We reminisce about businesses past, and welcome the new ones

“Chevy Chase Ice Palace, Beginner Learning to Skate,” November 1942 by Edwin Rosscam (courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Should auld acquaintance be forgot? Not in our neighborhood.

Longtime residents can mark time not only by the calendar – but also by the businesses that have come and gone.

Have you been here long enough to remember Hot Shoppes? The Ice Palace? Clover Market and Marvelous Market? The shopping center at Van Ness Center?

Here are a few of the farewells and remembrances we’ve published:

Van Ness was home to DC’s first indoor mall.

Known to more recent arrivals as Van Ness Square, the building that once stood at 4455 Connecticut was the Ice Palace to an older generation. The Hot Shoppes across the street was another popular hangout.

Clover Market was a neighborhood institution for decades before it closed in 2012.

And when Mark Furstenberg’s first DC bakery, Marvelous Market, closed in 2013, members of the Chevy Chase listserv reminisced about other long-gone businesses on the 5000 block of Connecticut Avenue.

We didn’t have long to mourn Marvelous Market. Little Red Fox moved in later that year. Furstenberg returned to the neighborhood in 2014 with Bread Furst, the bakery at 4434 Connecticut.

Clover Market is now the Sri Lankan restaurant Banana Leaf.

Van Ness Square, decades past its glory days as an indoor ice skating rink and television studio, made way for Park Van Ness, which made room for Soapstone Market and Sfoglina. Sfoglina’s owners feel “warmly welcomed” by their neighbors.

Today’s technology makes it easier to take a walk down memory lane. An enterprising Historical Society intern has combined Google Street View with hundreds of mid-century DC photos. It’s a literal – and fascinating – window on the past.