The Modern Shopper georgia avenue and park road nw
Braving a blizzard in February 1936, eager customers lined up to experience a modern, self-service, cash-only supermarket. Nehemiah Cohen and Samuel Lehrman’s Giant Food here on Georgia Avenue was the chain’s first. Although the Memphis-born Piggly Wiggly chain pioneered the supermarket concept, it took Giant to capture DC consumers. Giant moved into the former Park View Market, which had opened in 1923 with 180 tiled stalls. Before the supermarket, food shopping meant stopping at stand-alone bakeries, butcher shops, and other specialty stores, or at stalls inside a market shed. In all cases, shopkeepers filled the orders. Although mom-and-pop stores offered customers credit between paydays and also delivery, Giant’s efficiency and lower prices nearly made small specialty stores obsolete. Despite the arrival of supermarkets, small corner groceries continued to serve neighborhoods. Many were owned by Jewish families who belonged to the city-wide buying cooperative District Grocery Stores, or DGS. In the 1930s, three Jewish groceries operated on the 3300 block of Georgia, and at least 15 along the route of this trail. The ornate police substation at 750 Park Road opened in 1901 as the 10th Precinct headquarters, serving 15 square miles of “suburbs” stretching north from Florida Avenue and Benning Road to the District line, and west to Rock Creek. At 3641 Georgia Avenue is the former York movie theater. The York was built by theater mogul Harry Crandall, who also built the Tivoli (14th Street and Park Road) and Lincoln (U Street) movie palaces.
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