Clyde Killens’ House

Excerpt from the Miami Affordability Project Historic Properties Dataset, prepared by UM Office of Civic and Community Engagement.
//civic.miami.edu/_assets/pdf/housing-initiatives/housing-reports/Historic_Designation_Report_CCE.0.1.pdf

“The Clyde Killens’ House was originally built as a gas station and was significantly remodeled in 1941 to include a second-story addition over the commercial garage. The property was the home of Clyde Killens, a local musician, club owner and promoter. Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Aretha Franklin, and numerous others played at his venues located along NW 2nd Avenue, which was then known as “Little Broadway.”

Excerpt from Miami Herald Interview with Clyde Killens, 1990: 

“Killens put Overtown on the national map as one the hottest black entertainment pockets in the country during the 1950s and ’60s. Back then, he brought in legends like Dinah Washington, Count Basie and Sammy Davis Jr., who performed nightly in clubs like the Sir John Hotel’s Knight Beat, which he managed.

Back in those days, Killens was known as “Miami’s Mr. Entertainment” or “the Glass,” the latter coming because “I always had a glass in my hand — Scotch and water, of course.”

His domain included Overtown’s hot spots: Harlem Square, the Island Club and Mary Elizabeth’s Hotel Fiesta Club. And the names were big: Mary Wells, Sam and Dave, Hot Papa Turner, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Jackie Wilson, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank DuBoise. Black performers would play at whites-only stages in Miami Beach, then drive across the bay to play Overtown. Often they saved their funkiest sets for those late-night gigs with Clyde; the audiences were often anything but segregated, whites knowing that Overtown was were the real shows were happening.

But Killens’ genius was recognizing that it took more than big names to keep audiences happy. On Ladies Night, he gave out free panty hose and dresses. Sunday’s door prizes were grocery carts filled high with offerings like neck bones and cans of black-eyed peas. His “Night in Nassau” was big with South Florida’s Bahamian population; patrons brought native dishes like stewed conch, conch salad, conch fritters, pigeon peas and rice and fried fish.

…The house used to have a gas station out front that sold more moonshine than gasoline in the 1920s and ’30s, Killens remembers. He bought the place, fixed it up a little, and personally stood out on the corner and waved passing motorists in to his smooth driveway. “I’d stop any black person with a car. I am and have always been a hustlin’ businessman,” Killens says with a laugh.”

This is stop number 13 on the Historic Overtown Legacy Trek! Download the map here, or click here to see the next stop: Dr. Samuel H. Johnson X-Ray Clinic.