History

Happy 30th Birthday to El Tamarindo

By Prince Of Petworth


1785 Florida Ave, NW

It’s not too often we hear about restaurants celebrating 30 years. I feel like it is even more rare in Adams Morgan. Congratulations to El Tamarindo:

Jose & Betty Reyes were two of the thousand of Salvadorans to arrive in Washington D.C. during the Salvadoran migration in the early 1980’s. Like many immigrants, they came with the vision of accomplishing the American Dream.

In 1982, the inexperienced yet ambitious couple established El Tamarindo Restaurant in Adams Morgan. Through hard work, the expertise and help of amazing friends and employees, and the support of the community, El Tamarindo became a very successful & staple restaurant in the Washington metropolitan area.

Nearly thirty years later, El Tamarindo continues to be a family owned & operated establishment providing “home-style Mexican & Salvadoran Cuisine” to everyone from local workers to politicians and everyone in between.

Our food, drinks, service and ambiance is something everyone can truly enjoy. Join us for a tart margarita, a perfect pupusa and simply a wonderful experience. Bring your family, co-workers, friends or yourself. We kindly invite you to become a part of the El Tamarindo Family!

Streets of Washington Presents – The Chevy Chase Ice Palace

By Prince Of Petworth

Streets of Washington is the brilliant blog covering some of DC’s most interesting buildings and history written by John DeFerrari. John is also the author of the equally brilliant Lost Washington DC. ‘Streets of Washington Presents…’ will feature some fascinating buildings and history from around PoPville.

It was supposedly “one of the largest parking and shopping units in the country” when the Chevy Chase Ice Palace and Sports Center opened in 1938 on upper Connecticut Avenue. As strip malls go, the building, which still stands in the 4400 block of Connecticut Avenue just north of the Van Ness Metro stop, now looks quite tiny, which says something either for the exaggeration of the Washington Post article of November 20, 1938, the growth of shopping malls since then,—or both.

In 1938, this part of the city was well on its way to transitioning from a lightly populated “suburb” within the District to an urban residential zone. The avenue had been zoned in 1920 such that most of it was to be lined with medium-density apartment buildings. At regular intervals, single blocks were designated for commercial development. The 4400 block was one such commercial zone.

Developer Garfield I. Kass (1890–1975) saw a great opportunity at this location, despite the difficult site that sloped steeply from street level down to a tributary of Rock Creek in the valley below. There was pent-up demand for shopping from local residents that did not have other options in their neighborhood. Beyond that, “park and shop” centers like this one were hot commodities in the 1930s, after the successful development in 1930 of the Park and Shop center just down the street in Cleveland Park. Kass had already developed park and shop centers in the Rosslyn and Clarendon neighborhoods of Arlington County, Virginia, and another at Georgia Avenue and Rittenhouse Street, NW, in Shepherd Park. Situating such centers along main commuting arteries—on the same side of the street as the evening, homeward-bound traffic—was sure to make for substantial profits.

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Then and Now by the House History Man – 234 Upshur St, NW

By Prince Of Petworth


Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Then and Now by the House History Man is a new series by Paul K. Williams. Paul has been researching house histories in DC since 1995, having completed more than 1,500 to date.

The District Grocery Store photographed here about 1933 was located at 234 Upshur Street, NW, on the southeast corner of 3rd Street. It was built beginning in the spring of 1932 by Washington native Morris Miller, who lived upstairs along with his wife Minnie and two children. At the height of the Great Depression, he advertised four cans of corn in the window for just 25 cents!

The row of houses from 218 to 234 Upshur had been designed by S. H. Howthur and built in 1920. According to the census, Miller lived there in 1930 and added the store on the ground floor in 1932, designed by architect Julius Wenig. It cost $2,000 to construct.

As a Jewish grocery store owner he like many others were faced with discrimination from grocery wholesalers, so a group of 21 Jewish owners formed the District Grocery Stores Association in 1929. They built their own warehouse to supply the small chain, purchased goods cooperatively and in bulk, and thus managed to survive both the Depression and the encroachment by large chain stores.

Like many families during the Depression, the Miller’s rented a room in their house to earn income. Alex and Sylvia Brooks lived with them in 1930, he being a driver for a bakery. Both of his parents had been born in Russia.

The house and a vacant storefront still exist today, seen below. Gone are the retractable cloth awnings and the enameled signage, but the front entranceway can still be seen on the right, facing 3rd Street.


234 Upshur St, NW in 2012

Ridiculously Awesome Album Cover of the Week

By Prince Of Petworth

And Neal from Som Records, 14th St, NW just south of T, reminds me that Saturday is Record Store Day:

“Record Store Day is the third Saturday of April every year, meaning this Saturday. It was started 4-5 years ago by some independent record stores as a way to celebrate music and brick and mortar record stores. It has grown in size over the last few years and is now the busiest day on the calendar (by far) for most record shops.

This year there are over 250 special (and mostly limited) Record Store Day releases, mostly on vinyl. Som will have over 95 different titles available on Saturday including releases from Phish, Dr John, Esperanza Spaulding, Devo, Common, Luna and many more. Crooked Beat in Adams Morgan will probably have the most titles but Red Onion, Smash and Joint Custody will all be participating as well and are all worth a visit.”

Streets of Washington Presents The Old Post Office Building

By Prince Of Petworth

Streets of Washington is the brilliant blog covering some of DC’s most interesting buildings and history written by John DeFerrari. John is also the author of the equally brilliant Lost Washington DC. ‘Streets of Washington Presents…’ will feature some fascinating buildings and history from around PoPville.

The Old Post Office building at 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW is easily recognized and admired these days, though it wasn’t always so. The building was threatened with demolition in the early 1970s and spurred the creation of Don’t Tear It Down, a group dedicated to preserving the city’s historical heritage. After successfully pushing to save the Old Post Office, Don’t Tear It Down, which eventually was renamed the D.C. Preservation League, went on to advocate for many other historical structures in the city and continues to be the city’s leader in encouraging real estate development that doesn’t needlessly destroy important historic structures.


Postcard view of the Old Post Office (Author’s collection).

Monumental as the building is, people have wanted to change it almost since the day it was completed in 1899. The site for the new building was the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue, always the less-desirable side of the street in the 19th century. The land south of the avenue where an old creek had been turned into the city canal tended to be swampy, unstable ground, not particularly suited to construction of large buildings. The area immediately to the west of the Old Post Office had been known as Murder Bay during the Civil War, an area of dingy saloons, gambling dens, bordellos, and ramshackle frame shanties housing hundreds of poor people, mostly African-Americans. “The water soaking through from the canal kept the ground continuously wet, and the feet of the people passing churned the soft ground into black and odorous mud, making even the ground consistent with the depravity that existed there,” remarked The Washington Post in 1888. In the decades after the war, the worst problems had been addressed; the old city canal was turned into an underground sewer, and light industrial buildings—machine shops and lumber yards—began to fill the area. It was this edgy, semi-industrial neighborhood that was chosen one day in 1890 to be home of the enormous new government office building.

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Dear PoPville – The Space Shuttle is Coming to DC Tuesday!

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user mosley.brian

Thanks to a reader for sending this cool report from The Hill:

“NASA announced Monday that the Space Shuttle Discovery will fly approximately 1,500 feet above various parts of the nation’s capital on April 17. As a point of reference, the Washington Monument is about 555 feet tall.

While the exact route is still to be determined, the shuttle — strapped atop the space agency’s custom Boeing 747 — should fly over the National Mall, National Harbor and Reagan National Airport.”

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