African American entrepreneur and
banker John W. Lewis built the building on the northeast corner of 11th
and U Streets, NW in 1922. It housed a
drug store on the first floor. Only five
years earlier, he had the Industrial Savings Bank constructed across the
street, of which he was President and founder.
In the boom days from the 1920’s to
the 1940’s, U Street was the entertainment capital of black Washington and
within its corridors were myriad cabarets, jazz spots, supper clubs, dance
halls, and cafes featuring the best African American artists of the day. Operated as a prominent nightclub spot under
a variety of names from its opening in 1926 to 1970, the basement at 2001 11th
Street reached its zenith peaked in the late 1960’s, when it was known as the
“Bohemian Caverns,” standing out as the doyenne of U Street.
Its name resonated the theme of
faux stalactites and stalagmites that continued as a dramatic decorative theme
throughout the various incarnations of nightclubs that would occupy the
basement over the next 60 years.
First opened as the Night Club
Bohemia, the club was immediately patronized by black Washington’s elite
citizens in formal evening dress.
Perhaps the best known of the modern “You Street” venues, the nightspot
has had a succession of names, each of which appropriately resonant of a
particular era. The name of the club changed from Night Club Bohemia to Crystal Caverns, sometimes billed
as Club Caverns “the rendezvous of Washington’s
Socially Elite.” Later incarnations were
a disco club coined the Cave and lastly as the Underground Cafe as late as 1970.
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| Pearl Baily at the Club (with cigarette) |
It was under the guidance of Tony
Taylor, a jazz guru and entrepreneur and something of a legend himself, that
the “Caverns” achieved its holy status as a jazz joint. His club has subsequently been memorialized
in recordings by artists Ramsey Lewis and Les McCann. It is the appearances by Cannonball, Miles,
Trane and Eric Dolphy that are remembered as defining moments in the life of a
club whose final chapter was writ in the massive civil insurrection that marked
the assassination of Martin Luther King.
Evidence of the club's impact on
developing jazz musicians can be heard on recordings made by the JFK Quintet, a
group mostly comprised of Howard University students and alumni. Harry MacArthur’s weekly column in the Evening Star called “After Dark,” on
October 25, 1962 stated that Taylor “sports one of the more spectacular
mustaches in the Metropolitan Area, says he hopes to keep the prices in a range
that will not bankrupt and of his and Mr. Alvino’s patrons. He promises a steak for $4.25, a lesser one
for $3.25, and a lessor one than that for $1.50. The kitchen for the club was then located in
the rear portion of the fist floor, near the alley. This made for easy access and departure of
some of the city’s well known black Mafia who were known to frequent the club
at the time.”
