Chevy Chase Arcade

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

The Chevy Chase Arcade is a historic commercial arcade located in Washington, DC’s Chevy Chase neighborhood. Built in 1925 and constructed by real estate developer Edward Jones, it served both as a building for office space and retail sales. In August of 2003, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the Chevy Chase Arcade still provides retail experiences in the Chevy Chase Neighborhood.

Images

A view of the arcade's front facade in 2008 ((By AgnosticPreachersKid (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons))

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

In the early 1920s, real estate developer Edward Jones and architect Louis Moss worked together to design the Chevy Chase Arcade. Though it was designed for office space and shopping centers, it was also designed as a test arcade to model future shopping arcades after in the future. Construction on the arcade began and was completed in 1925 after it opened, the Chevy Chase Arcade was hugely successful, bringing more needed commerce to the Chevy Chase Neighborhood and beautifying the neighborhood with variety in architectural style. Many of the businesses that rented out both store space and office space were small businesses local to the area and provided services that were mostly based out of the neighborhood.

The Chevy Chase Arcade continued to prosper in the following decades, not only providing neighborhood-based services for the Chevy Chase Neighborhood, but it also became a central hub for the neighborhood itself, providing a centralized place for the neighborhood residents to meet and socialize. On August 4th of 2003, the Chevy Chase Arcade was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the Chevy Chase Arcade is still open for business and is still renting out storefronts and office spaces. As it was when it first opened, most of the businesses present at the Arcade are small, local businesses that cater to the needs of the neighborhood.

Sources

National Register of Historic Places. Chevy Chase Arcade. August 4, 2003. Accessed August 12, 2016. http://focus.nps.gov/GetAsset?assetID=8a44faae-e296-4de2-9efb-7fd040506427