Jazz legends Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway slept here — maybe.
No photographs bolster the city’s claims that the Ali Building in northwest Pompano Beach was the stopover for those music greats. But legend — and published reports — say they performed in Miami Beach and stayed in Pompano Beach because they weren’t allowed in whites-only hotels during the 1940s.
No matter the past, there’s no debating that the future of the building once slated for demolition will include plenty of jazz as well as drama, storytelling and theater.
In the four months since its $2.4 million renovation, four jazz artists with a dozen Grammys between them have performed in the 250-person capacity venue at 353 Hammondville Road.
“We want to bring art and culture to a neighborhood that’s hungry for it,” said Drew Tucker, cultural arts director for the Ali. “A lot of this community hasn’t had access to it.”
Tucker, an accomplished vibraphonist, was able to snag national jazz acts such as Grammy winners Cory Henry, Shaun Martin and Robert “Sput” Searight and Nate Werth.
The Ali’s reputation has spread in the jazz community, Tucker says, and it recently booked teenage keyboardist Matthew Whitaker, who twice sold out at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Jazz Club in Washington, D.C.
“Word has spread really fast on how great a place to play this is,” Tucker said.
The Ali’s opening in November, funded by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, was the second of three arts-focused venues Pompano is launching in the northwest section. In 2014, the old Bailey Hotel was transformed into the Bailey Contemporary Arts Center, 41 NE First St., which focuses on the visual arts.
And the city is currently building a 5,000-square-foot, $17.9 million Library and Cultural Center next to City Hall. That building is scheduled to open at the end of this year. It will have a stage for live dance and theater performances, a 750-square-foot exhibition gallery; and a 2,500-square-foot digital media center in addition to a county library.
The Ali Building, built in 1933, was the biggest, and perhaps one of the first, black-owned business buildings in the neighborhood, according to the Pompano Beach Historic Sites Survey, published in 2014.
The Alis were pioneers. In addition to owning a barber shop, beauty shop and boarding house, they also ran a nearby club, known as Ali’s Clover Club, according to Dan Hobby, the retired executive director of the Sample-McDougald House Preservation Society in Pompano.
“The enterprise was short-lived as it was considered too expensive for most local residents,” he said.
The northwest section, though, was tight-knit, almost by necessity, he said.
“Pompano was a very segregated town, up until fairly recent times,” Hobby said. “Even in the 1960s it was still segregated, if not legally, sort of emotionally. That area was thriving because it was really an extension of old downtown Pompano.”
The Ali Building was the hub of the area’s social activity, said Hazel Armbrister, who worked in a building next door to the Ali in the 1960s and 1970s as a property manager. She is now the president of the Rock Road Restoration Historical Group, which will be moving into the Ali shortly.
“At the train station, if you were looking for someone, they’d tell you, ‘Go to the Ali,'” she recalled.
Frank Ali ran a barber shop in the front while Florence Ali ran a beauty shop in the back, Armbrister recalled. They lived upstairs.
People were always welcomed, Armbrister said. “You didn’t need an appointment. You just walked in.”
Armbrister has doubts about the accounts of jazz greats staying with the Alis, which were recounted in Frank Cavaioli’s book, “Pompano Beach” (History Press, 2007).
“The only thing that was going on at that time was farming,” she insisted.
But Emma Ellington, whose family owned the property across the street, remembers celebrities coming and going.
“It was beautiful,” she said, recalling the house’s Spanish tile. “A lot of famous people came to Pompano and stayed in their home.”
She said she remembers that corner of the neighborhood getting papered with fliers about the upcoming jazz concerts. Ellington also remembers Florence Ali’s reputation as a great hostess and a great cook.
Hobby said few photographs survive of the old neighborhood but stories about jazz greats coming to stay are part of the city’s oral history. It doesn’t quite meet academic standards for history, though, he said.
Pompano Beach Commissioner Ed Phillips said these stories are a big reason this house has a future.
“That saved it, along with the city’s understanding that we needed to preserve some of the history of the northwest district,” he said. “This was a great opportunity.”
ageggis@sun-sentinel.com, 561-243-6624 or @AnneBoca
