Arcade Hotel & Dining Room

Arcade Hotel was listed in the Green Book as “Arcade” under “Hotels” in Raleigh, NC from 1938-1941 (no address listed); as “Arcade—122 E. Hargett St.” under “Tailors” in Raleigh; as “Arcade—122 E. Hargett St.” under “Tailors” in Raleigh from 1948-1951; as “Arcade–122 E. Hargett Street under “Hotels” AND “Tailors” in Raleigh from 1952-1955; and as “Home Eckers Hotel–122 E. Hargett Street” in Raleigh from 1961-1967.¹

The Arcade Hotel and Dining Room was a Green Book business located in the Lightner Arcade building, built in 1921 by African American mortician, architect, and politician Calvin Lightner. The Arcade Hotel was located in the city’s bustling African American business district and advertised as having “the comfort of home, away from home.” The hotel hosted social clubs, sororities, famed musicians like Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington, and weary travelers alike. It was known for its Saturday night dances, dinners, and ballroom concerts. At the time, it was the only large, commercial hotel for African Americans in Raleigh. The Arcade also advertised a tailor in the Green Book.²

Plummer T. and Cora Hall were the proprietors of the Arcade Hotel. Plummer T. Hall began managing the hotel in 1922; prior to running the Arcade, Plummer Hall was the proprietor of the Reliable Cafe, located in an African American business district on Wilmington Street. Coral Hall took over management of the business after Plummer’s death in 1941 at the age of 53.
Plummer T. Hall, Jr. grew up in the Oberlin neighborhood in a home built by his father during the Reconstruction era. The Halls were a prominent family; Rev. Plummer Hall, born in enslavement, was the first minister of Oberlin Baptist Church. Hall, Jr. married Cora L. Garther in 1909 and the couple began their married life in Oberlin. They moved into the Arcade Hotel when Plummer began managing it around 1922. The Lightner family sold the building to the House of Ruth (the women’s auxiliary for the Grand Order of Odd Fellows) in 1925, but Hall, Jr. continued to manage the hotel until his death in 1941.³

The North Carolina Homemakers Association took ownership of the Lightner Arcade building in the late 1940s. They renamed the business the Home Eckers Hotel and utilized it as a trade school for Black women. The final iteration of the business was the Peebles Hotel.⁴

The Peebles Hotel (formerly the Arcade Hotel) was destroyed in a fire in 1968 and is now a parking lot. Plummer Hall Jr.’s childhood home has been preserved by Preservation North Carolina and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. ⁵

Essay by Brandie K. Ragghianti, 2024

Notes

1. Victor Green, 1938 Green Book, 14; Green, 1939 Green Book, 33; Green, 1940 Green Book, 36; Green, 1941 Green Book, 36;  Victor Green, 1947 Green Book, 65; Victor Green, 1948 Green Book, 63; Green, 1949 Green Book, 57; Green, 1950 Green Book, 63; Green, 1951 Green Book, 54; Victor Green, 1952 Green Book, 54; Green, 1953 Green Book, 54; Green, 1954 Green Book, 53; Green, 1955 Green Book, 54.
2.  Kelly Agan and Jordan Scott, “The Lightener Arcade and Hotel, Raleigh,” NCPedia, https://www.ncpedia.org/lightner-arcade-and-hotel-raleigh.  Bowers, Katherine, Derek Huss, and Rachel Jacobson, “The Green Book Assignment, North Carolina, Durham, Wake, Halifax, Vance: Historical Structure Report for the North Carolina Historic Preservation Office,” HI 587: Cultural Resource Management, North Carolina State University, Spring 2016, 21; Teresa Leonard, “Past Times: East Hargett Street was Center of Black Life and Business,” Raleigh News & Observer, February 24, 2016, https://www.newsobserver.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/past-times/articl…; “Arcade Hotel & Dining Room Newspaper Advertisement,” The Carolinian, August 24, 1946, Page 2, North Carolina Newspapers/DigitalNC, http://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn80008926/1946-08-24/ed-1/seq-2/;  Raleigh Boy, “Flashback Friday: Hotel Arcade and Lobby, Raleigh, N.C.,” Goodnight Raleigh (blog), February 17, 2012, http://goodnightraleigh.com/2012/02/hotel-arcade-and-lobby-raleigh-n-c/…;
3. “Plummer Thornton Hall,” April 12, 1886, Raleigh, Wake County, NC, US World War I Draft Registrations, 1917-1918, accessed from www.ancestry.com; Plummer Hall, Jr. is the proprietor of Reliable Cafe at 134 S. Wilmington Street (Hill’s 1921 Raleigh City Directory, alphabetical listing; Hill’s 1921 Raleigh City Directory, alphabetical listing; Hill’s 1922 Raleigh City Directory, alphabetical listing; (“Plummer Hall,” December 16, 1941, Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina, U.S. Death Certificates, 1909-1976, accessed from www.ancestry.com;  “Arcade Hotel & Dining Room Newspaper Advertisement,” The Carolinian, August 24, 1946, Page 2, North Carolina Newspapers/DigitalNC, http://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn80008926/1946-08-24/ed-1/seq-2/, accessed September 4, 2019. 
4. Plummer Hall and Cora L. Garther, September 26, 1909, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, U.S. Marriage Records, 1741-2011, accessed from www.ancestry.com; “Plummer Thornton Hall,” April 12, 1886, Raleigh, Wake County, NC, US World War I Draft Registrations, 1917-1918, accessed from www.ancestry.com; (“Plummer Hall,” December 16, 1941, Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina, U.S. Death Certificates, 1909-1976, accessed from www.ancestry.com; “Plummer Hall,” Raleigh, Wake County, NC, 1940 United States Federal Census, accessed from www.ancestry.com; “Raleigh Acquires Historic Hall House,” The News and Observer, June 21, 2013, p. B3, accessed from www.newspapers.com;“Bits of Oberlin Village, Built During Reconstruction, Will Survive,” The News and Observer, August 8, 1995, p. 13, accessed from www.newspapers.com; Kelly Agan and Jordan Scott, “The Lightener Arcade and Hotel, Raleigh,” NCPedia, https://www.ncpedia.org/lightner-arcade-and-hotel-raleigh. 
5. Kelly Agan and Jordan Scott, “The Lightener Arcade and Hotel, Raleigh,” NCPedia, https://www.ncpedia.org/lightner-arcade-and-hotel-raleigh
6. Teresa Leonard, “Past Times: East Hargett Street was Center of Black Life and Business,” Raleigh News & Observer, February 24, 2016, https://www.newsobserver.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/past-times/articl…; “Hall, Rev. Plummer T. House (Hall-Jackson House),” National Register of Historic Places: National Register Digital Assets, https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP.