In 2013, it was carefully restored and converted into low-income senior housing. In the decades following, the hotel underwent a series of reconstructions, most resulting in its being used as low-income housing. It was declared a Historic-Cultural landmark in 1974. About a decade after segregation ended, the hotel closed its doors. Unsurprisingly, it was the most often listed LA site in all 30 years of the Green Book. Du Bois, and the first national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Black built, owned, and operated, it was considered one of the finest black hotels in the nation, playing host to other greats such as Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, and W.E.B. Originally the Hotel Somerville, the Dunbar Hotel and jazz club was located at the heart of that jazz scene. Other musical greats once graced the streets of Central Avenue, but because of racist policies such as redlining, many Angelenos now associate the area with the ghetto. South Central was once called the “ Harlem of the West,” frequented by Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington.

How a 15-page DIY book forever changed travel for black Americans.

In a deeply diverse city such as Los Angeles, restoration of these sites, she says, could revitalize impoverished neighborhoods.īelow is a map guide to those sites, some still in operation, some abandoned, and others now nondescript storefronts. Taylor encourages Americans to map the sites, preserve them, and give surrounding communities ownership over their reconstruction. That’s why she has made it her work to catalogue every remaining one. history, says historian and artist Candacy Taylor.

The guide was published for the final time in 1966, and of the 224 original Green Book sites in Los Angeles, only about 8 percent still stand, mostly due to neglect and gentrification.ĭocumenting those sites is essential to recasting U.S. A guide to thousands of safe havens nationwide for people of color, from barbershops to ballrooms, the book was brought to the mainstream this year with the divisive film Green Book, winner of three Golden Globe awards and the best picture Oscar. What he published was the Negro Motorist Green Book. In 1936, a postal worker named Victor Green set out to create a guide that would help black travelers drive the “Road of Dreams” safely, and as he put it at the time, “ without embarrassment.” It was dotted by racist signs and Sundown towns, cities like suburban Glendale that warned blacks to “leave town by sundown.” For African Americans, Route 66, the iconic cross-country highway, was dangerous. In Jim Crow-era America, the open road was not open to all.

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