The bar where I spent some great moments of my early 20's (behind the bar and in front) is no mas. Here is the tale.
An Early D.C. Stage For Musical Greats Has Quiet Last Call
By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 7, 2007; B01
Before they became limousine famous, Emmylou Harris and Bruce
Springsteen played in a litany of run-down, no-name joints, where small,
unsuspecting audiences got that rare chance to see, hear and touch
undiscovered genius.
In Washington, that joint was the Childe Harold, a cozy, wood-lined
saloon in Dupont Circle, where, in its heyday, patrons filled every nook
and cranny, the bathrooms reeked of marijuana and everyone talked for
years after about whom they saw perform there.
Now the bar itself will become part of the city's collective memory.
After 40 years, the Childe Harold shut down Saturday for the last time.
The owner made no announcement, saying he was too grief-stricken over
losing something that has been in his blood since he was a teenager
washing dishes in the kitchen and, later, broiling steaks for
Springsteen between sets.
"This place has been my life," Hossein Shirvani said yesterday, seated
at the bar as a friend removed mementos from the walls. Down came a
framed copy of Springsteen's contract to play at the Childe Harold in
May of 1973, two years before he landed on the cover of Time and
Newsweek and became world famous.
Springsteen's payday for three nights: a grand total of $750.
Shirvani said he was forced to close because of a dispute with the
property manager, real estate company Randall Hagner, which he said had
wanted to nearly double his rent. When negotiations broke down, Shirvani
said, the company hung a "Restaurant for Lease" sign on the building,
effectively killing his chances of drawing clientele. "They forced us
out," Shirvani said. A Randall Hagner spokeswoman said that Shirvani's
lease expired more than a year ago and that the company could advertise
the space under the terms of the agreement.
At its creation in 1967, the Childe Harold was christened for a Lord
Byron poem celebrating a young man's world travels. The saloon soon
became associated with one of its first owners, Bill Heard Jr., a
whiskey-drinking raconteur whose brawling ways had gotten him kicked out
of a host of gin joints across town.
At his own place, though, Heard was free to rant and rave, sometimes at
his customers, including George McGovern, who wandered in one night in
1972 looking for French food only to get an earful from the owner about
how his presidential campaign was doomed.
Heard began offering music in the early '70s at the bar's brick-faced
home at 1610 20th St. NW, among the first nightspot destinations in
otherwise sleepy Dupont Circle. The Ramones, Bonnie Raitt, Al Jarreau
and Son Seals were among the eclectic mix that turned the bar into a
well-known spot for rock, blues, country and jazz.
"If you wanted to hear great music and not get trampled, this was the
place," said Christina Stevens, a longtime patron.
It was also the place to see if not the famous, then their sons and
daughters. Jack Ford was a regular while his father was in the White
House, and Eleanor Mondale, the vice president's daughter, tended bar.
Shirvani began working at the Childe Harold in 1971, after immigrating
from Iran to study. He had planned to attend college in California, but
he kept getting promoted, until 1982, when he bought the place from Heard.
Shirvani stopped offering live music, he said, because it became too
difficult to book acts for an audience of fewer than 100. Where the
performers had played, he opened a dining room, where he served steaks
and burgers.
Shirvani said he had expected to keep the Childe Harold alive for years
to come -- until he sat down to negotiate a new lease. "It's not
something you want to tell people," he said of his decision to close.
"It's not something you want to celebrate. It's breaking my heart."
