From Beer Garden to Park View georgia avenue and kenyon street nw Back when this area was open fields, the German American Schuetzen Verein (marksmanship society) created an amusement park. Washingtonians flocked to Schuetzen Park for target shooting, concerts, dancing, bowling, and picnics. The breezy, hilltop beer garden drew hundreds on hot summer nights. The 12.5-acre park stretched roughly from Kenyon south to Hobart Place. The fun ended in 1891, however, when Congress banned the sale of alcoholic beverages within a mile of the nearby Old Soldiers’ Home. As saloons closed and property values soared, the society sold the park. Soon rowhouses arose in “Park View,” named for the nearby Soldiers’ Home grounds. For four decades, Arthur E. Smith’s Modern School of Music offered top-notch instruction to children and adults, first at 749 Park Road and then at 3109 Georgia. Smith trained at DC’s Armstrong High School, Howard University, and the Julliard School before founding the school in the mid-1930s. Graduates included jazz saxophonist Charlie Hampton, who led the Howard Theatre’s house band in the 1960s. From 1963 until his death in 1983, Morris Morgan of Morgan’s Seafood, 3200 Georgia Avenue, served steamed crabs and spiced shrimp to neighborhood regulars and city politicians. Former DC Councilmember Charlene Drew Jarvis called Morgan “the ombudsman of Georgia Avenue” for 20 years of fostering community connections. John P. Murchison, Jr., opened Inter-City Mortgage at 3005 Georgia Avenue in 1968 as a pioneering full-service, federally approved African American mortgage lender. With white-owned banks still making homeownership difficult for blacks, the company helped thousands become homeowners.
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