The Early Years

My big interview with Mr. Ike Dixon founder of “Ike Dixon’s Comedy Club” fell through this week; however we may be on schedule for next week so lets keep our fingers crossed. While waiting for Mr. Dixon’s perspective I decided to pull up some info on the first settlers of Pennsylvania Avenue. Prior to starting my research I knew the first people who migrated to and established Pennsylvania were German, Jewish, and Italian residents and business owners. It was a place where residents could buy, sell, and trade goods.

City Paper published a brilliant article on the birth of the Pennsylvania Avenue and what it was like for early settlers (before it was an African American neighborhood). Below is an exert on the Avenue’s first residents.

“But African-Americans weren’t the first residents of Pennsylvania Avenue. “Other ethnic groups populated the avenue before blacks did,” says Alvin K. Brunson, director of exhibits and programs for the Center for Cultural Education, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educational and cultural enrichment located at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Wilson Street. He says that before African-Americans moved in Pennsylvania Avenue was populated by Jews, Italians, Germans, and other European immigrants, both as residents and business owners.

“It was definitely a retail district before African-Americans moved in,” Brunson says. The neighborhood was largely Jewish and Pennsylvania Avenue was lined with businesses where “goods and services could be bought and sold,” he adds. “And the Lafayette Market opened in 1871 and was driving much of this retail business.”

Of course, the history of the Avenue—and its black population—goes back further than that.

“Pennsylvania Avenue officially appears on Baltimore maps back in 1818,” Brunson says, first called the Wagon Road in the 18th century, then Hookstown Road, then Pennsylvania Road, as merchants and others traveled and traded up and down the thoroughfare between Baltimore and Southern Pennsylvania throughout the 1700s and 1800s. (The street, officially named Pennsylvania Avenue in 1818, still leads to its namesake state, via Reisterstown Road.) Some remnants of these early European residents remain there today: Brunson references the Etting Cemetary, at Pennsylvania and North avenues. It’s the oldest Jewish cemetery in Baltimore and dates from 1799, with the last burial taking place in 1881.

Meanwhile, Brunson says, 1799 also marked the arrival of the first group of black slaves from Haiti, who settled near the first block of Pennsylvania Avenue at Franklin Street, Brunson believes, to help build the St. Mary’s Seminary as slave labor. (St. Mary’s Seminary was located at 600 N. Paca St. before moving to Roland Avenue, where it resides today.) Soon after the Civil War ended in 1865, many ex-slaves and blacks who gained their freedom before the Civil War moved to Baltimore. As the black population of the Pennsylvania Avenue area increased, so did the number of churches (such as Union Baptist, Bethel A.M.E., and Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist), schools, hotels, and other businesses catering to blacks, which in turn also drew more residents and visitors. There were also a number of theaters, most owned by whites. “Theater owners saw the influx of blacks into this area as a means by which to make money,” Brunson says.

In fact, while African-Americans increasingly dominated almost all aspects of everyday life on Pennsylvania Avenue as the 20th century dawned, they did not dominate its commerce. Although there were always what Brunson categorizes as “a handful” of black-owned businesses on the Avenue—including the Smith Punch Base Coffee and Tea Co., which moved into the 1400 block in 1908, and the Cortez Peters Business School, which opened in the 1200 block in 1935—“from the 1920s to the 1950s, the businesses were predominantly owned by Jews,” he says. More black-owned businesses sprouted on the Avenue in the ’60s, Brunson says, but adds that “sometimes people paint a picture of Pennsylvania Avenue as a haven for black businesses, and that’s not true.””[1]

This article was a gift and a curse for me. I say this because it’s a valuable resource and full of useful info. The flip side is that City Paper basically did all of the work for me, so I now need to go above and beyond to find more information. But most importantly I found some good primary sources throughout the article that I could use as my projects builds.

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[1] http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=9603

Research Process

As stated in the last blog entry, my primary reason for the study is to create a narrative that accurately depicts the history of Pennsylvania Ave. After clearly reading and analyzing the information generated by my findings, students should be able to extrapolate multiple reasons for the current state of Pennsylvania Avenue by having the necessary tools to answer questions like.

1) How did these business flourish?

2) What caused them to fail?

3) Who were the key players or investors responsible for fueling the movement?

The Maryland Room at the Enoch Pratt Free Library will be my main source for finding primary documents and other pieces of information about Pennsylvania Avenue. I will also conduct interviews with people that frequented the area in its “Heyday”. I am now in the process of landing an interview with Ike Dixon Jr., former owner of “Ike Dixon’s Comedy Club”. This interview could make or break my study. An interview with him could not only bring a wealth of knowledge and experience about Pennsylvania Avenue, but also the true perspective of an actual business owner during the glory years of the Avenue. Mr. Dixon may even be able to provide me with pictures that libraries and newspaper archives couldn’t dream of getting. I would also like to get his take on the Avenue as it is today.

When most Baltimore Residents think of Pennsylvania Avenue today the first thing that comes to mind is an open-air drug market. Zombie like heroin addicts roam up and down the block all day long in search drugs or money to buy drugs. The historic buildings, which once were popular nightclubs and theaters, are now boarded up, tore down, or abandoned. Those buildings didn’t always look like that.

There once was a time in the mid twentieth century where the bright lights of Pennsylvania Avenue gleamed across the city of Baltimore. Todd Sheridan described it as, “Two miles through the west side of Baltimore City is Pennsylvania Avenue, known as a Mecca to all of the city’s Black citizens. This city street, from the early 1920s to the early 1970s known as “Street of Dreams,” was filled with nightclubs, music, dancing, and gambling. But mainly it was a safe haven so blacks could enjoy Friday and Saturday nights without being harassed by whites. The community was also filled with famous spots such as the Royal Theater, Sphinx Club, and many other shops, movie houses, bars and pool halls. Many famous and unknown black performers visited Pennsylvania Avenue. During those periods business was driven by segregation which led to boycotting on the Avenue. Some areas of the Avenue were more modernized than others and filled with lively entertainment”.[1]

This generalization by Mr. Sheridan is common amongst scholars and former residents alike, but we are going to find out how the Avenue developed into place of Black business. Next week we will start with the 1800’s and the arrival of blacks in West Baltimore.

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[1] Sheridan Todd, (http://www.mdcivilrights.org/PAAve.html)

The Mission

Every young African American businessperson in Baltimore city today is familiar with Pennsylvania Ave, and what some would call “The Mecca of Entertainment” meant to Baltimore’s black residents in the first half of the 20^th century. Time and time again I hear stories about the jet setters and black socialites who flooded the Ave. People like Billie Holiday, Red Fox, and Duke Ellington loved to perform in front of sold out crowds, party the night away, and sometimes-even lodge with popular Baltimoreans. The Avenue also was the place for African Americans to enjoy live theater and patronize a long line of African American owned businesses. Often people who frequented the Ave in its hey day compare me and my business partners to the men who flourished in that era, which brings me to my question and the topic of this study. What happened?

What happened to Pennsylvania Ave, its legacy, and the tradition of strong black businesses in predominantly black communities? None of these business traditions were passed down to my generation or remain prevalent in the African American community today. When I owned a liquor store, I learned to maximize my profit potential from some Korean friends that use to live in my neighborhood and most of my real estate teachings came from a Jewish guy that once owned half of Old Town Mall and a Irish contractor from Highland town. Which basically means the innovators of that Pennsylvania Ave era left us young black businessmen in Baltimore to fend for ourselves. And I am here to figure out how and way this occurred and what key indicators caused this massive downfall.

To answer this question and many more I will attempt to discover the origins of Pennsylvania Ave and how it evolved to be the center of black business and entertainment followed by the events leading up to its glory years which even still are widely celebrated today. I will finish the study with the events leading up to its demise and its current state today while answering my question in the process.

To successfully complete this mission I will only use primary sources including live interviews, oral histories, news articles, and real images from that era. I will complete this study with the utmost integrity all while paying respect to all of the residents and business owners who celebrate this magnificent era and remembering the sacrifices of those brave African Americans who attempted to challenge the norm by succeeding in business.