Freeny's to buy some clothes.

Wardman is a familiar name to anyone who knows DC history. I was surprised to find this with a Google search, although the company website is no longer active.

The tubing overhead would be temporary electrical cable, could be anything but most likely telephone and alarm line due to existing right of ways when they were on poles. For some reason this point of construction went below grade, perhaps for a basement excavation ramp early on. On either side the underground cables were accessed and parallel cables were spliced in and ran overhead. Once the overhead was spliced in, the underground portion was then cut out. When the construction was completed, new underground was installed and spliced in, then the overhead was removed. Cable splicing of this size, especially telephone could take many days and all of this effort was to insure no service interruptions to customers.

The National Bank of Washington Building is one of only 15 properties in DC with a historic interior designation. In 2000 the building was purchased with funds from wealthy donors for use as a museum and memorial to the Armenian Genocide. However, disputes between the donors led to legal disputes that have delayed the completion of the museum for over a decade. This photo (with HDR effect) was taken in 2009 and the facade looks exactly the same today.

What are those tubes loosely draped over the sidewalk scaffolding?
Temporary power lines?...water?

I guess one could say that the policeman is located at the corner of "stop and go".

Here is a picture from google maps

I will take a current one from the vantage point tomorrow.

Bank president John Poole was an innovator who patented "Clear Vision" counters that would not put bars between tellers and customers. But the bank was clearly over-reaching by building this monumental headquarters. Full history can be found here.

for the police officer in the middle of the street with the "STOP & GO" sign (manually operated, of course).

There aren't a whole lot of cars around!

Not only does this building still stand, empty, but the boarded up Hahn Shoes in the ground floor retail space is still there, too. It looks very out of place, considering the high-end retail and restaurants at this bustling and popular downtown corner.

My mom worked at that Hahn Shoes after graduating from high school in 1944. In fact, she was on her way to work one September morning the year she graduated when she realized she missed school. She got off the bus at the door of Wilson Teacher College, took the entrance exam and went home to tell her parents she was going to college. She was the youngest in the family, so I guess they shrugged their shoulders and said OK.

She is the only woman in her immigrant family to get a college degree back then, and it meant she didn't make a career of working at the shoe store. But even when we were kids in the mid-60s, we'd go to the Hahn's at Seven Corners to get our new school shoes because Mom still knew people who worked there.