The amazing Heurich House was the home of the brewing magnate Christian Heurich, who was the successful founder of the largest brewery in Washington, DC in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood. The Kennedy Center is now built on the remains of the brewery. However, the house survives, and much to my delight since leaving DC, has become an historic house museum again backed by a
foundation.
Brownstone, sculpted or rusticated, dominates the front elevation.
The details of the rusticated, Romanesque Revival architecture is remarkably intact, if slightly eroded from the weather.
/The tower dominates the corner site, with a salamander, a traditional bane of fire, crowning the tip of its roof.
The side elevation is less formal, with red brick instead of rusticated brownstone.
The conservatory is actually more of an eclectic classical revival design. The interior features stunning woodwork and stucco work, and the formal rooms are in a Rococo Revival style, with intact ceiling paintings bedecked with flying putti.
Ben's Chili Bowl anchors the famed center of African-American life in Washington, DC on a stretch of U Street NW from 7th St to 18th St NW. It survived the riots, the construction of Metro down the street, and continues to serve late into the night. Curiously, the owners, who are devout Muslims, don't eat their own product.
The Lincoln Theater was once and again is a center of DC nightlife on U Street. Back in the day, the best Motown musicians performed here.
Sadly, gentrification is coming to U Street, and while the crime is going down, the fun is going down along with it. An infamous incident occurred while I lived in DC; the developer's computer generated mock-up shown to the public contained only white people walking U Street out in front of the proposed building.
Residential turned to commercial as the street became full of shoppers. I bought my leather coat at one of these stores nine years ago this spring.
Read about the street in this prior approved Wikipedia article. The phrase people still use is, "Before there was Harlem, there was U Street." Artists and poets flocked to the street decades before the Harlem Renaissance.
