From the category of “News I didn’t know until it was too late” comes this story: Yenching Palace is gone.
Yenching Palace is — was — a Chinese restaurant in Woodley Park, Washington, DC. As a restaurant, Yenching Palace was good, not fantastic; but as a historic spot it was great: the haunt of diplomats and statesmen, it was the scene of negotiations with Cuba during the missile crisis.
The two blocks of Connecticut Avenue where Yenching Palace was once situated is a little historic gem, with old shopping centers (across the street is “Park n’ Shop”, one of the first motor-court style strip shopping centers) and the majestic Uptown Theatre, which is impressive not just for it’s huge screen, but because it has resisted to urge to subdivide into multiple tiny screens.
There’s a CVS across the street, but hey, there was no Walgreens, which is obviously a huge oversight. So in they swoop, buying up the Yenching Palace and a piece of history is gone. Replaced by cheap drug store crap.
[Photo by NowPublic member mvs202]
