The Hotel Alexander on McDowell Street was the only hotel serving Blacks in Charlotte, NC during the 1940s. Black salesmen, families, and celebrities stayed there and it served as a center for the social life of the community.

This image is a post card-color lithograph of the Hotel Alexander in Charlotte, NC [78747 - Pub. by Dixie News Co., Charlotte, NC; produced by Tichnor Brothers; color; linen; fine]

The Hotel, located at 513 North McDowell and Ninth Streets was a three-story white frame home advertised as "one of the Nation's finest and most exclusive and newest Negro hotels." Owned and operated by Dr. J. Eugene Alexander and his wife, Bobbie.

It was built in 1905, it first served the Black community as the Florence Crittenton Home, a shelter for "fallen women" operated by Charles Crittenton. In the mid 1940s, Alexander turned it into a hotel.

When legislation was passed to desegregate hotels, it closed. The building was destroyed by the fire department in 1973 in a controlled burn. Before its fateful demise, it was home to many visiting black entertainers, salesmen, politicians and other Blacks visiting the area but not allowed to stay in "whites only" hotels. Louis Armstrong stayed at the Alexander in 1962.

Not only was it the first hotel for Blacks in Charlotte, North Carolina, for many years it was the only hotel that would accommodate them.

Many claimed that in its time, the Hotel Alexander was the largest to accommodate Black patrons between Washington and Atlanta. The hotel was located at the corner of McDowell and Ninth Streets.
(Courtesy of James Peeler) page 84,of the Black American Series, Charlotte, NC -by By Vermelle Diamond Ely, Grace Hoey Drain, Amy T. Rogers

Source: http://digitalcollections.uncc.edu/.../p15483coll1/id/725