The dream that first came to Miller Horns 16 years ago is coming to life.Horns dreamed there was a sacred spot in Akron to memorialize the Hotel Matthews, a North Howard Street fixture where such jazz giants as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Dizzie Gillespie, Cab Calloway and others once stayed.“It is important” to remember the vibrant district that existed on North Howard Street, said Horns, a Navy veteran and artist who graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art. “It will be good for people to recall the black businesses that had been on Howard Street that no longer exist.”Workers began by clearing grass from a city-owned piece of land on the northeast corner of North Howard Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on Tuesday. That’s where the $100,000 to $110,000 monument to honor the rich African-American entertainment and business district that existed on North Howard Street in the 20th century will be built — on the spot where the hotel stood.Group effortElectrical work on the project is expected to begin this week. It is hoped the monument will be completed by the end of October, said Pete Popovic, a project manager for G. Stephens, Inc. The company is donating its services as construction manager.Popovic said the vast majority of the work on the project is being donated by a number of firms in Akron, including Cavanaugh Building Corp, J.W. Didado Electric Inc., GPD Inc., Meyer Design, the Cardinal Group, Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority and the city.Neidert Fabricating Inc., is donating a barber pole that it is making. It will be part of the monument because there was a barbershop in the hotel.Thomas E. Gilbert, project manager and retired construction director for AMHA, said other companies that will provide materials are Daily Monument Co., Ohio Beauty Cut Stone, CCM Welding Inc. and Botzum Brothers Hardware.“I think it’s pretty exciting,” Gilbert said. “It is going to be a nice addition to Northside.”Gilbert said that “even with our economic downturn, it speaks well of our community that these contractors will step up and donate their labor and material to recognize the Matthews Hotel’s place in history.”The Hotel Matthews was owned by George Mathews, who initially established a barbershop in 1920 and opened the hotel in 1925 at 77 N. Howard St.The hotel stayed open until 1978 and was torn down in the early 1980s.Mathews, who endowed a scholarship at the University of Akron in 1964, died in 1982 at the age of 95.Horns, 62, an Akron native and North High graduate, has been talking about building a memorial since 1995.At one time, he said, there were more than 50 black-owned businesses, including nightclubs, barbershops and record stores, along North Howard Street.In 2001, the Ohio Bicentennial Commission, placed a marker on the site of what was called Hotel Matthews to commemorate it.Interactive memorialThe new monument will be 15 feet high, about 35 feet wide and 20 feet deep. It will include a facade of the old hotel and a fake door.There will be an audio history of the hotel and the Howard Street area that will be heard by pushing a button at the door, Popovic, the project manager, said.There will be two plaques inside a plaza on the site: one will deal with the history of the hotel and its owner; the other will deal with the jazz acts that played at the clubs on the street.Spelling questionWhile owner George Mathews spelled his name with one T, the sign on the hotel was spelled with two, according to a 1930 photograph of the hotel on the city of Akron’s website, www.ci.akron.oh.us/history/photos/toweb/MatthewsHotel1930_x600.jpg. The new memorial will be called the Matthews Hotel Monument.Horns said he does not know why there is a discrepancy between the hotel owner’s name and the spelling on the outside of the hotel.City directories from the 1950s and 1960s listed the hotel as the Mathews Hotel.Letterhead in a file in the Special Collections area of the Akron-Summit County Public Library identifies the hotel as “Mathews Hotel, a business with a soul,” said Judy James, division manager.James said that on the official letterhead envelope is a photograph of the hotel in which the name is spelled with one T. The envelope and letterhead were given to the library in 2000 by James Carter, who identified himself as the last employee of the hotel.Horns remembers the many black businesses that prospered along Howard Street in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. The area “was thrilling for a long time,” he said.Historic areaWhen black jazz entertainers came to Akron — as far back as the 1920s — they would play at the many nightclubs on Howard, including the High Hat and the Ritz Theatre (now the Interbelt Nite Club), Horns said.The Hotel Matthews was significant because black entertainers stayed there during a time of racial prejudice, he said. They were unable to stay at other area hotels.The last piece of the old business district, the Walsh Brothers Cigar Store at the corner of North Howard and West Market streets, was torn down in 1982.The new monument is based on a design and concept Horns developed. He said it will be an “interpretative sculpture.”Horns thanked Michael Owen for working with him for more than a decade, tirelessly promoting the idea to city and business officials. Owen is creative director of Millworks Gallery at Northside, past development director of Canal Place who worked on the AES Building, and owner of several buildings in the Northside district.“Having renovated a good number of buildings, I had a good idea how to get it built,” Owen said. “But it is only getting built because of generous contributions of good corporate citizens.”Owen said the monument will be perfect in the Northside area to recognize the history of the neighborhood and to “commemorate the music heritage” of North Howard Street.A dream taking shape after so many years brings a smile to Horns’ face.“It’s like a Swiss watch with all the parts that are moving,” he said.Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or at jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.