In the early 1910s, East Hargett Street emerged as the city's business center and social hub for the African-American community during the segregation era — Raleigh's “Black Main Street.” Calvin E. Lightner, prominent Raleigh builder, businessman, and funeral home operator, erected the Lightner Arcade and Hotel at 122 East Hargett Street in 1921.
The Arcade‘s design was typical of urban commercial buildings of the era. The building featured a ballroom, meeting space and hotel rooms on the upper floors, with commercial space at street level. At the time, the Arcade was Raleigh’s only hotel that catered to African-Americans. Among those who stayed there were Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington, who performed in the upstairs ballroom. Clarence Lightner, Calvin’s son, remembered later that “all the big bands would be at the Arcade. On Saturday you could not get through there. That is where everyone would come and congregate. They would be standing out on the street, socializing.”
Lightner eventually lost ownership of the building. The N.C. Homemakers Association acquired the Arcade in the late 1940s, and changed its name to the Home Eckers Hotel. In the 1960s the Peebles Hotel occupied the building until a fire destroyed it in 1970. Raleigh’s central municipal bus depot now occupies the site.