Founded by Abram Lisner, Palais Royal expanded from its beginnings as a specialty store to a successful department store. Lisner operated the store as a cash-only business that offered low-price merchandise, attracting customers to shop there with the help of his brother George Lisner. Palais Royal started its lifetime as a smaller store in the larger Centennial Building at 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. However, as the store grew, Lisner found that renting more space in the building proved less profitable, and began searching for his own building. What resulted was a new building at 11th and G streets NW, a growing commercial center in DC. Designed by Harvey L. Page and completed in 1893, the Chicago-style building was unique to the city and considered by some to be the first purpose-built department store in the city. The building sat at an optimal location, allowing it to expand even further – both vertically and horizontally – from 1910 to 1914. As public transportation expanded throughout the city, Palais Royal was again prime real estate as it sat directly on a streetcar line. The store’s success marked a new period in DC’s retail history as one of the original department stores to make up the downtown commercial core. In 1924, Lisner sold the Palais Royal business to S.S. Kresge Department Stores Company and entered retirement. The store’s takeover did not majorly affect the business, and Palais Royal even expanded during this time, opening two new branch stores outside the city in 1942 and 1943. The expansion would be quickly nullified, however, by the sale of the flagship store to Woodward & Lothrop three years later in 1946. Woodward & Lothrop, located one block south, quickly took over the building for its own expansion purposes and created an underground tunnel to connect the two buildings. Under Woodward & Lothrop ownership, the acquisition would prove increasingly fruitful. During Metro’s construction in the 1970s, the existing underground tunnel gave executives the idea to have the new subway station connect to the store’s existing underground entrance. While the takeover by Woodward & Lothrop proved successful for decades, their eventual downsizing in the 1980s meant saying goodbye to the Palais Royal building. The building had been designated as an historic landmark in 1964 (and redesignated in 1973), but was sold for redevelopment. Efforts were made to save the building from demolition, due to its unique architectural style and construction, but these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. The building was demolished in 1987 and the Washington Center office building stands in its place today.
DC Inventory: November 8, 1964, omitted from list July 24, 1968DC Inventory Redesignation: October 24, 1973
Demolished in 1987
This site is a stop on the “Finding Style in DC: Navigating DC’s Shopping Scene” tour.
]]>Old Engine Company No. 6 served as the first firehouse of the Metropolitan Hook and Ladder Company in Washington, DC. Built in 1862, the firehouse accommodated horses with heavy equipment. Old Engine Company No. 6 also responded to some of the city's earliest historic conflagrations, such as the Smithsonian Institution Castle (1865) and the U.S. Patent Office (1877). This firehouse reflects the professionalization of firefighters in DC. Since firehouses were private volunteer companies, local government hoped to quell rivalries between the forces. By an 1864 DC government act, the DC Fire Department consolidated stations to organize paid fire departments, transitioning from a volunteer force to a modern professional one. However, the DC Fire Department still had some volunteer staff. Old Engine Company No. 6 occupied the building for 95 years before its decommission in 1974; until that point, it was the oldest operating firehouse in DC. In 2012, the location reopened as the Sixth Engine Restaurant. The owners sold the restaurant in 2019 to The Pub and The People; they plan to keep the menu and vibe similar to Sixth Engine, serving craft beer and gastropub fare. DC Inventory: April 29, 1975
National Register: September 5, 1975
]]>The Nineteenth Street Baptist Church is considered to be the first and oldest Black Baptist congregation in DC. The First Baptist Church, where Nineteenth Street Baptist Church finds its roots, initially described the congregation as interracial. However, when First Baptist Church moved in 1833 from its location on 19th and I Streets NW to a new location, the church began segregating its Black and white parishioners, assigning Black members seats in the gallery. In response, a majority of the Black members chose to return to the original site. They continued to worship under the authority of the First Baptist Church until 1839, when the group organized as a separate congregation, known as the First Colored Baptist Church of Washington. A committee of Baptist ministers and church members came together to organize this church, including Reverend Jeremiah Moore, Reverend Lewis Richards, Reverend Adam Freeman, Reverend William Parkinson, Charles P. Polk, Cephas Fox, Charles Rogers, John Buchan, Joseph Borrows, and Sarah Borrows. The committee bought Lot 11 in Square 118 on the corner of Nineteenth and I Streets NW to erect a church to be incorporated into The Baptist Church of Christ; the church was later incorporated in 1870 as the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church. The congregation remained in the church building on the corner of 19th and I Streets NW for 135 years, until they moved in 1975 to their present location at 4606 16th Street NW. Despite being added to the DC Inventory of Historic Sites in 1964, the original Nineteenth Street Baptist Church was demolished in 1976. DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
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