The Hill is Home

Some of you may have seen the article in the latest Hill Rag, in which a Hill resident describes finding an old advertisement painted on a brick wall in their house. It’s on the wall they share with their neighbor’s house, and was clearly painted when only the neighbor’s house was standing, then later plastered over when the newer house was built. I stopped by the other day to take my own pictures, and to try to find out more about this sign and particularly about the store which it advertised.

I have to agree with Judith Capen’s assessment, that the best thing to do is go downtown and go through the microfilm at MLK library, but I was able to find out a few things by searching in strange corners of the Internet.

The main mystery about the sign is the name “E. Steffen.”  The way it is placed made me think that it was the name of the person who drew the sign, rather than the establishment that is being advertised. While I was unable to shed any light on the name, but did find out some interesting facts about the address listed: 135 B St. SE, and did come to the conclusion that it was, in fact, the name of the store being promoted.

135 B St is now no longer. First off, B Street SE is Independence Avenue, and a topic for another day, but 135 is now covered by the James Madison Memorial Building of the Library of Congress (usually referred to by DC tour guides as “The box the Library came in”) There is no doubt, however, that the spot once contained a grocery store. The earliest reference thereto is in 1887, when the business directory indicates that a G. Riani sells groceries there. An article from that same year makes it clear that Mr. Riani was not just in the business of selling fruits and vegetables:

The Commissioners annulled barroom licenses to-day for the first time in the history of the Government. This summary action on the part of the Commissioners will undoubtedly bring numerous suits against them and cause criminal prosecutions in the courts. The parties whose licenses were annulled were George Riani, 135 B Street […] The W.C.T.U., in their complaint to Congress about the Commissioners, pointed out these four bar-rooms, together with the one kept by John Foy, on the same block, and claimed that they had not complied with the liquor laws-failing to get the majority of property owners and housekeepers on the block to recommend them for licenses.

This from the Washington Critic of March 7, 1887.

Mr. Riani, an important man amongst the Italian-American community, was dogged by bad luck in front of the Commissioners from thereon in. In 1896, he attempted to transfer his retail license to a building on E Street NE, but was denied. Thereafter, his name disappears from public records, and it can only be assumed that he sold his store to E. Steffen.

More on this after a foray to the Washingtoniana archives at MLK.