To Market, To Market
After this neighborhood’s original Northern Liberty Market on Mount Vernon Square was razed in ,a new Northern Liberty Market was built along Fifth Street between K and L.When the market’s owners saw that farm products weren’t drawing enough customers,they added a massive second-floor entertainment space.This was Convention Hall ( ),the city’s first convention center, seating , .While provisions changed hands on the first floor,the second floor hosted balls,banquets,and even duckpin bowling tourna- ments.Soon the building was called Convention Hall Market. When the Center Market downtown on Pennsylvania Avenue was razed in to build the National Archives, many vendors moved here. Convention Hall Market became New Center Market.Then in the building burned in a spectacular fire,visible for miles.Partially rebuilt with a low,flat roof,it continued to sell foodstuffs despite the arrival of modern supermarkets.By 1966 the vendors were gone,and the building became the National Historical Wax Museum. When the museum closed, rock ‘n’ rollers flocked to “The Wax” for concerts. The Convention Hall was succeeded by the new center that opened in at Ninth and H streets,NW,and two years later the Wax Museum was demolished. The handsome rowhouses on the square bound- ed by New York Avenue, Fifth, Sixth, and M streets were designed and built in by the prolific architect T.Franklin Schneider.Developing an entire square,though common in most city neigh- borhoods,was unusual in Shaw,where most hous- es were built individually.
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