This week’s Weekly History post is a photo from 1929, showing a car dealership located at the northeast corner of 14th and Irving, where the Metro entrance and the Victory Heights buildings are now. The dealer was I.C. Barber Motor Co., which sold Hudson and Essex cars, old brands that were eventually part of AMC, which was then bought by Chrysler.
There’s also Gude Bros. florist, which still exists in the metro area, and Black and White Express, which appears to be a delivery company — they have two trucks and there are two cars parked nearby. One of those cars is parked in one of the rowhouse’s front yards — something that would be frowned on today. The only building in the scene that’s still there is 1361 Irving Street NW, which is behind the lamp post. You can see more detail if you click here for the big version.
Something else interesting in the photo are the phone numbers — there’s Columbia 633 on the truck and Frank 4100 on the building to the left that’s for rent. Back in the day they’d use words to make it easier to remember phone numbers: Columbia 633 would be something like COL633, for example, or 265-633.
I posted a photo of the northwest corner of 14th and Irving from 1949 awhile ago as well — you can see the old facade that was used in DCUSA. There was a car dealership in that photo too. Pretty popular corner for auto sales!
