I've always felt it was so tragic that such an awesome looking building was used for a McDonald's. Wish it could be some cooler more unique restaurant for the neighborhood.

by Patrick on Apr 22, 2010 3:57 pm • link • report

It looks like the sidewalk width is greater in the old photo- enough room for a tree and lamppost with room to spare to the entrance. maybe just perspective in the photos. from memeory though it seems there's not that much room.

by Bianchi on Apr 22, 2010 4:29 pm • link • report

You see that in lots of the then and now pics. Very possibly an extra traffic lane was squeezed in to the detriment of sidewalk space.

by NikolasM on Apr 22, 2010 5:04 pm • link • report

Wow...I remember when People's Drugstores actually existed. Makes me feel old.

by Matthias on Apr 22, 2010 7:39 pm • link • report

This building along with most on the 18th street strip started out as a single family residence. There are great photos of the row in a Brickbuilder magazine of the early 20th century. A very beautiful and late strain or the Richardsonian Romanesque unique to DC.

by Thayer-D on Apr 23, 2010 7:31 am • link • report

I live just a few blocks from that McDonald's and I kind of block it out of my mind. I've been in there less than 1/2 a dozen times and when I am inside it's hard to believe I am in Adams Morgan.

Short story: Like everything else they touch, McDonald's destroyed it.

by Mike on Apr 23, 2010 10:34 am • link • report

I was a cashier for People's Drug when I was in high school. CVS bought them just a few years after I had left.

by F. Sheehan on Apr 26, 2010 2:09 pm • link • report

Really glad to see this post! This is the apartment that my Grandmother grew up in (above the business, obviously.) My Great-Uncle George who passed away last month and was a lifelong DC resident used to tell stories of climbing down the drain-pipe to sneak out (he once got in trouble for climbing the girders of the Calvert Street bridge. He worked at a hardware store in Georgetown at the corner of Wisconsin and M for many years...) Her father was a conductor for the Rialto Theatre, a movie-house that used to be at 9th and G. We have some old family photos of the exterior of the McDonald's building, but they're all pretty repetitive to what you've posted here. My Grandmother's Grandfather was the first to arrive in DC, and started a music school on Calvert Street in an apartment that's still there. My Grandmother passed away a few years back (before I moved to DC and found the connection,) but my Mom thinks she would have found it oddly hilarious that the ground level of her childhood abode was now a McDonalds... Thanks for sharing!

by Scott R on Aug 25, 2010 10:29 am • link • report

My mother use to work at Peoples Drug Store in Washington DC behind the soda fountain counter. I was only about 6 years old. I loved that old store. Sitting up on those tall stools and could hardley reach my soda. I don't know if this is the acutal Drug Store. The one she worked at had a park across from it. I loved feeding the pigeons and the squirrels.

by Linda on Oct 18, 2011 2:04 pm • link • report