Bassin's Restaurant, Washington's First Sidewalk Café

A modest, four-story storefront once stood near the corner of 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW overlooking Washington's first sidewalk café. From an illegal gambling parlor to a trendy 1960s discotheque, the building saw much in the way of what Washington had to offer for nighttime entertainment. It began its colorful career in about 1872, although according to an assessment prepared by the Historic American Buildings Survey, its architect and exact date of construction are unknown. Its classic Italianate facade was of pressed brick with ornamental cast-iron window hoods and sills.

D. Loughran & Co. occupies the ground floor of 1347 Pennsylvania Avenue NW (the white building) in this circa 1920 view (Source: Library of Congress).

The Opulent Arlington Hotel

Quick, what was the swankiest hotel in Washington in the 1880s and 1890s? Was it the Willard? No, the Willard that we know hadn't been built yet, and its predecessor was growing old and outmoded. The National or the Metropolitan? No, they had peaked earlier in the century as well. The best hotel, in many people's view, was the Arlington, located on Vermont Avenue just a block from the White House. The site, between H and I Streets, is where the Department of Veterans Affairs now stands."The fame of the Arlington is only bounded by the circumference of the globe," proclaimed The Evening Star in December 1902. Despite such renown, the Arlington had a relatively brief career and is now almost wholly forgotten.

Arlington Hotel circa 1905 (Author's collection).

The Little Shop That Survived (Sort Of)

A recent article in The Washington Post about the historic synagogue downtown that was moved once and will be moved again soon got me thinking about historic buildings in D.C. that have been moved. Georgetown's exquisite Dumbarton House is another example; it was moved north about 50 feet in 1915 to allow the Georgetown stretch of Q Street to be connected up with its Washington counterpart. A much humbler structure that's been dismantled and its facade partially rebuilt several blocks away is the little commercial storefront that used to sit on the northwest corner of 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, visible in this postcard from about 1910.