Cathedral Heights Business District
Cathedral Heights Business District
As Washington expanded to the Northwest in the 1920s, modest homes were built on farmland in an area known first as Fairview Heights and then as Cathedral Heights, north of Fulton Street and west of Wisconsin Avenue. A Greek family recognized the neighborhood’s potential and constructed shops, with second floor apartments on either side of Macomb Street. First the merchants opened a candy store then a series of restaurants. By the 1950s the Zebra Room, a restaurant and bar, occupied the southwest corner and became a gathering spot for locals and politicians. Generations of Cathedral Heights families shopped in the small stores nearby, buying their children’s shoes at the Modern Shoe Shop on Macomb street and birthday cakes and ice cream at University Pastry on Wisconsin Avenue. In 1953, the business district doubled with the construction of Friendship Shopping Center, anchored by a state-of-the-art Giant Food supermarket. It featured what were then the latest retail innovations, self-serve open shelves and a large parking lot.
Artist: Mary Grigonis
Repairs and restoration of this callbox were financed by generous contributions to the Washington Art on Call Committee from Cathedral Heights neighbors and from Art on Call, a program of Cultural Tourism DC, with support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, DC Creates Public Art Program, the District Department of Transportation, and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development.
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=120510
https://ghostsofdc.org/2012/12/06/drunk-speaker-carl-albert/