Janet Booth Kaye
kkaye@chesapeake.net

Grew up in Takoma Park and Mt Rainier , Left in 66, returned in 68, left again in 77 for good, all of the previous letters, kind of sum it up, Friday& Sat Nights Downtown The strip on 14 st. Casino Royal, The Rebel room , The Speakeasy the Rocket Room, what a blast! Glen Echo by trolley, Skipped school to go, sometimes. After school we would hang out at Piney Branch teen club, Lived on Flower Ave in T. Park in my early teens, Piney Branch rd teen Club, Ball fields There, Talk about Dirty Dancing, It was lots of fun,We got in trouble a lot ,all minor teen stuff.

If anyone out there has similar memories please reply.

dcampbell58@msn.com

Hi:
It was really nice reading all those memories about DC. I was born and raised in DC. I actually was born at Hahnemman (spelling) Hospital in 1956. Does anyone remember where it was? I never knew. When I was four I lived in the Mt. Pleasant area at Lamont St. and Mt. Pleasant. The apartment building is still there. Then we moved to P St. near Dupont Circle and went to kindergarten on P St. near 16th St. My dad worked nearby at Barry Pate Chevrolet on Connecticut Ave., I believe near M St. Then my dad bought a house at 3112 18th St. (Mt. Pleasant area again) I could hear the lions roar as if they were in my back yard. I also went to Sacred Heart School thru 8th grade on Park Rd. and Mt. Pleasant.

It was really great going downtown with my mom: shopping, looking at the Christmas displays at Woodies, Hechts, Kahns. Boy, those were the days. It was really fun going to Glen Echo and to Marshall Hall on field trips from school. Speaking about the Mt. Pleasant area where I grew up, I remember my birthday cakes from Heller’s Bakery (they were delicious) It’s still there by the way. I remember High’s Dairy store on Mt. Pleasant and Kenyon St. I remember all those wonderful stores on 14th st. Lerner’s, Beyda’s (children’s store where my mom would buy clothes on lay-away), Tivoli theater, a car dealer on the corner of Irving and 14th St. (don’t remember the name) My dad also worked there for some time. I remember Kennedy’s assassination in Ms. Doucette’s class, second grade at Sacred Heart School. They made the announcement on the loud speaker and we sat there in awe, not really knowing what had happened. For our 8th grade school trip we went to Atlantic City. Boy that was fun.

We used to walk from our school to the park on 16th St., next to the church and play baseball. I really enjoyed all those childhood memories especially now that my mother passed away a few months ago. It brings back the times when we lived there as a family. Now I live in Virginia, but those are other memories from high school.

Maria B.
franklinbalseca@hotmail.com

I was born December 15th, 1957. My mom was living with her two older brothers in a house on M Street SW when I was born. There were four black families living in one house. My cousins remember when I was born and all of them can quote the address of that house. My older sister remebers her first day of school. She left the school and walked back home after my mom dropped her off. We are the Howards. They say we owned the corner at Union and M Street SW. Ironically I checked the Census on my family history and they started out in Cheraw, South Carolina and the spelling of the last name was changed from Howell to Howard. The people who still live in South Carolina today blamed that on the ones who moved to DC and although everybody is a Howard now, the Census records of our forefathers were Howells and changed from mulatto to black between 1920 and 1930.

Anyway, my fondest memories of DC began in Lincoln Heights at 302 50th Street NE. I remember T. Lee the ice cream man who scrambled a whole box of ice cream about once a week. My best Christmas was the year I got the big blue western flyer bicycle from Western Auto. As a child I watched them build a neighborhood swimming pool at Kelly Miller Junior High School from the window of our first floor apartment. I swam in it for thirty minutes everyday and got back in line or hid in the bathroom for another thirty minutes of swimming. We also had neighborhood theaters on H Street, the Langston, The Senator and one other one. My first date was at the Lincoln theater on U Street. We went big time by going uptown to see Comeback Charleston Blue. I still watch Shaft, Superfly, and Foxy Brown. I lived with my Grandmother sometimes during the summer months at 4th and R Streets NW and we could walk to Kennedy Playground. Those were the good old days and kids today do not have all this recreation and all of it is gone now.

I'll be 5O Friday but I still remember my mom playing poker all night long. I remember the red light parties in the basement and the waist line parties to pay the rent. As for me, I partied at Anacostia Park with EU - Experience Unlimited, Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers. I grew up with Funkadelic and Earth, Wind and Fire at the Capital Center. If you drove a duce and a quarter you were rolling. I joined the military but came home every weekend for the Jazz concerts at Fort Dupont Park and saw Roy Ayers, Phyllis Hyman, and Angela Boefield all for free! I must have hit every club in the city by the time I was 21 and my favorite was the LA Cafe. The Room was alright too.

I could go on some more but I have to mention the skating rink on Kalorama Road. I loved that organ and there isn't another skating rink like that all of the US of A. I work for Metro now but you couldn't have paid me enough to be the bus driver on the 92 Calvert Street Bridge route after the skating rink let out. I loved to hit the back door like everybody else. That was big fun all along the scenic route to Alabama Avenue SE.

I love DC.

clickncrop@verizon.net

I haven't read them all but what memories :

I was one of the first babies born at the new Georgetown Hospital on reservoir road in 1946 :

Grew up in Georgetown and my father was actually referred to as the "mayor of Georgetown" . Home was 3334 P sty with a cobblestone street and the streetcar line … followed by The G 2 bus line . Would take the G 2 bus to Griffith Stadium for doubleheaders . Caught it at 34th and O sty and got off a block or two from the left field bleachers . Roy Sievers … Mickey Vernon … Pedro Ramos .to name a few players .

Childhood memories include : Georgetown playground and swimming pool …. Jellef Boys Club … Gtown library … Pizza from Julies on M St … all the wonderful DGS owners in Gtown including Mrs. Rosen at 34th and Dent Place …. Mr. . Roffman at 33rd and Volta … Mr. Feldman at 34th and O Sts … Mr. Saour at Wisconsin and O st and Mr. Schindler at 34th and P St . All gone now except for the store at 34th and Dent without Mrs. Rosen . I laugh that they now call that part of Georgetown the West Village . Will never forget Britt's cafeteria where my father would get the early addition Sunday paper at the Washington Post and then take me for a late night meal . Best ham or roast beef sandwiches in town . Saw many celebrities there and was introduced to quite a few .

I remember # 7 precinct oh so well . They did have the coldest water fountain in town . I attended Hyde Elementary … Gordon Jr. Hi … various High Schools including Western and Charlotte Hall military Academy . As a teenager in the 60's it was quite an exciting place with many historical moments . I was fortunate to have a summer job where I worked for the city at the " I have a dream " Martin Luther King march and was a half block from the podium . It was hot that day .

Saw the growth of bars and restaurants on M st . The old ones are all gone including the Sliver Dollar …. The Shamrock … and on Wisconsin Ave the Lehi and Georgetown Grill . Martins does remain . Went to Woodies every Xmas and the RK O Keiths on 15th st .

I could go on and on. It was a magical time .

Tom Tucker

Thanks for posting this site. It brings back many good memories and I have shared it with others who have enjoyed it as well..

I was born at Garfield Hospital in 1939. From then until I finished my sophomore year I lived on Madison Street in the Brightwood area. I attended Truesdale Elementary, Paul Jr. High and Coolidge High School before moving to the suburbs in Wheaton where I finished up at Wheaton High School.

I have a flood of memories from that time. Here are a few:

There were air raid warning tests in the 40’s.
I would have been around 4 or 5 at the time.
My father, a WW I veteran, would don his air raid warden helmet, grab a flashlight and go outside to see that the neighbors had pulled down the shades so that no light was visible from above.
Our upstairs bathroom had a skylight, so no lights on there during the air raid warning test periods.
I recall the row houses on our hill on Madison Street with front porches where neighbors gathered on hot summer evenings (before air conditioning) and Good Humor truck stopping just across the street every night and many neighbors coming out for a little frozen refreshment.
A Popsicle was a nickel and a Good Humor ice cream bar was a dime.
I played endless games bouncing a tennis ball off of our front steps as a little boy.
In the winter time, when the snow rarely accumulated enough, our hill became the area sled track.
The police actually barricaded the top and bottom of the hill to keep cars off and the kids came with their sleds from blocks around.
I especially recall one Christmas when I got a brand new sled… but unfortunately I also had my appendix out a few days before so I could not sleigh ride down the hill.
My bedroom was on the front of our house and I could only look out the window and wish.
I remember riding in our 36 Dodge on our way to our annual vacation at Beverly Beach in August of 1945. It was then that my father told me that we had dropped the Atomic bomb in Japan and that this would end the war and bring peace to the planet.
I recall starting kindergarten at Truesdale with my good friend Marty, who I still see (he lives now in Arizona and I in Colorado). I did not appreciate it at the time, but Truesdale was a remarkable elementary school. It was called a “laboratory school” and was used to train student teachers. We always had at least two student teachers in our class. We were offered several enrichment programs in music, the arts and language… but kick ball was my favorite pass time. I still am in contact with others dating back to elementary school.
My father drove a street car for Capital Transit (working for them for 42 years). I remember as a small boy riding behind him on Sundays when he did a “tripper” from the Brightwood Car Barn down to Griffith Stadium. There we would wait until the game was over and take passengers back up town on Georgia Avenue. From time to time he took me all over the city with him and to places like Glen Echo Amusement Park.
There were great places for ice cream… Polar Bear frozen custard on Georgia Avenue, Jones’ home made Ice cream on Kennedy Street and Wiley’s and Gifford’s just across the District line in Maryland. My first pizza was home made by the mother of one of my Italian friends. The Little Tavern had great mini hamburgers and there was always the White Tower (pies) and the Hot Shoppes in Silver Spring.
The Takoma Park recreation center was my main hang out in the summer from about the 5th grade through Jr. High. It was adjacent to Coolidge High and shared many fields and tennis courts. There was also a swimming pool. I pretty much spent from sun up to sundown there, swimming, playing baseball, softball, football, basketball, tennis and handball. It was a great mixing bowl. It was here more than any place that I learned to value people on what they brought to the table and not their economic or ethnic background. High School was fun, both at Coolidge and Wheaton.
I financed my first car, a 50 Desoto with my earnings from a job at an ice cream and candy store in Wheaton (Carroll Candies). High School went by so fast. The next thing I knew, I married my high school sweetheart (Gloria… we are still together) and had to figure out what to do for a living… but that is another story.
I think that I and others of my age were blessed to grow up in the place and time that we did. It was a much simpler, less politically correct and straight forward culture then. We also had many advantages coming of age in an era when the US was the only major nation untouched physically by the ravages of World War II. In my neighborhood we had diversity before diversity was cool… with kids of most every religion, ethnic background and race close by. We learned to value people based on their attributes and not their background. No one cared what your ethnicity was on my Walter Johnson League baseball team… only it you were a good team mate.
Bob Armstrong
irabob@comcast.net

Great site. Thanks. I lived in Alexandria back in the mid-30's to early 50's; attending George Washington High School and graduating in '46. Living just a few miles from DC back in those days was special; a time to remember. Watergate concerts on the Potomac (below the Washington Monument), climbing the stairs to the top in the monument, sailing toy boats in the Reflecting Pool (between the monument and the Lincoln Memorial), cherry blossoms on the Tidal Basin, playing golf at Haines Point, and, of course, Glen Echo Park (rides, meeting new gals and dancing).

I played in dance bands in the area for quite a few years after high school, and also worked at Southern Railway on 15th & K Streets, along with many others from Alexandria. There was a bus line (I think AB&W) from Alexandria to DC, that dropped us off at 12th and Pennysylvania Avenue. We could then walk to work, which took us past the White House.

Bus and train travel was common in those days and there was good camaraderie among the riders. I remember taking the train from DC to Baltimore each week to attend classes at Peabody; studying piano and arranging. During the war, my brother and I rode the train from DC to Ashtabula, OH to spend the summer. The trains were packed, as usual, and we sat on our luggage or the floor for the entire trip; no seats available. No problem; we just did it!

I got to know the DC area very well as a result of the many tours our family made; showcasing the attractions to visiting out-of-town relatives; some deciding to make it their home.

The war years (WWII) are especially memorable. My dad worked for the Navy Department in DC, as did many of our neighbors who worked in the various government offices. For a while, towards the end of the war, I worked as a messenger boy for the Navy Department. One benefit was being in the midst of all the cute WAVES (gal sailors) who came from all over the country to do their part.

And, of course, the theaters in DC hosted big bands and great singers; Les Brown and Frank Sinatra come to mind. Yep--lot's of good DC memories.

Gerald Swisher
2 Hinds Street
Montrose, PA
570-278-8989
gswisher@stny.rr.com

I came upon this site by accident because I am writing a book about Washington TV Memories. I was part of it because I was the ffirst producer-director-announcer-janitor at WTTG the first successful TV station in Washington. Thomas T. Goldsmith who built WTTG is still with us, living in Washington state and I talked with him last Saturday. I am the originator and producer-director and "straight man" opposite Jules Huber who was Hoppity Skippity of the Moppet Shop. Hoppity Skippity is my character and I still own the name.. I was hired as a staff announcer 61 years ago last month and Bob Wolff was hired the same time and he was the sports announcer..Bob is still working in NY City he does the announcing for Madison Square Garden . He announced the games from Griffith Stadium and is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Let me know who you are and send me communication info. You may be a help with my book.

I am Gordon Williamson, live at 1400 Moravia Avenue in Holly Hill, Florida 32117 Phone 386-677-2007 0r 677-3949 I occasionally perform here and as an avid environmentalist, write a good bit. I am scheduled for an hour show this week on am radio which streams all over. My interview will be concerning environment. I am 87 even though many tell me I'm so well preserved I look only 86. Contact me at fsp2a@aol.com Good night..

Hi Debi:

On page ninetten George Winkel asked about a department store on H Street N.E. The name was Wahl's. I lived in the area and shopped there.
MNaylor20@verizon.net

Hi Washingtonians!

WOWIE!

What a great website!!

I was born in Washington and grew up on Wisconsin Avenue just above Georgetown. Across the street from the Calvert Theatre.

I remember riding the Friendship Heights -17th and PA Ave SE trolley for ten cents a ride. Friday nights my dad would give me his weekly pass and I would, for the fun of it, ride from one end of the line to the other.

I went to Gordon Junior High School with Bobby Keeley (later US Ambassador to Greece) and David Amram (the very popular musician of today). I subsequently graduated from Western High where my first girl friend was Mary Ann Smith -- Her father was Budget Director of the US. I was in the High School Cadets and my company captain was Sandy Vandenberg whose father became Chief of Staff after WWII ended.

Also in my class was Tommy (Dumbo) Delahanty, the police officer who was shot protecting President Reagan when he was shot. And then there was Bobby Reed who shot me thru the head with a .38 pistol at point blank range!!! It was a psychological accident and we both recovered to go on to successful lives!!

I should mention that both my mother and father worked for the Washington Senators, then owned by Clark Griffith. American League games were played in Griffith Stadium on Florida Avenue. My mother worked full time in the ball park office and my dad worked for the Bell Telephone company and part time for the Senators.

My dad also did communications work for George Marshall, owner of the Redskins and he got me a job as a sideline spotter for the Public Address Announcer and scoreboard at home games. I had the view!!!

Wow! Do I have memories!!

Bud Vaden
Now living in Pinehurst, NC
Budvaden@aol.com

My family moved to D. C. in 1935 in order for my father to get a government job there as there werent any in Ohio because of the depression. We lived about a 1/2 mile from the Maryland line off PA. ave on Carpenter st. I went to Randall Highland elementary and during WW2 a soldier drove a jeep to our school and lots were drawn 1 thru 5 to get a ride in the jeep. I drew a 5 and was thrilled to get a ride in it. We danced around the maypole back then before it became taboo. My mother was a dance hostess at the USO and also rolled bandages once a week for the Red Cross during the war.

I graduated from Anacostia high school and went on to the Washington school for secretaries and later became a secretary for Rep. Clair Engle from CA. I married a saxaphonist who played in the US Navy Band for 20 years. We had 5 children and often took them across town to Gifford's ice cream store which had the best of everything. I spent my growing-up years using my dad's weekly bus pass to go with my friends downtown on weekends to all the museums and also to the stage shows in 2 of the theaters there. The city was safe for children to travel alone in then. We kids went to Glen Echo and Marshall Hall during the summer. Hogates was a favorite place for my father to take us for dining out. We would rent a cottage at Chapel Point with another couple in the summer and i would net jellyfish out of the water onto the pier. My husband and I go back "home" once a year where he bikes the wonderful bike paths and i visit my old neighborhoods. I miss the many things I used to be able to do there.

Has anybody reading this is they ever gone to a chiropractor named A. B. Chatfield who had his office on Connecticut Ave. He literally saved my life when I was about nine years old and suffering incessantly from asthma. If anybody knows anything about him and his family, I would appreciate hearing from you. This man changed my life. At one time in the 40s I think, he was head of the Washington D. C. chiropractic asso.

Thanks

nancyagrove@yahoo.com
nancy grove
20741 s. r. 120
Bristol, IN. 46507

I grew up in SE Anacostia. We had milk, cheese and delicious strawberry cream pies delivered to the door. We also had Charlie's Roller Market which was a converted old bus filled with grocery store goods. When I was a teenager my friends and I went to the Mighty Mo near Penn Mar Shopping Center and the Hot Shoppe drive in on Pennsylvania Avenue. On a hot summer day we went to the drive in movie. Those were the days...

Mary-Ellen (Brown) McGrath
danandmemcgrath@yahoo.com

Hi,

I was born in a hospital in DC in 1952 and raised in Montgomery County, MD. A lot of people were born in the Philadelphia area and moved to the Washington area. But not many people have done the reverse. I have lived in Montgomery County, PA, for 21 years. I am sure I will have many memories to add to your site. Here is my first one.

(Ms.) Regina Litman
Huntingdon Valley, PA
(same number of "t"'s in Huntingdon as there are "s"'s in the second word of Silver Spring)

Today is the 50th anniversary of my appearance on the Pick Temple Show--Saturday, November 23, 1957. I was a 5-year-old kindergartener in Montgomery County. My pregnant mother took me, along with my 3-year-old sister, on a streetcar from Friendship Heights to the studio at WTOP Channel 9's Broadcast House on Wisconsin Avenue.

I had brand new cowboy (or rather, cowgirl) gear for this special occasion. My father had brought home a new holster and a couple of new toy guns the night before, after I was already in bed.

I got to be on Pick's show because my mother had put my name into a drum at the local Giant store. These were transferred to a bigger drum on Pick's show. Every day, he picked names of kids to be on future shows. He was on six days a week - Monday through Saturday. I watched it religiously every day it was on until my mother discovered soap operas on another channel that aired at the same time. This may have been one reason why I have never become a fan of soaps myself! Fortunately, we became a two-TV family not long after that.

As for the show itself, there were probably about thirty kids on each day, arranged in three rows of, probably, ten kids each. There were always at least two kids having birthdays on each show. I was not one of them that day, but I remember that there were three birthday kids on that show. Two of the spots, at each end of the middle row, were reserved for birthday kids, while any others sat anywhere else.

I was almost certainly one of the most inquisitive kids who ever appeared on the show. I had the chutzpah to actually call out to him during the live part of the show asking him if I could come up closer to see some stuff. There was a microphone he brought down whenever a boy named Mike was chosen to do something, and Pick would say something like, "Mike meet Mike." I have never accepted the late twentieth century evolution of the spelling of the abbreviation for "microphone" from "mike" to "mic" because I don't think Pick Temple would have approved of it. Well, I wanted to come out and see Mike even though I wasn't named Mike and wasn't even a boy! I also went up for a close-up view of a rattlesnake that often appeared on the show, although this may have been during a commercial, cartoon, or short movie, and other kids may have done this, too. My grandmother watched me from home and was appalled by my performance. (My father, who owned a retail business, had to work that day and never got to see me on this long-before-VCR-era show. He made up for it almost three years later when he was the accompanying parent for my appearance on Bozo.)

I also got to see Pick's pony, Piccolo, and his dog, Lady. I got selected to play a game against a nine-year-old girl. It's perhaps no surprise that I lost, since she was so much bigger and older than I was. Five-year-old kids didn't get chosen for the games very often. Maybe by putting me in a competition that I was certain to lose, Pick was getting back at me for my outspokenness!

Giant was Pick's major sponsor. As previously mentioned, Giant provided the means for kids to enter their names to get picked for the show. Pick also sang a catchy tune promoting Giant's brand of baked goods, Heidi, to the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey". An instrumental of this song was also Pick's theme song. When I hear this tune today, I still think of the opening words as being "My favorite bread's Heidi," rather than "On top of old smokey," or even "On top of spaghetti" (an early 1960s hit by Tom Glazer and The Do-Re-Mi Children's Chorus that eventually entered our family's record collection).

Eventually, Giant dropped its sponsorship of the show. Pick Temple went to Philadelphia to try to duplicate his success in that larger market, but he didn't last there nearly as long as he did in Washington. I moved to the Philadelphia area myself in the mid-1980s. I'm still there. But in the 20+ years I've been here, I have met only one person who remembers being on the "Philly" version of his show. In Philadelphia, the kids fondly remember Sally Starr, Happy the Clown, Gene London, Pixanne, and other shows that mean nothing to me. And a few folks who are somewhat older than I am remember being on a show that most of the older kids on my block eschewed in favor of one hosted by Milt Grant. Of course, I'm talking about "American Bandstand", which originated on the same ABC-affiliate T.V. station where Pick did his show, WFIL (now WPVI), Channel 6.

In Philadelphia, "Pick Temple" is still meaningful, thanks to the presence of Temple University. Fans of the school's Owls basketball team hope that a top-ranked high school hoopster will "pick Temple" as the place to play college ball. After the university has attracted enough of these prospects, the tip sheets will have more reason to "pick Temple" over an opponent. Mayor John Street decided to "pick Temple" as the university where he will teach once his time in office ends shortly.

Today, some aspects of Pick's show would no doubt be seen as politically incorrect. Channel 9 and the other two local stations where Pick did his show no doubt have heavy security in place to prevent people from bringing in toy guns, let alone real ones. Many parents would never think of buying toy guns for their kids, even if it was for a T.V. show appearance, and perhaps some wouldn't even let their kids watch a show that glorifies gunshooting so much. Ironically, my father brought my new toy guns home on Friday, November 22. The next time November 22 fell on a Friday was in 1963. It may have been on that very day that many Americans began to question the place of guns, or at least certain types of guns, in our society. My father himself may have had second thoughts about buying toy guns for us after the crime rate in the neighborhood near his store rose in the 1960s.

On a lighter note, Washingtonians may not have taken so easily to a show with a cowboy theme once a certain football team became the top sports rival for a local team. Is it just coincidence that Pick's departure occurred not long after the debut of the Dallas Cowboys?

Unfortunately, Pick Temple left town before my two younger sisters could be on the show. My mother operated under the philosophy that all of her daughters should have the same experiences. Thus, she did not let me talk about my appearances on the show because she feared my sisters would become two envious. My next-older sister never had her name picked from the drum on the show (although I recall that she went on Bozo the same day I did in 1960). My other sister, still too young for the show when Pick left, fervently desired to appear on Ranger Hal's show, which lasted well into the 1960s, but alas, this was never fulfilled. I hope that both of them have forgiven me for my brief moment of fame 50 years ago today.

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