Review of “An H Street History Evening”

Photo courtesy of Flickr by NCinDC

A few weeks ago, I attended the “Rickeys, Riots, & Retail: An H Street History Event” at Smith Commons.  I’ve lived in the H Street area for 6 years, and was intrigued by this event. I’ve always meant to do some research on the area, find out who the people were, what they did, but something always comes up. So when this event showed up in my inbox, I was excited about a night that involved both booze and learning about my neighborhood.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I think what I was expecting was more than what I got out of the event. The evening started with one of the bartenders explaining the history of the Rickey. The Rickey was originally created with bourbon whiskey in Washington, D.C. at Shoomaker’s bar by bartender George A. Williamson in the 1880s, purportedly in collaboration with Democratic lobbyist, Colonel Joe Rickey, and it became a worldwide sensation when mixed with gin.  The DC Craft Bartenders Guild, an independent Guild of bartenders in the District, designated July as Rickey Month and has since held annual competitions to celebrate D.C.’s native cocktail by inviting local bartenders to compete.  I never knew that, and learning that was pretty cool. That was also the special drink of the evening.

Next up on the agenda was a slideshow of the architecture of H Street.  Photographs of current buildings on H Street were shown, while the presenter gave a very dry description of the buildings and when they may have been built.  There was very little insight into what business were in the buildings; who may have lived or worked in those buildings; and what H street may have been like long ago.  The riots in the 1960s on H street where just mentioned in passing, but no real insight into how they may have shaped H street was given.  I can’t blame the presenter on this piece, as much as the organizers.  I think a better approach would have been to have both the architect and a historian who could have been able to offer more anecdotes.

After the presentation, a conversation on the awesomeness of H Street was initiated. The first topic brought up was the trolley system, in which several theories were given on its delay, from the cars still being in Europe somewhere, to their breathing fire (I actually made that part up, but that is how ridiculous the conversation got).   In swooped fellow THIH writers Jen DeMayo and Tim Krepp to save the day and debunk the myths of the foreign fire-breathing trolley cars.   I actually learned a lot from their impromptu presentation.

The evening is best summed up with my last experience of it. After the trolley talk, a fellow attendee turned to me and asked when H street really start picking up again. I let him know that in my own opinion, development started happening about 6 years ago and that the Argonaut was the first bar/eatery to really get things going.  He looked at me with a puzzled look on his face and asked, “What’s the Argonaut?”

As I stated before, I do think that this could be an excellent event to redo in the future. Perhaps it could even be done as a weekly series set in a different place, giving the history of that building in particular, or even of the block.  I think learning the history of where we live is important; and when that is paired with a cocktail, it’s even better!