Posts in category Historic

Upon his death, his three sister's took over operation of the business which continued to grow and expand. By 1927, a new plant had been built taking up nearly the entire block bounded by 11th, 12th, U and V Streets, NW. At the time of its opening on November 7th, the plant handled 5,000 gallons of milk a day.

From Library of Congress collection.

The modern plant at 2012 11th Street, NW, consistently received numerous awards from the Health Department for the quality of their milk. To encourage the highest standards of milk production, the dairy offered incentives to dairy farmers to produce richer and cleaner milk. The dairy was described in 1930 as supporting a large fleet of motor trucks and horse-drawn delivery wagons to serve all sections of Washington and adjacent territories.

Over the years, the firm grew and expanded from 41 employees to 580 workers in 1965, making it one of the largest private firms in the Washington area. Dairy routes had also grown by 1965 to include 535 routes using a fleet of refrigerated trucks.

The Dairy closed in 1971 and the property was ultimately redeveloped.

Interior of Thompson's Dairy. Undated photo from Library of Congress.

Another place worth mentioning is Bethesda. Several of the streets in and around the central business district are named after places in Northern Virginia. Arlington Road, Clarendon Road, Del Ray Avenue, Fairfax Road, Norfolk Avenue, St. Elmo Avenue, and Woodmont Avenue all reference places on the other side of the Potomac.

The region has not one, but (at least) two neighborhoods with streets named after places or characters from Star Trek. One is near Gaithersburg, the other in Largo.

As I pointed out yesterday, College Park uses university names as a part of its alphabetical street naming system. But two other Maryland neighborhoods also use colleges to name streets. One instance is in College Gardens, near Montgomery College. The other is Glen Echo.

Image from Google Maps. Click for interactive version.

Takoma Park has two different street naming patterns. In the central part of Takoma Park, streets tend to be named after flowers and trees. Closer to Silver Spring, streets are named after American cities.

There are probably other places in the region with interesting naming systems. Do any of you know where else we can find them?

Several communities have independent street numbering. Just north of Silver Spring, Woodside's low numbered avenues intersect DC's 16th Street. Glenarden and Lanham also stand apart with their non-DC-based numbered streets.

In the District, east-west streets are given non-numeric names. In most cases, streets increase alphabetically with increasing distance from the Capitol. This system is repeated in certain parts of both Montgomery and Prince George's counties. The alphabetical march of streets stretches from Oxon Hill to Beltsville, admittedly with quite a few gaps.

With nothing more than an arbitrary political boundary dividing Maryland from the District, the street grid continues across the DC line unabated in many places. As a result, places like Chevy Chase and Mount Rainier see direct continuations of DC's "alphabets". So the pattern of the alphabetical progression is easy to pick out.

In Hyattsville and the neighboring communities, many of the street names are very similar to those found in DC, with the same progression of names in many cases. In both Hyattsville and Northwest DC, Hamilton is followed by Ingraham, Jefferson, Kennedy, and Longfellow.

But other neighborhoods have unique progressions. In College Park, universities lend their names — in alphabetical order — to streets. Further north, the streets of Berwyn Heights and Langley Park use Indian names. A trip up Rhode Island Avenue reveals names like Apache, Blackfoot, Cherokee, Delaware, and Erie.

Yet, unique names aren't the only uniqueness in street naming. Capitol Heights hugs the District line. There, streets parallel to Southern Avenue increase alphabetically as distance from DC increases. But the perpendicular streets also use an alphabetical system, increasing with distance from East Capitol Street.

However, the alphabetical and numerical streets aren't the only thing that Washington bequeathed to her suburbs. Several of the state-named avenues continue into Maryland as well. Georgia Avenue in Montgomery and Pennsylvania Avenue in Prince George's stretch the farthest. Both roadways keep their names all the way to the Patuxent River.

Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Connecticut are all major arteries to the suburbs. Massachusetts and Rhode Island are also important links across the border. Rhode Island is discontinuous and skips around across northern Prince George's, following an old streetcar route.

Rounding out the bunch are Nevada and Kansas. Chevy Chase, Maryland is home to 2 short blocks of Nevada Avenue. And Kansas Avenue changes its name to Kansas Lane when it crosses Eastern Avenue in Takoma Park.

Author's note: The original version of this article included a map showing the numbered streets which inadvertently left out the numbered streets in Cabin John, Maryland. A revised map has now been inserted. The original can be viewed here.

Is our group too white, as DePillis wonders? It's too bad Dan Reed had decamped for grad school in Philadelphia by the time that Hyattsville meetup happened, else he'd very likely have been there. And we're always happy when Bradley Heard has time to write something. But yes, we're pretty white, as are planners in general, and it'd be really great to increase our diversity.

DePillis is pointing out an issue that I've long known we need to address. Since we don't pay anyone, I'm limited in how much I can influence this. But we're always looking for contributors, of any race, gender, age or other characteristic. The only requirement is quality, and a general fit with our philosophy. Email info@ggwash.org if you'd like to write for us.

Richard Layman also raises a point about the challenge of building relationships with insiders versus attacking them. It's a tough line all journalists walk. In our case, we criticize agencies and officials when warranted, but also try to be be fair and understand the challenges people on the inside face.

When it comes to Jim Graham, I'd just note that I criticized the DC USA parking garage, one of the listed issues, in February 2008, March on bike parking, May twice, June, a New York analogue, March and April 2009 ... you get the idea.

The thing about Jim Graham is that you just have to understand where he's coming from. He's very much a politican, and makes decisions based on what voters want. But that means all you have to do to win is get a lot of Ward 1 voters to support your policy. He also has an absolutely first-rate staffer in charge of transportation, which counts for a lot. Finally, that quote from me at the end of that section is the only one I'd say was a wee bit out of context.

I also have just a few little nitpicks. Remarkably few, actually, given the amount of content in the piece. One of the little Metro-line graphics lists ANCs among the "anti" groups. Sometimes they are anti, but some ANCs are terrific. Last election cycle, a bunch of good candidates won many Ward 3 ANC seats, turning several ANCs from knee-jerk naysayers to constructive participants in neighborhood visioning.

Also, I wish I could take credit for the bag fee, but that one was all amazing legislative legwork by Tommy Wells and his staff.

DePillis's piece is quite balanced, and pretty accurate for an article of its length. As someone who does a fair bit of journalism myself, I know how hard it is to say a lot and be absolutely precise in every tiny, mostly-irrelevant detail.

So what if Drinking Liberally really met in Manhattan, not Brooklyn, or Jaime hadn't quite yet started planning school at the time she started contributing, or if the landmarked Brutalist church at 16th and I is Third Church, not First Church (which is up in Columbia Heights); you're not going to go fundamentally wrong reading it, and DePillis deserves good marks for a tough job well done.

Dozens of comments were submitted in opposition to the proposal as part of the Historic Preservation Act's Section 106 public review process. The bulk of the comments aren't necessarily anti-change: Many express a desire to return the floorplan to one that recalls the station's appearance in the 1940's. This would require the complete removal of the Center Cafe and would move all ticketing to the Great Hall. The oft-repeated refrain in the public comments is that that's how Union Station was intended to be laid out, similar to other train stations of the era.

But, I think Union Station's redevelopment is a prime opportunity to seize hold of an innovative design, while integrating some of the space's more traditional aspects—and the USRC plan for the Great Hall's floor does just that. Train stations across the country look as they did in the early 20th century. Why does Union Station need to be just like Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, Denver's Union Station, or Los Angeles' Union Station?

This proposal retains most of Union Station's original qualities, such as its vaulted ceiling, vendor stands, and benches, while giving the center of the space a considerate and timely upgrade.

Current and proposed center cafe overlayed.
Image from Union Station Redevelopment Corporation.

All of the proposed changes for the Great Hall are well within the "non-historic floor". The glass structure will visually and physically open the space: It's slimmer than the existing Center Cafe platform, which should open up sightlines in what's currently a low-feeling, harsh space. The current Center Cafe doesn't draw a viewer's eye toward the vaulted ceiling, but a glass column probably would. It will improve handicap access and promises better signage. And, the glass and light should certainly enhance what's currently a rather dismal dining experience in the food court.

Though the DC Preservation League has taken Union Station's redevelopment plan as an opportunity to publicize their fundraising efforts via a contest with the National Trust for Historic Preservation's This Place Matters campaign, DePillis reports that the League doesn't have any plans for how they'd spend the money (and that they might spend it on projects unrelated to Union Station). Essentially, their campaign for the $25,000 unlimited grant is based on the fact that Union Station's growth and change should be stuck in the 1940s and 1950s.

Preservation does not need to be a process that relegates spaces merely to the way things once were. Instead, it should be a chance to smoothly combine what we do now with the way things once were. This "pit"—which bears little resemblance to the 1970s-era audio-visual display "pit" that the DC Preservation League and others operate in fear of—could give Union Station truly unique qualities that would stick in its visitors' heads.

A building's physical characteristics don't deserve to remain stagnant; preservation should be reflexive, honoring our past but incorporating the change of present. Union Station is a real, living space, not a memorial, and thousands of users engage with it daily. Instead of giving those users what any other train station could give them, why not take the opportunity to create a brand-new experience and an individual identity for Union Station?

Most importantly, that such a successful public space should not be torn up on a whim. Union Station is the most visited destination in Washington. By any measure it is a place that is working tremendously well already, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unnecessary changes that don't benefit anything important threaten to make things worse rather than better.

Beyond that, there are good preservationist reasons not to change the Great Hall in this manner. The hall's elegant classicism is fundamentally incompatible with a mundane food court. They're both valuable and worthwhile spaces, of course, but making the Great Hall more like the food court inherently intrudes upon the elegance of the Great Hall.

Finally, there's the small matter of this having been tried once before, and having failed miserably. In the late 1970s Congress spent more than $100 million on a pit in the middle of the Great Hall. It was so unpopular that it was filled in by the early 1980s. While that 1970s boondoggle is only barely comparable to the current proposal, it is nonetheless instructive: Turns out magnificent classical spaces are not appropriate places for large holes in the ground.

In the City Paper comments thread, some responders suggest that opposing changes to Union Station is just like opposing overhead streetcar wires. Nothing could be further from the truth. The streetcar plan promises to greatly benefit the city by virtue of better transportation and revitalized neighborhoods. This Union Station plan offers no such benefits, and as described above, it involves real risk. I oppose it for the same reason that I support streetcars: I want the city to be vital and prosperous. Streetcars would make Washington more so; ripping a couple of holes in one of the city's best spaces wouldn't.

At best, this proposal is a solution in search of an imaginary problem. Even if you think it's harmless, it doesn't solve anything that needs to be solved. At worst, it could ruin one of Washington's most magnificent public gathering places.

Why take the risk?

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

The building was on a stretch of E Street (between 13th and 14th Streets NW) that was once considered to be part of Pennsylvania Avenue and that was known since the mid-19th century as "Rum Row" for its drinking and gambling dens.

According to journalist George Rothwell Brown, the bottom floor was occupied by John Lawrence Kidwell's drugstore, and it had marble floors and interior woodwork of beautiful carved mahogany. Kidwell was known as the "Quinine King" for having supplied various pharmaceuticals to the Union Army during the Civil War.

Upstairs was the celebrated gambling house of George Parker, where the "best known faro bank in town" operated. "A Chinese restaurant now serves chop suey in the rooms which in the hectic past were dedicated to the Goddess of Fortune and which echoed to the whir of the roulette wheel and the click of dice," wrote Brown in The Washington Post in 1923. By 1887, a tobacconist by the name of Daniel Loughran had moved into the ground floor. He and his sons ran their business there until 1929.

Over the next ten years, an assortment of other commercial enterprises came and went, including offices of The New York World and the National Press Club and what Brown called "various drinking clubs." Then in 1939 Max Bassin opened his restaurant there.

Born in New York, Bassin had moved to D.C. as a child and attended Cardozo (Business) High School. He worked at the Treasury Department from 1933 until he decided to quit and start Bassin's Restaurant. He went in on it with his wife, Sarah, and her brother, Harry Zitelman. Bassin's was a rather ordinary lunchroom-style restaurant for many years, concentrating on selling corned-beef sandwiches for 25 cents and hot dogs for a dime. Then in 1949, Bassin decided to quit the business and devote his attention to real estate. He left the restaurant in the hands of his sister and Harry Zitelman.

Zitelman, who was the son of Russian immigrants and had grown up in Baltimore, capitalized on Bassin's prime location near the National and Warner theaters, various newspaper offices, the Willard Hotel, and the District Building. As time went on, Zitelman built Bassin's up until it was a well-known Washington institution. He expanded into the building on the corner, making Bassin's a sprawling complex that was frequented by both tourists and natives alike. And like all top-drawer restaurateurs, Harry Zitelman was a consummate showman. He didn't just work hard to promote Bassin's; he made sure everybody knew he was doing it.

As reported in The Washington Post, Harry Zitelman and Jean Moran of L'Espionage at 2900 M Street NW sought permission in early 1959 from the District's Board of Commissioners to set up sidewalk cafés. The request was not well-received. One concern was a 1934 law that banned consumption of alcoholic beverages on District sidewalks—although it was not clear that serving any kind of food or beverages would be legal.

Opinions about the proposal touched on many other issues as well. The Post talked to Leonard Carmichael, secretary of the Smithsonian, who said he had "enjoyed looking at sidewalk cafes in Spain and Rome, but I'm not sure I would enjoy them in Washington." Why not? He apparently didn't say. Prominent socialite Gwendolyn Cafritz held that "Washington is just perfect the way it is. I don't think the tempo of Washington is suited to sidewalk cafes. Nobody would have time to sit in them."

These were just the opening salvos in the two-year struggle to bring sidewalk dining to Washington. While Moran seems to have dropped out of the fight, Zitelman kept pushing.

In late 1960, a ruling came down denying Zitelman's request on the grounds that alcoholic beverages couldn't be served on the sidewalk. Zitelman responded by asking for a permit to open his sidewalk eatery without the alcohol. At a March 1961 hearing before the Board of Commissioners, Zitelman presented a stylish, Parisian-looking sketch of how his proposed sidewalk café might look. But not all hearts and minds were won.

Bassin's in 1967 (Source: Historic American Buildings Survey)

As reported in the Post on March 17, 1961, an assortment of D.C. government witnesses outlined a litany of perils that would befall the hapless citizenry if sidewalk cafés were allowed in the District. These hazards included the following:

• Pedestrian traffic would be disrupted. People would be forced to walk in the streets and probably get run over.
• Food would be exposed to dust, dirt, and "windblown foreign matter," creating a health hazard.
• Hungry birds, insects, and rodents—especially squirrels—would discomfit patrons, and the city's rodent control problem would be "multiplied many times."
• Chairs and tables would interfere with the laying of hoses during a fire.
• Street litter would be exacerbated.
• Street-spraying trucks might splash water over the curbs and on to customers.
• It would be harder to do utility work, which might require tearing up the sidewalks.
• The cafes would be a "potential source of disorder" because café patrons might brush against sidewalk pedestrians, possibly leading to fisticuffs, etc.
• Passersby might steal pocketbooks or other valuables from café patrons.
• And finally, according to Deputy Police Chief Howard V. Covell, "this type of operation would provide a favorable setting for ladies of easy virtue as they ply their trade up and down the street."

After all that, according to the Post, Chief Commissioner Walter N. Tobriner observed that he "couldn't understand how, with all the calamitous eventualities foreseen by city officialdom Europeans have been able to operate sidewalk cafes all these years." Concluding that "anything which would enhance the innocent enjoyment of Washington... should be allowed," Tobriner then ordered that regulations be drawn up that would allow sidewalk cafés while affording adequate safety.

Indeed, it became clear that city officials had overstepped in their opposition to the idea. The Post ran an editorial favoring it; Art Buchwald wrote a column making fun of the city's objections.

By the time a public hearing was held in June, most everybody was behind the idea, with rare exceptions, such as H.B. Niece, executive vice president of the Organized Bible Class Association. As the Post reported, Niece thought the cafés would encourage public drunkenness and panhandling and amounted to "a Castro grab of public property." His objections were overruled, as it were.

The Sidewalk At Bassin's opened with much fanfare in August 1961 and was an instant success. Zitelman found his overall business up 15 percent. Still, there were complaints that the café should serve "something beside malts," so Zitelman worked to get the alcoholic beverage ban lifted, which he achieved the following year. In 1962, Washington's second sidewalk café opened at Chez Francois on Connecticut Avenue NW. By 1963, some 20 different restaurants had joined in, and the sidewalk café had become an established part of D.C. culture.

The sidewalk café wasn't Zitelman's only innovation at the Bassin's complex. He also opened one of the city's first discotheques, called the Top O' the Walk Twist Room, in the former Atlas Club upstairs from the dining room in 1962. According to the Post, Zitelman got the idea after seeing Chubby Checker dancing the twist in New York.

The Post's arts commentator, John Pagones, visited in April 1962 and was very enthusiastic. "The Fred Astaire dancers give twist lessons every night but it seems like bringing politics into Washington. Those people can really twist. The supply seems bottomless."

Ranging about Bassin's, Pagones noted that in addition to the dining room and cafeteria, there was also a lounge where "Jerry White knocks the daylight out of a piano with his honky-tonk songs," as well as a "noisy, chummy rathskellar" in the basement called L'Escapade Room. These were Bassin's salad days, so to speak, and unfortunately there would not be many more of them.

Bassin's is seen here in 1979, after it had been gutted by fire. The large building to the right is the Munsey Building. All these buildings (except for the National Theater, just visible on the far right) were torn down to make way for the J.W. Marriott hotel. (Source: Historic American Buildings Survey).

Bassin's was picketed in the mid-1960s for its hiring practices. It was accused of keeping most African-American employees in the kitchen and using mostly whites for the "out front" positions, such as waiters and waitresses. Bassin's agreed to hire more equitably, but business began to decline anyway after the April 1968 riots.

In 1976, the restaurant was sold to a wealthy South Vietnamese family that had decided to move to Washington and get into an American type of business. Then, after only two years, the restaurant was gutted in a suspicious pre-dawn fire in October 1978.

The police arson squad told the Post that they were 75 percent sure that the fire was started by igniting a flammable fluid. However, by that time the building was already slated to be torn down to make way for a massive new hotel/office complex. Within a year, with the blessing of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, the burned-out structure was razed. The J.W. Marriott Hotel now stands on the site.

Still, a few shards have survived of this venerable little building that witnessed so much of everyday Washington life. On 8th Street NW, just down from the other little commercial building we recently profiled, a few of the metal window hoods and sills from Bassin's are hung ghost-like over large vents at a Pepco substation. If they look a bit pathetic hung up that way, what's worse is that there's no sign telling where they came from.

Elements of the Bassin's building now on 8th Street NW.

Cross-posted at Streets Of Washington.