One of the largest of the three storage facilities was
located at 1313 U Street,
demolished in the 1970s along with the Republic Theater in anticipation of
construction for the U Street
entrance and tunnel of the Green line of the Metro. Its site stood as a vacant lot for decades,
and was only fairly recently replaced with the large Ellington apartment
complex.
Smith Transfer and Storage was established in 1909 and was
owned by Claredon and Arthur Smith with its U Street located managed for along time
by J. H. Glaszner. They specialized in
the moving of household goods only, and advertised in 1930 that they “had
gained the confidence and patronage of all who have ever availed themselves of
this most excellent storage.” Their
early horse drawn moving trucks no doubt were fixtures all across the city, and
the fire proof facility offered dust free rooms “greatly in demand for those
desiring to store valuable furniture.”
They employed 60 employees by 1930.
Still located at the corner of Florida Avenue and Ontario Road is a storage facility
originally built as Federal Security Storage.
It was designed by New York
architect Charles H. Moores, and built in 1925.
When it opened, it was declared “one of the most beautiful and
best-equipped warehouses in the country” by Distributing
and Warehousing magazine.
It was built as a fireproof structure to store household
furnishings, including “private rooms for furniture, silver vault, cold storage
vault for furs, draperies, rugs, and tapestries, fumigation chamber for
overstuffed furniture, insurance department, rug cleaning plant, and packing
department where valuable articles are prepared for shipment all over the
world.” In 1925, the company “owned and
operated a fleet of modern six cylinder pneumatic tired motor vans for
household removals.” They featured an
innovative “Bowling Green steel Lift Van” that was an early precedent to the
container cargo compartments of today; one steel box that could be transported
on ship, rail, or truck. It now serves
as the Security Moving and Storage building.
The building that still serves as a storage facility today
at 1420 U Street
was originally built for the Fidelity Storage Company in 1905. It was designed by the architectural firm of
Beecher, Fiz & Gregg and owned by James L. Kanick, who served as its
President for many years. Other storage
facilities were built by Fidelity in cities such as Philadelphia about the same time. Today, the building is owned by Storage USA,
offering self storage services, and storage for such local vendors such as a
flower shop and even the nearby McDonalds fast food restaurant.
These three storage businesses served the needs of most
transient Washingtonians in an era when wealthy residents routinely stored
their household furnishings for a year while they traveled abroad, summered in
the country, or stored off season furniture and clothing. They also served as a cleaning and fumigating
need in an era of wool, fur, and household pests that could destroy exquisite
fabrics within days. Two of the three
buildings remain, but are no longer operated by a local based storage business,
with self storage now a way of life for city residents.
