12. Listings changed with each edition and were not all-inclusive
The 1948 edition of the Green Book listed thirteen hotels in the city of Los Angeles, and more than twenty restaurants where Black patrons would find themselves welcomed. Nine nightclubs were listed in the downtown area, and numerous taverns and road houses appeared. There were also listings for service stations, garages, automotive stores, beauty parlors and barber shops, drugstores, and tailors. In contrast San Diego listed three hotels, one of which was the YWCA. Santa Monica listed no hotels at all. San Francisco listed four, including the new Edison Hotel, which took out a half page ad in the guide announcing its status as “Class A”.
Chicago’s listings included both the YWCA and the YMCA under its hotels, of which many were located on South Parkway, later renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Cincinnati also included the YWCA in its list of but six hotels, though it listed numerous restaurants, including a separate listing for Chinese Restaurants, which held just one entry. Cincinnati also included a list of taxi cabs available for Black customers, though there were only two entries. North Dakota, where the correspondent for Green had noted that its residents were “generally friendly” contained no entries at all in the 1948 edition of the Green book.