Band playing in the Red Carpet Lounge of the Pitts Motor Hotel in the 1950’s.

“In the sixties, the Pitts Hotel was a showplace, and Cornelius Pitts was one of Washington’s most successful black entrepreneurs. His hotel attracted not only tourists and traveling businessmen but local customers, black and white. They lined up at the Red Carpet Lounge, which featured valet parking and a maitre d’, to listen to the likes of Aretha Franklin. "The place stayed packed,’ a former regular said. "The drinks weren’t that high. You didn’t feel like you were getting ripped off. The music was great. And the minute you walked in, you felt comfortable there.’

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