I wonder if you have ever seen it. On the northeast corner of Second Avenue and Market Street on the brick sidewalk is a plaque recalling some remarkable San Diego history. Stained by years of spilled coffee and street grime, the words have become barely readable. “Former Site: Douglas Hotel — 1924.” It is a memorial to the hotel and its Creole Palace nightclub where black stage and screen stars of the 1930s and 40s stayed and performed. In the era of segregation in San Diego, the Douglas was the only major hotel to provide accommodations for black visitors.
The legacy of the Douglas is rich with stories of the legendary artists who appeared there. At the Creole Palace which held about 200 patrons, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and the Mills Brothers were among an astounding list of performers who could be seen there for 25 cents admission.
When black entrepreneurs Robert Lowe and George Ramsey established the Douglas, San Diego was deeply segregated, but their Creole Palace next door was, by every account, welcoming to patrons of all races. Articles written over the years consistently describe it as the most famous western cabaret outside of Los Angeles, featuring its own house band, flamboyantly costumed showgirls on stage, and an astonishing list of jazz performers like Nat King Cole and Jelly Roll Morton, who made it a point to stop in if they were in town or nearby.
Any sensible appreciation for San Diego history would demand a place like the Douglas Hotel be preserved. Imagine what a landmark in our downtown it would be today. Think of music spilling out onto Market Street from artists inspired by the marquee names that played there from the 1920s to the post-war years. But it did not happen. In 1956, George Ramsey’s widow Mabel Rowe Ramsey sold the business. The building was later listed as a group residence operated by Alcoholics Anonymous. By the 1970s it was becoming clear that the two-story brick building was not part of city leaders’ vision for downtown. In the push for urban development, historical preservation, particularly sites of significance to people of color, simply was not a priority, and the Douglas was torn down in 1985 to make way for apartments and commercial space.
Now only a corroded plaque on the sidewalk memorializes the Douglas and The Creole Palace, where once rang out the music of Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, and Dinah Washington. It is the sole reminder of how, in the time of segregated San Diego, the premier black entertainment venue in our city thrived. Its memory deserves more.