Get Behind the Wheel 600 BLOCK H STREET NE
OURISMAN CHEVROLET ONCE occupied almost the entire north side of this block. In 1921, a er two years as a top-performing Chevy salesman on Connecticut Avenue, and with a $2,000 lo an from his widowed mother, Benjamin Ourisman opened his own dealership here. By 1940, when he built th e ve-story building at 624 H, his was the country’s highest-selling dealership. Automobile production stopped during World War II (1941-1945), but a erwards demand was so high that Ourisman hired 67 salesm en. e business moved to Maryland in 1962. Across from Ourisman’s, at 619 H Street, Pietro Borghese ran Pete’s Barbershop for nearly 50 years. Borghese emigrated from Italy in 1920 and opened his business near the homes of many Italian workers and cra smen. e family got along well with its African American neighbors, recalled his son Carmelo. During the 1968 riots, when Pete’s was one of only two white-owned businesses on the block, the barber shop was untouched. Sanitary Grocery, the forerunner of Safeway, r st appeared on H Street in 1909. In the early 1960s, Safeway opened at 600 H, but moved in 1983 to the new Hechinger Mall on Benning Road, leaving the neighborhood without a major grocery. Five years later the independent, black- owned Mega Foods opened across the street but lasted only two years. Murry’s, which took over the Safeway building, is part of a local chain founded in 1948 by Alfred Mendelson and named for his son. Murry’s two-ounce frozen steaks o ered consumers conveniently small portions of meat for th e r st time.
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