Below is the identical perspective taken in September of 2009. The Mode building was a pretty pathetic site in its last years on that corner.

This building was sadly maimed before it was razed in the mid-90s - it's visible at far left here:

image from Flickr user Kinorama.

A couple of expensive cars here -- can't identify the town car in the center, but the one with the light colored wheels to the left is a Pierce-Arrow.

you couldn't find a parking space in D.C.

Now what is the difference between a hatter and a haberdasher? I had always assumed they were the same.

[Hatters and milliners do hats; haberdashers do haberdashery -- men's clothing and accessories. - Dave]

that some of the ghosts in this picture would have been virtually invisible if they hadn't chosen to wear shoes that day?

I gotta pick up a couple of hat frames tomorrow.

I've heard possums described in many different ways, but "the sweetest morsel that can be set before man" is not one of them. I wonder how many hungry customers showed up that day?

Look at the couple crossing the street and behold the vision that inspired the Futurist movement.

The United Cafeteria opened in February 1919. The ad below is for one of their more exotic dinners. Based on other advertisements, the more typical fare included Roast Prime Ribs, Oyster Pot Pie, Chicken A La King, and Lobster a La Neuburg.

A Success From the Start

Washington during the past week has given cordial welcome to the United Cafeteria, 1008-1010 F street, opened a few days ago as the latest addition to the National Capital's already noteworthy assemblage of dining places. The new restaurant is unique in many of its features. A woman chef superintends the appetizing conceits that proceed from the kitchens to the display counters, patrons are taken care of at double capacity service stations and a stringed orchestra is regularly in attendance. A palm room is the novelty that occupies the basement floor.

Every appointment of the spacious dining rooms, from the immaculate linen to the generously filled platters, is suggestive of the refinements of service not ordinarily afforded by dining places of the popular, quick-lunch type. Courtesy, promptness and thoroughness of service, together with every excellence of cuisine, have united to command a patronage of over a thousand patrons at every meal. To Richard Neddo, president of United Cafeteria Company and owner of Hotel Neddo, of Norfolk Va., is accorded the praise for the enterprise that gives Washington this new and commodious and altogether desirable place to eat. It's the crowning achievement, by the way, in the career of a man who as a train boy received his first "service" lessons in dispensing water to travelers on the old C.H. and D.R.R [Cincinnati, Hamilton, & Dayton Railroad] back in 1873.

Washington Post, Feb 9, 1919

The Mode is gone, but not the two fine red brick buildings behind it on 11th.

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