History catches up with local businesses
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| Northwest corner of 20th and P streets, where the Third Day, District Hardware, and the Bike Shop served the Dupont Circle neighborhood for decades. Photo October 11, 2007. |
As long as anyone in the Lauren can remember, the Third Day plant store shared the building at 21st and P with District Hardware/True Value and the Bike Shop, Candey's Hardware was over on 18th street between M and N, and for 20 years, the Dupont Odeon Cineplex was a block away from the Lauren on 19th Street.
Large, national chains like Home Depot and huge theatres like those in Union Station and Georgetown, for decades mainstays of suburban malls, are now moving downtown. Their greater variety of goods and services, and better buying power and selling prices, are too much for our little, local, family businesses.
The Third day is where we went for potting soil and our African violets, and advice about our ailing begonia. We got our extra keys made at District Hardware/True Value and picked up our little household tools.
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Photo October 11, 2007 |
If the District Hardware/True Value didn't have what we needed, we walked a over to Candey's on 18th, which had an almost unimaginable array of home hardware items in stock. It was what Harold Jaffe of the Baltimore Examiner once called, "quintessential hometown hardware store."
And no one can count the Saturday afternoons and Sunday evenings we spent watching foreign and independent films at the Odeon Cineplex. It was what critics were fond of calling Dupont Circle's "little artsy theatre."
Times have changed, and history has caught up with all of these neighborhood mainstays. The Third Day's owner, facing steep rent and a month-to-month lease arrangement, chose retirement and closed shop in August. Its neighbor, District Hardware, facing the same situation, chose after 35 years to move out of our neighborhood.
Benjamin Harrison was President when Candey's opened
in 1891. It has a dollar
bill framed on the wall that was spent by another President, Teddy
Roosevelt. But
our local family story has lost the competition with the national
chain home and hardware stores. Gwen Loftin, great-granddaughters of its
founder, is closing its doors at the first of
the year.
On New Year's Eve 2007, the Odeon Cineplex, our little 5-screen local neighborhood movie theatre, will run its last screening when its 20-year lease expires.
Time has run out for these little neighborhood businesses; they now or very soon will belong to history..