The H Street Playhouse was a black box theater and gallery located in the Atlas District of Washington, D.C. Home to resident companies Scena Theatre, Theater Alliance and Forum Theatre, the Playhouse also hosted African Continuum Theatre Company, Musefire, Landless Theater Company, Theater Blue, Journeymen Theater Company, Madcap Players, Solas Nua, Restoration Stage, Capitol Renaissance Theatre, and Barnstormers. After opening its doors in 2001, the H Street Playhouse, with Theater Alliance, was at the forefront of a movement to develop and revitalize the H Street commercial corridor. The H Street Playhouse closed in 2012.[2]
The building was built in 1928 by William Oshinsky and leased to businesses or was vacant during his ownership of the property from construction to 1959.
The building was originally occupied by Sam's Garage and Moller Motors according to the 1928 Business Directory. There is no evidence that the building was custom built for their intended use. Evidence and circumstance suggests that the building was built speculatively to capitalize on the demand for automobiles and the significant growth and flux of the automobile sales industry. In June 1928, the Hupmobile distributor in D.C. was listed as Mott Motors, Inc. with sales and service at 1507 14th St., NW and Union Station Garage at 50 H St., NE. An article headlined as ' NEW HUPMOBILE IS IN BIG DEMAND' in the Washington Herald on Sunday July 15, 1928, stated:
The continued record-breaking demand for the new Hupmobile Century models is giving us one of the hardest jobs we have had in years in keeping our stock cars in shape to make deliveries,
said TT Mott Washington, distributor.
Our business has been on a steady increase since the first of last fall. We have kept a steady stream of letters and telegrams between here and Detroit to try and impress on the factory officials the serious need for new cars in Washington and adjacent territory.
This situation as well as the pressure exerted by competing car companies and models, such as the new Plymouth 4 (model Q) introduced in July 1928, most probably encouraged Mott to expand to the 1300 block of H Street, NE.[3]
In 1929 and 1930, the building at 1365 H St NE was occupied as a branch automobile showroom of Mott Motors, Inc., owned by Thomas T. Mott. The main showroom was located at 1512–1520 14th Street NW listed as a Hupmobile Dealership. Another Mott showroom was located at 1738 14th Street NW. This was a short-lived venture at 1365 H St NE that appears to have ceased in the early thirties. In 1930, Thomas T. Mott lived in Bethesda, Maryland. One other Hupmobile dealership located in Washington, D.C., was owned by Sterret and Fleming, located on Champlain Street at Kalorama Rd NW and 1223 Connecticut Avenue NW.
In 1931 the building was occupied by Nash RJ Motor Co. In 1932 and 33, Nash Rohr Barsky, Inc. was listed as the occupant of 1365 H Street. In 1934 it was occupied by Kingston-Otey Motors. The building was occupied by Duke & Otey Motors, Inc. from 1935 to 1939. From 1940 to 1942, Duke & Cooksey were listed as occupants of the building.
By 1943 the property began a period of volatility and adaptive reuses. This period lasted from 1943 until the Oshinskys sold the building in 1959. At various times in this period, the building was vacant.
H Street Playhouse
The Plymouth Theatre motion picture theater was created as a neighborhood theater for Black people with its grand opening in 1943. Morris Hallett was the architect for this adaptive reuse that took the former Plymouth car salesroom and converted it into a 400-seat (300-seat by some accounts) movie theater. The remodeling cost $3,500. In 1945, Ike Weiner took it over until it closed in 1952. The property was listed by the City Directory as vacant in 1954 and was likely vacant from the time the theater closed in 1952 until 1955.
King Furniture Company was located at 8203 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland. In 1955 they expanded to include 1365 H Street as one of their furniture stores. This lasted until 1957, when both King Furniture and the Jet Arena were listed in the telephone directory of that year.
Roller Rink Jet Arena was listed in the telephone directory in one edition of the 1957 telephone directory under skating rinks.
King Furniture in the white pages of the telephone directory published in September, 1958, 1365 H Street is listed as the only location for King Furniture.
According to Congressional Title, in 1959 the building was sold by the Oshinskys to Clements Printing, a long-standing business in the 1300 block of H Street and occupied this building from 1959 until 1984.
French's Restaurant was operated by John French, former Vice President with McDonald's Corporation, who purchased the property from Clements Printing in 1984 and completed a renovation to open a southern soul food restaurant. This restaurant operated until the end of 2001 upon sale of the building to Adele and Bruce Robey. The Robeys, publishers of the local newspaper, Voice of the Hill and proprietors of Phoenix Graphics, purchased the building with the sole purpose of converting the building to a live theater venue.
Hupmobile was an automobile built from 1909 through 1939 by the Hupp Motor Car Company of Detroit. The prototype was developed in 1908.
14th Street NW/SW is a street in Northwest and Southwest quadrants of Washington, D.C., located 1.25 miles (2.01 km) west of the U.S. Capitol. It runs from the 14th Street Bridge north to Eastern Avenue.
The Automobile Alley neighborhood and Automobile Alley Historic District in Oklahoma City is an upscale Urban area, located roughly along North Broadway Avenue in Downtown Oklahoma City. The district contains numerous low and mid-rise heritage buildings once home to the city's automobile dealerships, that today hosts many of the city's top bars and restaurants, retail shops, and urban residences alongside modern construction consisting mostly of residential housing and hotels. Automobile Alley is listed in the National Historic Register of neighborhoods.
H Street is a set of east–west streets in several of the quadrants of Washington, D.C. It is also used as an alternate name for the Near Northeast neighborhood, as H Street NW/NE is the neighborhood's main commercial strip.
Penn Quarter is a historic neighborhood of Downtown Washington, D.C., located north of Pennsylvania Avenue, in Northwest D.C. Penn Quarter is roughly equivalent to the city's early downtown core near Pennsylvania Avenue and 7th Street NW, Penn Quarter is an entertainment and commercial hub, home to many museums, theaters, cinemas, restaurants, bars, art galleries and retail shops. Landmarks include the Capital One Arena, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Harman Center for the Arts, among others. The area is also home to a popular farmers market and several food, wine, art, and culture focused festivals.
Near Northeast, also known as Néné, is a neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C. It is bounded by North Capitol Street to the west, Florida Avenue to the north, F Street to the south, and 15th Street to the east.
The Cass Motor Sales is a commercial building located at 5800 Cass Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, USA. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Main Street is a major north–south thoroughfare in Los Angeles, California. It serves as the east–west postal divider for the city and the county as well.
Englert Theatre in Iowa City, Iowa, is a renovated vaudeville-era playhouse now serving as a community arts center and 725-seat performance venue. It is owned and operated year around by Englert Civic Theatre, a non-profit art organization. The building was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. In 2021, it was included as a contributing property in the Iowa City Downtown Historic District.
The Playhouse Theatre is a theater located at 4045 University Way NE on The Ave in the University District, Seattle, Washington. It was converted from a tile warehouse in 1930 by Burton and Florence James, who set up the Seattle Repertory Playhouse with multi-ethnic performers and audiences.
The Park Theatre (est.1879) was a playhouse in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It later became the State cinema. Located on Washington Street, near Boylston Street, the building existed until 1990.
Homer B. Roberts (1885–1952) was a graduate of Kansas State Agricultural College and veteran of World War I who was the first black man to attain the rank of lieutenant in the United States Army Signal Corps. He began his auto business by placing ads in the local paper advertising used cars. By the end of 1919, Roberts had negotiated over 60 car sales exclusively for African-American buyers. He hired two salesmen to work his lot, offered auto insurance and payment terms to customers, and later founded Roberts Motors, the first African-American owned car dealership in the United States.
The Apollo Theater was a movie theater located at 624 H Street NE in Washington, D.C. which played silent movies. It was built in 1913 and was part of the Crandall network of movie theaters popular at the time. It was demolished in 1955. The lot is today occupied by a residential building named the "Apollo" in its honor.
Parts of F Street and 7th Street, N.W. and nearby blocks have historically been the heart of the Washington, D.C. Downtown shopping district. In the first half of the 20th century there were numerous upscale large department stores along and near F Street, while 7th Street housed more economical emporia and large retail furniture stores. The F street corridor stretches west from Downtown's Penn Quarter and Gallery Place towards 15th Street, while the 7th Street corridor includes the neighborhoods of Penn Quarter, Chinatown and Mount Vernon Square, and extends up to the border of Shaw.
The McClure-Nesbitt Motor Company is a historic automobile dealership in the South of Main neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It was listed on the Columbus Register of Historic Properties in 2017.
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