Two missed (H Street) opportunities

1227 H Street NE, Washington, DC. The first time I walked into Chuck's on H street I knew I was in "musical candyland." Fender Jaguars stacked over your head, Super Reverbs (I got one) and Bassmans arranged like a fortress. Man it was great! 1965 and 15 years old, the British Invasion, and Chuck's. He and Marge would always throw in a free pair of drumsticks, a handful of picks, or a set of strings. Bought a Martin D28 from him in 1970, will never get rid of it. A big piece of my youth has now moved on. God rest his soul. --Gary Hancock. Images from Tribute to Chuck.

1. Chuck Levin's Washington Music Center was a thriving H Street business, until it was displaced by the riots in 1968. It reopened in Wheaton, Maryland and is now one of the largest musical instrument stores in the United States.

Today's Post has a story about the business today, "Chuck Levin's Riff 'n' Ready Charm." From the article:

Chuck and Marge Levin, then in the pawnshop business, opened the Music Center in 1958 at 12th and H streets downtown. It lasted there for 10 years, and then there were the riots. Brown, a teenage horn player then, remembers defying his police officer father by going down to check out the damage with some other music students. "Going through the alleys, there were drumheads on the ground. Walking through them, it was like potato chips, crispy, burned up by the fire," he says. "Folks around had guitars, instruments and stuff. It really bothered us because they had no right to have that stuff. It was so precious to us, they had no idea what they had."



2. I had heard things about this store, but had never got around to trying to interview Mr. Levin for his reminisences of working on H Street back when it was a successful commercial district. Then I read his obituary... (I have part of a copy of a Washington Times-Herald front section from 1953 and it is full of ads featuring H Street businesses. Imagine opening up the Washington Post A section today and finding 10-12 large ads featuring H Street businesses...)

The lesson here is don't wait around to gather such oral history interviews for your neighborhood or your neighborhood commercial district. (Sam Lacy, the famed sportswriter key in the integration of DC sporting events, is another person I wished I would have interviewed, about the history of the Uline Arena.)

1227 H Street NE, Washington, DC, after April 5th, 1968. You can't call LI (54) 3-6440 to reach the "Washington" Music Center anymore...

Index Keywords: retail; historic-preservation