Prince KĹ«hiĹŤ in Washington: HawaiĘ»i’s Delegate, 1903-1922
The Prince of Hawaiʻi kept a house on Mass Ave, sat with the Republican baseball team, and pushed a homestead act for his people.
1920s
Washington in the 1920s was a city in full swing. The decade brought jazz clubs, speakeasies, and a building boom that filled in the last great gaps in the city’s streetscape. Calvin Coolidge’s Washington was prosperous and busy, even as Prohibition tried to shut down the good times. These posts explore the capital’s roaring decade.
Broad Branch Market, 5608 Broad Branch Road NW: A Century on the Chevy Chase DC Corner
A boy on tiptoe peers into the candy bins at 5608 Broad Branch Road NW. The Bondareffs are behind the counter, Curly is out on the delivery route, and Lafayette Elementary is about to let out across the street.
The Avalon Theatre in Chevy Chase DC: 100 Years of Movies
In 1923 the Chevy Chase Theatre opened at 5612 Connecticut Avenue NW. Renamed the Avalon in 1929, it survived 78 years of Hollywood and one Loews bankruptcy that gutted it in 2001. Neighbors raised roughly $750,000 and reopened it in April 2003. The lights are still on.
1627 Lamont Street NW: A 1908 Walk-Up With a 1927 Front-Page Tragedy
On the evening of September 21, 1927, a Washington attorney named Alexander G. Bentley walked into a room at the Houston Hotel on E Street near Ninth and shot himself. He was 52. The Washington Post ran it on page one the next morning. His home address, given in the second sentence: 1627 Lamont Street … Read more
Stetson’s on U Street Was Once a Speakeasy Raided Five Times
Long before Stetson’s Famous Bar & Grill filled 1610 U Street NW with punk shows and cheap beer, the same storefront was a Prohibition speakeasy. Federal agents raided it five times between 1921 and 1924. Then they raided it again in 1930.
Hotel Lombardy: The 1929 Foggy Bottom Apartment That Became DC’s Old-World Boutique
Walk into Hotel Lombardy and you feel a hotel from another era. Chinoiserie panels, a bar Oyster once called ‘a British manor in colonial Shanghai,’ and an attendant-operated elevator that hung on until 2011. The Foggy Bottom landmark started as apartments in 1929.
July 4, 1926: How Washington Celebrated America’s 150th Birthday
A cast of 1,000 on the Capitol steps, 50,000 at the Monument fireworks, and a plea for DC voting rights. How Washington celebrated America’s 150th birthday in 1926.
Before Shanklin Hall: 2325 18th Street Was the First Headquarters of D.G.S.
Shanklin Hall and Columbia Station made 2325 18th Street NW famous for music. A century ago the same Adams Morgan storefront was the home, store, and headquarters of D.G.S. founder William Hornstein.
The Castle at Forest Glen and the 1922 Fire That Made It
The Castle at 10 Post Office Road in Silver Spring is not a 19th-century folly. It is what a midnight furnace fire on April 24, 1922 left of the Forest Glen Trading Company, plus the granite a Pittsburgh oilman and the Seminary president bolted on top.