A Magic Place

A Magic Place. City within a City. , Louis Armstrong and Sarah Vaughn were two of the nationally famous entertainers who played in the brick building on this corner, once home to the popular Club Bali, also called the New Bali. In the memory of one former customer, it was a magic place, its rear garden lit with strings of lights in the summertime., Club Bali was one of many nightclubs that made the U street area a mecca for music lovers from the jazz era of the 1920s to Motown sound of the 1960s. The magic often continued late into the night, as name entertainers, winding down after formal engagements, played to intimate gatherings int the wee hours of the morning in the many tucked-away, after-hours clubs located throughout the neighborhood. , Fourteenth Street was a place shared, uneasily, by Black and White Washingtonians in segregated Washington. Black and White people owned, managed, and patronized stores on this important commercial corridor, which, both connected and divided the mostly Black community on the east from the mostly white community on the west. While the White-owned People’s Drug Store at the corner of 14th and U refused to serve African Americans at the counter, most of the predominantly Black clubs such as the Bali welcomed Whites, making the nightclub scene in Washington one of the city’s few integrated social scenes. , Today both 14th Street and U Street are once again becoming venues for the arts and nightlife, as theaters, restaurants, and clubs begin to reuse this neighborhood’s historic buildings. Buildings that were once car showrooms, such as the one once occupied by the Bali, are proving to be well suited to the needs of Washington’s innovative and thriving small theaters.