. in Lorain under the category Tourist Homes. Additional information coming soon.
Green Book Details Beauty Salon appears in the Green Book from 1939 to 1949 at 70 N. Howard St. in Akron under the category Beauty Parlors. Additional information coming soon.
Green Book Details Benjamin’s appears in the Green Book from 1946 to 1955 at E. 55th St. & Central under the category Drug Stores. Additional information coming soon.
The Blue Grass Club opened in 1944 on the second floor of a building at 2173 East 55th Street just south of Cedar Avenue. Owned by high roller Benny Mason (also the proprietor of Mason’s Farm in Solon) and Rodger Price (who also owned the Log Cabin and later opened United Recreation, the city’s first […]
Sadie Brooks operated Brooks’ Grille on Akron’s North Howard Street. Green Book Details Brooks’ Grille appears as “Brook’s” in the Green Book from 1939 to 1953 at 42 N. Howard St. in Akron under the category Taverns. Additional information coming soon. Resources Brooks’ Grille ad. Call & Post. December 24, 1936.
Arthur L. Bryant was born in Georgia and attended school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1922 he moved to Cleveland and opened his first barber shop at 9402 Cedar Avenue. When the business needed room to expand, Bryant moved in 1934 to 9808 Cedar, where it shared an entryway with the adjacent Lucky Bar. In addition […]
Carnegie Hotel was located at 6803 Carnegie Avenue. Hotel owners Earnestine and Eddie Eadie sold their interests in the sixty-room hostelry in 1947 to Alonzo Wright, who also operated the Majestic Hotel on East 55th Street. The former manager of the Blue Grass Club and Mason’s Farm took charge of operating the hotel’s Blue Room […]
Cassie Moore opened Cassie’s Lunch in 1940 at 2284 East 55th Street across the street from the Majestic Hotel. Within two years it was renamed Cassie’s Restaurant and expanded to 24-hour-a-day service. In 1945, Moore turned over the management of Cassie’s to Jimmy Smith, and a second location specializing in barbecue opened two years later […]
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 […]
Cedar Gardens was a restaurant and night spot that achieved regional and even national renown as a “black and tan” club in the 1930s and 1940s. Jacob Hecht opened Cedar Gardens at 9706 Cedar Avenue in January 1934. Hecht, who was White, had hired 65 employees by 1937, all of whom were Black. He turned […]
The Douglas Club was located at 7917 Cedar Avenue in Cleveland. Its name, sometimes spelled Douglass, suggests that it may have derived from the famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The club opened at an unspecified date in the early 1930s and reportedly started on East 40th Street before moving in 1935 to the Cedar Avenue location […]
Carl R. Douglass operated four Douglas Texaco Stations, the first of which he opened in 1926 at 9300 Cedar Avenue. In 1949 he got out of the filling station business and opened an apparel shop at 8627 Cedar Avenue. A native of Akron, Douglass had moved to Cleveland in 1923 following his graduation from high […]
El Morocco Lounge Bar officially opened its doors to the public on February 17, 1944. Located at 8219 Cedar Avenue and operated by brothers Bill and Melvin Blackmon, originally from Alabama, the glamorous lounge offered an extensive selection of fine liquors. A notable feature of El Morocco was the desert motif on its walls, painted […]
Gant’s Valeteria, a dry cleaning plant and tailoring shop, took its name from proprietor Green Henry Gant. Born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1902, Gant studied tailoring at the Hampton Institute (later Hampton University) in Hampton, Virginia, where he graduated in 1924. After teaching tailoring in public schools in Indianapolis, Gant moved to Cleveland in 1931. […]
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
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.
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 […]
Richard T. Kyers opened his filling station on the northeast corner of Cedar Avenue and East 79th Street in 1933. Kyers, who was born in Atlanta in 1905, migrated to Cleveland in 1922 and initially worked as a machinist. A decade later he leased a vacant lot and built a simple three-pump filling station. In […]
Green Book Details Lincoln Hotel appears in the Green Book in 1940 and 1946 at E. 40th St. & Scovill Ave. in the category Hotels. This appears to have been in error, as the hotel closed in the 1920s. No further information is available.
The Log Cabin was a popular tavern opened in 1934 by Willie Pierson and Rodger Price at 2290 East 55th Street before expanding into the adjacent storefront at 2294 two years later. Pierson, a Guthrie, Oklahoma, native and World War I veteran who would go on to be one of the first African American homeowners […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Manhattan Restaurant, located on 9903 Cedar Avenue, had been owned and operated by Beulah Norton Penn for ten years when she married African American businessman Fleet Slaughter in 1952. Slaughter, who was the former manager of the men’s locker room at the Shaker Heights Country Club and a World War II veteran, was determined […]
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 […]
Mike’s Brown Derby was a bar on Woodland Avenue that was opened in 1945 by Mike Joseph in a building that had previously housed a wholesale grocery. The bar was soon listed in the Green Book and became a go-to drinking spot for many Black Clevelanders. It was integrated, although there were separate areas that […]
Green Book Details Mrs. Alex Cooley appears in the Green Book from 1939 to 1967 at 114 W. 26th (St.) in Lorain under the category Tourist Homes. Additional information coming soon.
Green Book Details Mrs. Elishe Worthington appears in the Green Book from 1939 to 1967 at 209 W. 16th St. in Lorain under the category Tourist Homes. Additional information coming soon.
Green Book Details Mrs. H. P. Jackson appears in the Green Book from 1939 to 1967 at 2383 Apple Ave. in Lorain under the category Tourist Homes. Additional information coming soon.
Belle McCray always extended a helping hand to those in need and provided housing for many families moving to Cleveland. She moved from Greenville, Mississippi, with her husband Sam McCray in 1917 as part of the Great Migration. Soon after she arrived in Cleveland, she started acquiring property. She purchased properties on East 40th Street, […]
Green Book Details Mrs. Porter Wood appears in the Green Book from 1939 to 1967 at 1759 Broadway in Lorain under the category Tourist Homes. See also Wood’s Social Inn. Additional information coming soon.
Green Book Details Mrs. W. H. Redmond appears in the Green Book from 1939 to 1959 at 201 E. 22nd (St.) in Lorain under the category Tourist Homes. Additional information coming soon.
Green Book Details Mrs. W. Jackson appears in the Green Book from 1939 to 1954 at 744 N. Webb (Ave.) in Alliance under the category Tourist Homes. Additional information coming soon.
Green Book Details Oberlin Inn appears in the Green Book from 1939 to 1955 at College and Main in Oberlin under the category Hotels. Additional information coming soon.
On-Erie Beach played a significant role in the African American community in Northeast Ohio from the 1920s to the 1940s. Located in western Lorain, the beach may have been the only African American owned and operated beach in the area. On-Erie Beach lay along State Route 2, near present-day West 21st and Martin Drive. The […]
The Phillis Wheatley Association first opened in 1911 at 2265 East 40th Street as a “home for working girls” regardless of race or nationality and could only accommodate fifteen boarders who had access to a kitchen, a place to entertain visitors, and laundry facilities. From its inception, more women were interested in living at the […]
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 […]
Solomon’s Gold Bar Delicatessen & Restaurant (or simply Gold Bar) was owned by Ben Solomon. It moved to 14700 Kinsman Road in 1947 and was replaced by Cafe Tia Juana. It moved again to 13905 Cedar Rd. in the Cedar Center shopping plaza in South Euclid in 1957. Additional information coming soon. Green Book Details […]
Green Book Details Sykes Bros. Garage appears in the Green Book from 1939 to 1947 at 8708 Cedar Ave. and from 1948 to 1950 at 6801 Kinsman Rd. in the category Garages. No further information is available.
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.
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 […]
Edith Wilkins was the owner and proprietor of The Wilkins School of Cosmetology, which trained young African American women how to offer cosmetology services. Her cosmetology school was renowned throughout Ohio even though Edith Wilkins was not originally from Ohio. Edith Wilkins was born in Plumville, Arkansas, in 1893 and attended Poro College of Cosmetology […]
Williams Bar-B-Q was opened by Eugene “Hot Sauce” Williams in 1935. The establishment was originally Henry Burkett’s Black King’s Barbecue until Williams came along. Eugene Williams, a native of New Orleans, brought his southern roots from Louisiana to Cleveland, incorporating natural southern style, into his famous hot sauce and barbecuing. He owned a small barbecue stand before opening his more well-known William’s […]
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. […]
Green Book Details The Youngstown YMCA appears as “Y.M.C.A.” in the Green Book from 1941 to 1967 at 962 W. Federal St. in Youngstown under the category Hotels. Additional information coming soon.
Green Book Details Zuber’s appears in the Green Book from 1940 to 1950 at 47 Cuyahoga St. in Akron under the category Service Stations. Additional information coming soon.