My postwar historical fiction series,
Malt Shop Milestones,
is set in West Hill. It’s a fictional neighborhood inspired by at least five Black American communities in history, including the Black Elite of New York City during the Gilded Age and the early 20th-century Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma—a community that was nicknamed Black Wall Street.

We’d need more than one blog post to stop and see everything in West Hill. 😀 But how about we take a little look at some of the spots that appear in the series?

West Hill High School

Given that the three heroines of this series are in their teens, it’s only natural that much going on in their social lives takes place at their school. And on the academic side of things, one of our heroines is known around the neighborhood as “The Brain of West Hill High.”

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West Hill Memorial Field

The community’s sports field has a close connection to the high school—currently a thrilling connection for West Hill folks. One of the top high school varsity football players in the region is a West Hill High student.

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West Hill Library

Public libraries are institutions of information, no doubt. But, hey, one of our heroines has dreamed that the library would also be an ideal place for the quiet budding of romance. Maybe?

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The Grocery

You’re probably missing tidbits of info about what’s going on with this or that resident of the hill if you haven’t talked to the bag boy at the grocery lately. He’s a teenager who keeps his whole earlobe—probably both of them—to West Hill’s ground.

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The Barbershop

This is the shop where the father of one of our heroines is proud to work. But it’s also the place where a certain teenage boy on the hill was once spied (*gasp*) getting an honest-to-goodness shave. Before any other boy in his high school class! And that’s only a part of what’s led to his local celebrity status.

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The Filling Station

Sure, this is where the drivers of West Hill stop to get their cars serviced. But one of our heroines has other reasons for wanting to stop at the station. Other, um, pretty dreamy reasons.

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West Hill Community Hall

There’s official West Hill business that takes place at the community hall. It’s also a site for evenings of food, music, dancing, and more on some key occasions in our heroines’ lives.

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West Hill Silver Box

Yup! This neighborhood has its own movie theater—particularly special when residents of the neighborhood can go there to see films featuring Black American casts. (Movies from the early to mid-20th-century genre called “race films.”)

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Bro Brown’s Burgers and Malts

And, of course, here’s one of the neighborhood’s most popular spots, where the people of West Hill—especially teenagers—visit on the regular. They come for the hamburgers, malted milkshakes, and ice cream sodas. They come for the jukebox that the restaurant’s owner, Brother Brown, keeps well supplied with blues and jazz records. They come to talk with their friends. To laugh with their dates. To surround themselves with their community’s soul.

It’s the choice spot from which everything begins in Malt Shop Milestones.

You’re more than welcome to take a little longer visit to West Hill and to meet some of its people for yourself by checking out the
Malt Shop Milestones series!