Post #609298 by kraken on Thu, Oct 6, 2011 6:18 PM

Just finished talking with a Martinez native who was
a young woman in the days of The Aloha Club. She
says its heyday was the World War II era, when myriad
people (especially servicemen) were in or passing
through Martinez.

Lower Ferry Street was the center for Martinez' bars
back then, and The Aloha Club was considered rather
risque because its clientele included women. (The
others were for blue-collar males getting off work.)
As you can see from the interior illustration's depiction
of a drumset and piano, The Aloha Club featured music
and dancing (mostly jitterbug), plus that exotic flavor
unknown at Martinez' other saloons.

Just flavor, though. No one connected with the club
was know to have any connection to the Pacific islands.
Nor anyone in Martinez, actually, except one person
who claimed to be half Hawaiian.

The proprietor, W.E. Greene, was a black man who had
previously operated a very small business on nearby
Main Street. He was generally known as Nigger Greene,
which was not an insult in that time and place--his son
went to high school with my source, who says he was
treated like anyone else.