Mount Vernon Place Once Upon A Time

My father, George Cokinos and Billie Stathes became fast friends when he was six, and she was five  in 1922. Greek immigrants had put down serious roots here in Washington by then, raising families and funds for a church of their own which they wanted to call St Sophia. In 1922, Billie remembers the church was still meeting in an upstairs room rented from the synagogue on 6th and G.

Billie  (front and center)

As she tells it, my father loved to entertain the Sunday school class whenever the teacher had to step out. He would make silly faces and wag his fingers- anything to make everyone laugh. They remained good friends for life. My brothers both lived with her after she moved to Florida to teach at Miami High School. She became my sister's godmother, and she took it upon herself to make sure my children had books every Christmas.

George with the bow

Billie is 91 now, and she recently attended my father's funeral here in Washington. She flew in from Florida where she is retired though she still finds the energy to translate Greek verses which are published in a tiny book. She gave me this remarkable map of the St Sophia neighborhood - drawn specifically from her memories by her cousin, Nick Chacos who is an architect.



 Billie also included this narrative with the map:

 I called the two blocks of Eighth Street near Mt. Vernon Square where I lived from 1922-1933 "the village." Mount Vernon Square with its beautiful park and library was our landmark for an every day visit after school.

On the corner of 8th and L was the Greek Orthodox Church. There was a social hall in the basement where dances for teenagers were held every Friday night. You had to be fourteen to attend. 



 Next to the church was a small two story house where the caretaker Alec and his wife Koula Cokinos lived. Their home was always open for cookies and a visit.

All of the houses on the right were brownstones, three or four stories high. On the left was a row of small homes where the colored folk lived. We all played together.
Dr. Fred Repetti, the village doctor, lived on 8th and L, too.  Every family went to him for advice and medicine. During prohibition, he would give prescriptions for bourbon, Four Roses and rum. The drugstore at the other corner gladly filled them in medicine bottles. We made wine in our basement every year, and even the policemen would be waiting for it. Around the corner on M street was the grocery store and the Chinese laundry. 

Our pride and joy was the corner of 8th and M where there were four gas stations. We were very very proud of them. No one on our blocks owned an automobile. We would go to the corner every day to look at the marvelous cars which stopped for gas. Two blocks were torn down in the late 1930s taking our village with them.

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(9th and L today)

Most of the neighborhood is gone now, although the 1905 Carnegie library is still in tact. The new convention center has obliterated blocks of Billie's history with only a a historic sign to remind people of the past and preserve a few pictures and anecdotes of the way things were.

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St. Sophia moved uptown in 1951- just off Massachusetts's Avenue where it stands today.
Click on the maps above to see details of the gone away village.

H Street Northeast Revisited

Now that H Street is coming back into its own, I wanted to pick my father George’s brain about what it was like back in his day, in the 1920s. I decided we ought to take a tour, and see what was left, so my parents and I climbed into my pollen laden car and went back in time.

Our first hurdle was getting to H Street from Northwest to Northeast. Everywhere we went the streets are being ripped up with new construction. Plus George couldn’t see through all the green funk on the windshield so that was a handicap, but we finally found the block where my grandfather, Peter Cokinos, had his candy shop at 1103 H Street.

Pete opened this shop after working with his cousin James on 8th Street SE. He made candy and ice cream in the basement here, and my father was one of his biggest shoplifters.

H Street has been slow to recover from the the riots of 1968. Whole blocks were burned, and this was one of them. The exact address is gone, but there is a convenience store at 1101 H Street right about where the shop should be.

I asked Dad about other Greeks in the neighborhood back then, and you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a half dozen families - including branches of our own clan. James Cokinos bought the candy shop from my grandfather and also had a deli at 10th and K.  Another cousin Nick Kendros had the Woodward Sandwich Shop at 1422 H Street. The Kavakos family ran a grill at 8th and H which became a very popular nightclub during World War II, but was torn down in the 1990s.

The Kalevas family ran the Rendezvous- another hot spot. The Chaconas Bar and Grill was at 10th and H, and the Bacchus Grill was at H and 15th (owned by the Bacchus family not the god) He also remembers the Paramount Grill run by two Greek brothers. It was "a blue collar sort of breakfast place." (Imagine that.) The Gatsos family had a barber shop where you could get your shoes shined, too.

The Gatsos Family

Besides all the Greeks in the neighborhood, there was also Whal's Department Store which was two stories high and carried everything. There were three movie theaters- the Apollo, the Empire and the Princess - all of them gone now. (The Atlas which is now a performing arts center didn’t open until the late 1930s.)

Our next stop was 919 11th Street, the house where my Dad was born. (yes, at home) Here's the family on the front porch around 1923.

The block is a little worn down now, the fluted columns on the houses have been replaced, but the place is still standing in 2002. It was 20 feet wide and 35 feet deep, and they used every inch. My father says the kitchen was in the basement which was common at the time.

A few blocks away, at the corner of Montello and Neal, we found Samuel E Wheatley Elementary. Dad didn't recognize it at first with its two large additions. When he went there in 1920, it was a brand new school named for a very popular police commissioner and businessman. The building is empty now, but plans are underway to renovate. This is where Dad and Aunt Catherine walked to school, and where they learned to speak English. (Only Greek was spoken at home.)

Finally we went to the DC Farmer's Market on Florida Avenue.  A lot of the stalls are boarded up now, but Dad remembers when it was all going full force so it took us a while to find Litteri's Italian market- one of the few places left with a lot of history.

Little has changed since this Italian grocery and deli moved here in 1932. (Mom thought she even recognized one of the countermen.) After a long wait for sandwiches worth waiting for, we picnicked with the carpenter bees at my son Kit’s school, Hardy, which is being temporarily housed in the Hamilton School. I can't help but note that the building is located on Brentwood Parkway just off Florida Avenue, within walking distance of his grandfather's childhood.