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Hotel Alexander
At 513 North McDowell at Ninth Street, this three-story white frame
building was advertised on the back of this postcard as "one of the
Nation's Finest and most Exclusive and Newest Negro Hotels."
Newspapers reported. "Dr. J. Eugene Alexander, a Negro physician,
bought the old home (1946) and turned it into a hotel for Negroes. His
wife Bobbie ran it." During the years of segregated hotels, this one
in the 1940s and 1950s welcomed big bands, entertainers such as Louis
"Satchmo" Armstrong, businessmen and other travelers, and it
served as a center for the First Ward community. Predating the Alexander
were other uptown hotels for blacks in First, Second and Third
Wards:Sanders Hotel, Goode Hotel, Little Ponce de Leon, and the Hotel
Williams designed by Louis Asbury Sr. The building that Hotel Alexander
occupied had been built and dedicated in 1905 as the Florence Crittenton
Home. Wealthy New York druggist Charles Crittendon built it as one of the
sixty such homes he founded as a "Home for Fallen Women" for
"shelter and protection to young girls when the first misstep is
made." Ironically the dedication ceremony platform itself fell when
it became overloaded with local dignitaries. Architects Wheeler, Runge,
and Dickie donated plans for the home which had seven pleasant, airy
bedrooms, a sewing room, a nursery, and an infirmary. It served through
1946 and moved on January 1, 1947. The building became a hotel in use
until legislation desegregated hotels. Firefighters supervised the burning
of the structure in 1973. |
