Explore the New England businesses listed in the Green Book

Methodology

Listings for this database came from the New York Public Library’s Green Book collection and “Hackley & Harrison’s Hotel and Apartment Guide for Colored Travelers.” Locations that could not be verified were not included in the database.

Locations labeled “still open” are home to the original businesses listed in the Green Book. Some sites (such as the Biltmore Hotel in Providence) may still be open, but have been renamed and are operated by a different business.

Addresses for each location were verified through a variety of sources, including census records; city directories from Ancestry.com; city and town assessor records; deeds; other Black travel guides (The TravelGuide; The Go, Guide to Pleasant Motoring; N.H.A. Directory and Guide to Travelers), as well as advertisements and articles from Ebony magazine, the Afro-American, Boston Guardian, Boston Chronicle, and other newspapers. In addition to Google maps, the Globe used the Sanborn fire insurance map collection in the Library of Congress, Mapjunction.com, and maps from the University of Richmond’s Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America project to determine the locations of streets that are no longer in existence or had otherwise been renamed or reconfigured. Special thanks to the historians from The Architecture of the Negro Traveler’s Green Book and all the local libraries, museums, and historical societies who assisted the Globe in its research. This effort is a work in progress.

Do you have information about locations listed in our database? Let us know here. The Globe will continue to update this map.