A Mixing Bowl
, “ ” , The Jazz Singer, grew up as Asa Yoelson at ½ Street (once across the street from this sign). The Yoelsons arrived from Lithuania in . Asa’s father Rabbi Moses Yoelson served as cantor and shochet (ritual slaughterer) for Talmud Torah Congregation nearby at Fourth and E.Here young Asa soaked up the African American speech and music that contributed to his later stardom as an entertainer. After The Jazz Singer took the world by storm, Jolson moved his family uptown to today’sAdams Morgan.Meanwhile the family of RabbiArthur Rosen moved into . On the southwest corner of Third and I streets, John T. Rhines founded a successful funeral home that served the African American community from until his death in .A civic leader, Rhines presided over the Southwest Civic Association. Though childless,Rhines led the nearby Anthony Bowen School PTA and was popularly known as Genial John” as well as the “Mayor of Southwest.” He worked to bring recreation programs to area black children and received the Evening Star ’s Civic Award in . On the west side of Fourth Street was Schneider’s Hardware,owned in by Goldie Schneider.She was one of many Southwesters who fought the planned demolition when Congress passed urban renewal legislation in . Southwesters argued that few of the displaced black residents would be able to afford to rent the new units.Businessmen saw their livelihoods vanishing.So Schneider and fellow store own er Max R. Morris sued all the way to the Supreme Court.In they lost when the Court unanimously ruled in Berman v. Parker that the Redevelopment Land Agency could take (and de s troy) private businesses in order to improve an overall neighborhood. Demolition was allowed to proceed.
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