Main Street

Main Street. Village in the City. , In 1903 a street car line arrived on Mt. Pleasant Street and so did new businesses. In this block were Sophia Weiss's notions shop, Domenico Pappalardo's shoe shop, and Lee Sing's laundry. The block's first commercial building (3215) was completed in 1906, designed by the prominent African American firm J.A. Lankford and Brother. , , There has been a family-run bakery here since 1922, beginning with Bohemian immigrant Frank Novotny's shop at 3215 Mt. Pleasant. German immigrant Paul Riedel owned it next. Then in the early 1930s, brothers August and Ludwig Heller, who had learned the family trade near Frankfurt, Germany, acquired the business. About 1940, Heller's moved to 3221, where some family members lived upstairs. , , Everybody in the extended Heller family worked in the bakery. Even the children assembled white cake boxes or cracked eggs. Soon Heller's drew customers from all over. As Heller's outlets sprouted around the city, all the baking was still done here. According to Greg Heller, at its height in the mid-1950s, Heller's operated 24 hours a day with a multinational workforce of 50. , , By 1960 many of the neighborhood's European immigrants had moved on, including the Hellers. But the family continued to bake here until they sold Heller's in 1983. Subsequent owners have retained the name and many original recipes. , , Mt. Pleasant Street's businesses included nightclubs. In the 1960s, the Fox Lounge at 3253, with its discreetly covered-up windows, quietly catered to Washington's gay community. The Crosstown Lounge at 3102 and the Oasis at 3171 drew citywide audiences for rock 'n' roll.