Ah this is a super cool one. Thanks to much to Fred for sharing this find:
“I had the plaster taken down from my staircase wall of my home in SE DC a few years ago and found some old advertisements.
Did some research and was thinking of picking up the trail again. Here is what I know after sift through the archives. Perhaps your readers have more insight. There is definitely more of this on the second floor of the home, just have not uncovered it yet.
– “B” street – there used to be one in NE and one in SE, but were renamed Independence and Constitution to avoid confusion due to close proximity.
– 135 B street SE is roughly where the Library of Congress now sits?
– Did a search at the DC archives…No idea who E Steffen is. Did he paint the mural? Is he the proprietor? Why would his name and address be so small at the bottom?
My home, near Lincoln Park, was once an alley, so that explains why it is there. There was a wooden structure on the site after that (see photo above showing the outline of the roofline and chimney taken from the top of my staircase), but is looks like there was a fire on the corner of my block in the late 1800’s because all of the house construction on the corner changes from wood to brick in the late 1800’s (forgot the exact year).”