Existing comment:
Stop 16 on the Shaw Heritage Trail:
To Market, To Market
Fifth and L Steeets, NW
After this neighborhood's original Northern Liberty Market on Mount Vernon Square was razed in 1872, a new Northern Liberty Market was built along Fifth Street between K and L. When the market's owners saw that farm products weren't drawing enough customers, they added a massive second-floor entertainment space. This was
Convention Hall (1893), the city's first convention center, seating 6,000. While provisions changed hands on the first floor, the second floor hosted balls, banquets, and even duckpin bowling tournaments. Soon the building was called Convention Hall Market.
When the Center Market downtown on Pennsylvania Avenue was razed in 1931 to build the National Archives, many vendors moved here. Convention Hall Market became New Center Market. Then in 1946 the building burned in a spectacular fire, visible for miles. Partially rebuilt with a low, flat roof, it continued to sell foodstuffs
despite the arrival of modern supermarkets. By 1966 the vendors were gone, and the building became the National Historical Wax Museum. When the museum closed, rock 'n' rollers flocked to "The Wax" for concerts. The Convention Hall was succeeded by the new center that opened in 1983 at Ninth and H streets, NW, and two years
later the Wax Museum was demolished.
The 53 handsome rowhouses on the square bounded by New York Avenue, Fifth, Sixth, and M streets were designed and built in 1890 by the prolific architect T. Franklin Schneider. Developing an entire square, though common in most city neighborhoods, was unusual in Shaw, where most houses were built individually. |