Stumbling toward 19 North Cincinnati

This is a story about an address. The address is 19 North Cincinnati Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you look up that address on Google Maps, you’ll be taken to the small town of Sperry near some outpost of the Oklahoma National Guard.

“19 North Cincinnati Ave, Tulsa, OK” WAIT, what?

I didn’t want to go to Sperry. I wanted to go to the southernmost tip of Black Wall Street in Tulsa. I typed 19 North Cincinnati Ave a few more times hoping the Google machine would realize this had nothing to do with Sperry. After all, there is a plaque commemorating Pullman Tailoring Co. at Cincinnati and Archer Streets in Tulsa today. At least, there used to be a plaque (more on that in a minute). The business was burned down on June 1, 1921 and never rebuilt.

— The — Pullman Tailoring Co. 19 North Cincinnati. ‘Nuf said.

The Pullman Tailoring Co. was located near this intersection, at MLK and Archer, across the street from a strip of trendy shops and smack dab in the middle of what is today called the “Arts District.” I’m putting Arts District in scare quotes because that’s a quite recent real estate invention to replace it former named, the Brady District. Tulsa, wisely, decided to rename the district because it paid homage to Tate Brady, a Klansmen and apologist for the Confederacy who reshaped the area north of downtown after Oklahoma statehood.

MLK and Archer Street, looking northeast

Maybe 19 North Cincinnati doesn’t exist because today it known as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. That’s possible, but just a few feet south of here, the street is Cincinnati Ave. The City of Tulsa, in its infinite wisdom, decided to end the name Martin Luther King Jr. just before a bridge leading over the railroad tracks to downtown. If that doesn’t reaffirm a segregationist mentality, I don’t know what does. (This happened in the 1990s, by the way).

In any case, this block had a number of Black-owned businesses, which advertised in the Tulsa Star. One was the Pullman Tailoring Co. and another was Johnson’s Lunch Room, which served “chile, barbecue, and home cooking.” (Do I want Johnson’s barbecue or a hipster vegan banh mi from Lone Wolf across the street? SO MANY CHOICES).