One of our favorite local restaurants is the feature of a story in today’s Post.  Eatonville, at 14th & V Streets, is inspired by the life and literary works of Zora Neale Hurston, who grew up in Eatonville, Florida, and was one of the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance.  Hurston spent a few years in Washington attending Howard University, where in 1924 she co-founded The Hilltop, Howard’s student newspaper.

Her most famous work is her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which frequently makes the lists of best twentieth-century American novels.  In addition to writing fictional works, she was also a folklorist, collecting tales from rural black communities in the South and in the Caribbean, publishing them in Mules and Men and other titles and incorporating the tales into her novels.

Early this summer we read a fascinating essay on Hurston, who lived a highly unconventional life: she lied about her age (she was 26 going on 17) to get into Morgan State to get her high school diploma.  She eventually transferred to Howard and then to Barnard College for her undergraduate degree.

She deplored racism and Jim Crow but also criticized the New Deal and the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

She died in poverty in 1960, leaving a trail of novels, plays, folktales, academic research, and journalistic work; like many great cultural icons, her fame and acclaim increased long after her death.

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The restaurant Eatonville is an homage to Hurston’s life and work.  The food is decent and reasonably priced (especially for Washington) and the commissioned murals warrant a viewing even if you’re not hungry.

In our casual search of LeDroit Park’s history, we occasionally come across interesting tidbits in the most unexpected places.

A 1908 issue of The World To-Day, a self-described “monthly record of human progress”, featured an article on the breadth of professions and positions held by blacks in Washington at the time.  The article featured a photo of the U Street, looking east from 5th Street.  We have provided the original photo as well as a photo taken in the same perspective last week.

Ever since air conditioning, window shutters have never been as popular as they used to be.

Your author spent this evening in the Washingtoniana Division of the MLK Library researching the original building permit for his 1908 house.  Afterward, he browsed the Washington Post archives and came across several interesting articles, including the one transcribed below.

Though the streets, sidewalks, gas lines, water lines, and sewers of LeDroit Park were privately built, maintaining such infrastructure is costly for a private developer.  These utilities are usually conveyed to the municipality if build to the municipality’s code.  LeDroit’s developer, Amzi Barber, tried to unload the streets and utilities to the city, but the District Commissioners, probably upset over Barber’s off-kilter street grid, refused to accept the titles.  Recall that at this point, LeDroit Park was still a gated community closed off to visitors.

DISTRICT GOVERNMENT MATTERS
The Commissioners Do No Want the Streets in LeDroit Park
The Washington Post
January 7, 1886

The Commissioners having recently decided that they could not entertain any proposition to build sewers in the streets of LeDroit Park, because the streets were private property, Messrs. A. L. Barber, David McClelland and others presented the District with titles to the streets.  The Commissioners have decided, however, that the streets as now platted are not such as conform to the street system of Washington and its extension beyond the present boundaries of the city, and until such conformity is established it would appear to the interests of the District that title to these streets should remain where it is now, and that the District should refrain from assuming any responsibility or expense that would attach to them acceptance to public streets.  Therefore the deeds submitted by the gentlemen named have been returned.

The Kennedeys, civil rights, the Beltway, riots, suburbanization.  All this and more will be covered tonight on PBS’s one-hour special, Washington in the ’60s.

Washington in the ’60s airs tonight on WETA (channel 26) at 9 pm.