Part II – The Glassman Era (1916-1925)
Apparently Glassman did well, for he bought the store property from Carpenter in September 1916. Three years later, however, he turned around and leased it to Jacob Silverman. Glassman warranted that he had no creditors and rented on the following terms
The business formerly conducted by us at the corner of Mt Vernon and Howell. Includes good will, lease for 5 years with option for a further 5 years at $40/month; includes 2 horses, 2 wagons, 1 Ford truck, 2 ice boxes, butcher's block, butcher's tools, electric coffee mill, electric fan, 2 oil tanks, 1 gasoline tank, iron safe, show cases, counters, 2 computing scales, 1 counter scale, cash register, McCaskey register. Also the stock of merchandise, groceries, canned goods, meats, provisions, candies, tobacco, etc. Further, Glassman agrees [not?] to to re-enter the grocery business in Virginia for 10 years, and agrees not to permit the adjoining premises, of which he is the owner, to be used for conducting a grocery business
Silverman ran the grocery with his son Irving as a clerk and daughter Minnie keeping the books. This did not work out well and by 1921 Glassman was back in the grocery business. He was determined to escape to the simpler landlord business and the following year he leased the store out again, this time to Samuel Zimmerman, who operated it as the Mt Vernon Grocery Co.
The 1921 fire insurance map of the lot. Gro = grocery. The number inside each building is the number of stories. The yellow indicates wood frame construction. Dotted lines indicate outline of porches.
Unfortunately for Mr Zimmerman just as he was signing the lease the grocery store chains decided to move into Del Ray. Two big chains, A&P and the Sanitary Grocery Co (which merged with Safeway in 1928) both had stores running on Mt Vernon Avenue by 1923. These were certainly not supermarkets by our standards today, but they did have mass buying power that individual stores found hard to match. In 1925 Zimmerman folded up his operation.