Main Street 14TH and IRVING STREETS NW
Fourteenth Street has always been the busi-ness backbone of Columbia Heights. Beginning in the 1890 s, electric streetcars dropped passengers at nearly every corner, attracting commerce. By 1925 storefronts occupied the blocks between Euclid and Otis Streets. Most stores, often less than 02 feet wide, were family run and offered one line of products. In 1 9 52 on 1 4th Street between Irving Street and Park Road alone, you could find hats, bicycles, men’s clothing, ladies’ clothing, automobiles, hardware, musical instruments, candy, cigars, paint, meats, baked goods, and real estate. Larger establishments included drug stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and the Arcade, a granddaddy to the modern shopping mall, with food stalls and family enter- tainment. After World War II, nightspots featured “hillbilly” music and catered to migrants from rural states. In 1 9 2 7 J. Willard and Alice Marriott, a young couple from Utah, chose a storefront on the west side of 1 4th Street for their first business. They opened an A&W Root Beer franchise at 3 21 8 1 4th Street, added spicy Southwestern style food, and dubbed the enterprise Hot Shoppe. It grew into the Hot Shoppes chain, and by 1 9 5 7, Marriott food services and hotels. The riots following the assassination of the Rev- erend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in April 1 968 devastated 1 4th Street. Most of the businesses that weren’t actually burned out closed, setting off a downward spiral. While immigrants and activists brought some new enterprises in the 1 98 0 s, it took the opening of the Columbia Heights Metrorail station in 1 999 to begin the latest revival.
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