At the Crossroads EIGHTH AND H STREETS NE
ONE YEAR BEFORE CONGRESS and the president fin ally arrived in their new capital city in 1800, Washington’s Navy Yard opened at the foot of Eighth Street. It soon became the city’s biggest employer. In 1908 streetcars began connecting H Street to the Navy Yard via Eighth Street, allowing workers to commute. As the transfer point between the Eighth Street line and the H Street line to downtown, this busy spot attracted the Home Savings Bank’s Northeast Branch and the Northeast Savings Bank, founded by H Street merchants, across Eighth Street from each other. Before Prohibition closed DC’s many saloons in 1917, number 727 H Street housed the German- owned Beuchert Tavern. Louis Kavakos bought the place in 1929 and ran it as a lunch counter/ confectionery. A er Prohibition ended four years later, Kavakos and his sons William, George, and John replaced the luncheonette with Club Kavakos, a bar and grill with live music, dancing, vaudeville, and strippers. Like many DC night spots, the club thrived during World War II. A er the war patrons enjoyed evenings hosted by WMAL radio DJ Willis Conover. Jazz greats Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Dizzy Gillespie all recorded live albums here. In 1914 Ezras Israel Orthodox congregation moved from its space above an H Street grocery into the former Centennial Baptist Church at Eighth and I Streets, one block nort h. Fi y years later it closed as most of H Street’s Jewish population moved north, and eventually re-opened in Rockville, Maryland.
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