Lift Every Voice

— Georgia Ave./Pleasant Plains Heritage Trail —

"Innumerable colored Chinese lanterns ... shedding that dim uncertain light which is the delight of lovers and the poetry of beer drinking" — Washington Post, June 1879

Back when this area was open fields, German Americans created an amusement park. Washingtonians flocked to Schuetzen (marksmanship) Park for target shooting, concerts, dancing, bowling, and picnics. The breezy, hilltop beer garden drew hundreds on hot summer nights. The Schuetzen Verein (Marksmanship Society) owned the 12.5-acre park, which stretched roughly from here south to Hobart Street.

For four decades, Arthur E. Smith's Modern Music School of Music offered top-notch instruction to children and adults, first at 749 Park Road and then at 3109 Georgia. Smith trained at DC's Armstrong High School, Howard University, and the Julliard School before founding the school in the mid-1930s. Graduates included jazz saxophonist Charlie Hampton, who led the Howard Theatre's house band in the 1960s.

From 1963 until his death in 1983, Morris Morgan of Morgan's Seafood, 3200 Georgia Avenue, served steamed crabs and spiced shrimp to neighborhood regulars and city politicians. Former DC Council member Charlene Drew Jarvis called Morgan "the ombudsman of Georgia Avenue" for 20 years of fostering community connections.

John P. Murchison, Jr., opened Inter-City Mortgage at 3005 Georgia Avenue in 1969 as a pioneering full-service, federally approved African American mortgage lender. With white-owned banks still make homeownership difficult for blacks, the company helped thousands become homeowners.

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