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Kramers (bookstore)

1976 establishments in Washington, D.C.American companies established in 1976Dupont CircleIndependent bookstores of the United StatesLandmarks in Washington, D.C.
Privately held companies based in Washington, D.C.Retail companies based in Washington, D.C.Retail companies established in 1976
Kramerbooks
Kramerbooks

Kramers (formerly known as Kramerbooks & Afterwords or Kramer's) is an independent bookstore and cafe in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Since its founding in 1976 by Bill Kramer, Henry Posner, and David Tenney, Kramer's has become a local institution and meeting place for neighborhood residents, authors, and politicians. It was one of the first bookstores in the country to feature a cafe which influenced similar business models nationwide. Notable people that have visited Kramer's include Barack Obama, Andy Warhol, Maya Angelou, and Monica Lewinsky, whose purchases at the bookstore attracted national attention during the Lewinsky scandal investigation and led to a high-profile legal battle. Kramer's was sold in 2016 to Steve Salis.

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Kramers (bookstore)
Connecticut Avenue Northwest, Washington Dupont Circle

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N 38.9108 ° E -77.0438 °
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Kramerbooks & Afterwords Café

Connecticut Avenue Northwest 1517
20015 Washington, Dupont Circle
District of Columbia, United States
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Leiter House
Leiter House

The Leiter House was a large mansion that once stood at 1500 New Hampshire Avenue NW in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Completed in 1893 for wealthy businessman Levi Leiter, the palatial 55-room neoclassical residence was designed by architect Theophilus P. Chandler Jr., whose notable works include Trinity Episcopal Church, the Stirling mansion, St. Thomas Episcopal Church, and the North Philadelphia station. The house was one of several mansions that were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries around the perimeter of Dupont Circle, a traffic circle and park that was considered a fashionable area at the time. Leiter had made his fortune in real estate ventures after cofounding what would later become the Marshall Field & Company department store chain. He and his wife, Mary, wanted to be involved in social circles in the nation's capital and relocated with their children to Washington, D.C. in 1883. They spent the first decade in the city renting another large Dupont Circle house, the James G. Blaine Mansion, before moving into their finished home in 1893. Throughout their time in the city, the Leiters entertained at their residences, hosted foreign dignitaries and members of local society, and hosted a wedding breakfast and reception for their daughter, Mary, to George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. Following Leiter's death in 1904, his wife continued occupying the house for several years, hosting the weddings of their other daughters, including Margaret to Henry Howard, 19th Earl of Suffolk. Mary gifted the house to her son, Joseph, and daughter-in-law on their wedding day in 1908. Joseph and his wife continued the tradition of hosting social events in the house for the next few decades. The couple allowed the Italian government to use their house during World War I and the Soviet government briefly rented the house for use as diplomatic offices in the 1930s. During World War II the US government rented the house as office space for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. It was during this time that Joseph's son, Thomas, sold the house to a local architect and real estate developer. Two years after the war, the building was demolished after being stripped of valuable building materials. It was replaced with the Hotel Dupont Plaza, now known as The Dupont Circle Hotel. The only remaining large residences that once lined Dupont Circle are the Blaine Mansion, Patterson Mansion, and Wadsworth House, home of the Sulgrave Club.

Lambda Rising
Lambda Rising

Lambda Rising was an LGBT bookstore that operated from 1974 to 2010 in Washington, D.C. Founded by Deacon Maccubbin in 1974 with 250 titles, it was known for its wide selection of books, ranging from queer theory and religion to erotica, as well as DVDs, music CDs and gifts.The bookstore was originally located in 300 square feet (28 m2) at 1724 20th Street NW. It moved to a 900-square-foot (84 m2) retail space at 2001 S Street NW in 1979 and, in 1984, moved to a 4,800-square-foot (450 m2) space at 1625 Connecticut Ave NW Connecticut Avenue, N.W., in Dupont Circle, one of Washington's neighborhoods popular among the gay and lesbian community.A second store in Baltimore, believed by the Baltimore Sun to be the only gay bookstore in Maryland, opened in 1984 and closed in the spring of 2008. Director John Waters declared that store's closing "very, very sad". Waters, a long-time customer, said the Baltimore shop was "a seriously good bookshop, with the added touch of porno. ... I always went in there to find books that I didn't know about and couldn't find anywhere else." A third store in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware opened in 1991 and closed in December 2009. A fourth store in Norfolk, Virginia, opened in 1996 and closed in June 2007. In February 1975, Lambda Rising ran the world's first gay-oriented television commercial; it aired on WRC (owned by NBC) and WTOP (the local CBS affiliate, now WUSA). Also in 1975, Lambda Rising organized Gay Pride Day, the forerunner to Capital Pride, Washington's first annual gay pride celebration, and continued to host the event for the next four years before turning it over to a non-profit organization.To support LGBT literature, Lambda Rising created the Lambda Book Report in 1987 and the annual Lambda Literary Award, also known as "the Lammys", in 1989. In 1996, Lambda Rising turned those projects over to the new non-profit Lambda Literary Foundation.In February 2003, Lambda Rising bought the Oscar Wilde Bookshop, the country's first gay and lesbian bookstore, and saved it from closing. The store was founded by Craig Rodwell in 1967 at 15 Mercer Street in Greenwich Village, later moving to the corner of Christopher and Gay Streets in Manhattan. After working with the New York staff for three years and getting the store on solid financial footing, Lambda Rising sold the store to the long-time manager in order to return the store to local control.In December 2009, Maccubbin announced that Lambda Rising's two stores would close by January 2010. In his statement, Maccubbin said: The phrase 'mission accomplished' has gotten a bad rap in recent years, but in this case, it certainly applies. When we set out to establish Lambda Rising in 1974, it was intended as a demonstration of the demand for gay and lesbian literature. We thought ... we could encourage the writing and publishing of LGBT books, and sooner or later other bookstores would put those books on their own shelves and there would be less need for a specifically gay and lesbian bookstore. Today, 35 years later, nearly every general bookstore carries LGBT books. We said when we opened it: Our goal is to show there's a market for LGBT literature, to show authors they should be writing this literature, to show publishers they should be publishing it, and bookstores they should be carrying it. And if we're successful, there will no longer be a need for a specialty gay and lesbian book store because every bookstore will be carrying them. And 35 years later, that's what happened. We call that mission accomplished. Facing competition with online book stores, the store closed its doors on December 31, 2010. It was part of a spate of LGBT brick and mortar bookstores closures in the early 21st century, including the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York and A Different Light in Los Angeles and San Francisco.