Margaret Nicodemus started the Louise Hand Laundry in 1912, according to historical records. In the early years, she probably took in laundry at her house: She was a widow, and the laundry business was one of the few entry-level economic opportunities available to women at the time. The business thrived, and in 1918 the building was purpose-built in a neighborhood that was then populated by Washington's well-to-do.

In 1943, Nicodemus sold the business to Beulah Hall, a Nebraska native who had been selling life insurance. Hall turned it into the laundry of choice for Washington's elite. Although the neighborhood declined through the 1950s and was largely abandoned after the 1968 riots, the Louise Hand Laundry workers maintained their reputation for fastidiousness. Laboring in long, open rooms and beginning each day with prayer, the women used only pure soap and handled silk and lace with the utmost care.

Four White House administrations -- Roosevelt through Kennedy -- entrusted their linens to the laundry, and the Smithsonian sent its 17th- and 18th-century costumes there to be cleaned. Unlike the era's garden-variety laundries, the Louise Hand Laundry didn't offer pickup, and neighbors remember watching limousines pull up to the building to drop off clothes.

But the increasing popularity of dry cleaning took its toll. When Beulah Hall retired in 1977, no one stepped up to buy the business.

The building was another story. By the late 1970s, a wave of what were then known as young urban pioneers began moving into the Logan Circle area and renovating the neighborhood's stately but run-down homes.

Architect Robert Lewis and artist Sanford Shapiro were part of that back-to-the-city movement. They bought the building in the late '70s and remodeled it, turning the two floors into separate units and adding glass block and fireplaces, but keeping the open, airy feeling.

Lewis and Shapiro were known for wild parties they threw in the building's big rooms. "Oh, yes, we used to compete for the party circuit," said real estate agent Stephen Mowbray, who moved to the neighborhood in 1970. "We all had enormous spaces because it was affordable. Back then, nobody else wanted to live here, but they all wanted to party here."

Robert Lewis died in 1992, and the building passed through other owners before Chris Geier bought it in 2001. By then, Logan Circle was a re-established neighborhood, and Geier renovated the building to suit the times, closing off the sunken mirrored bedroom and remodeling the building's upper level.

Source: Washington Post

If you’re an expert photocopier, a whiz at filing, or a dedicated fetcher of dry cleaning and takeout lunches, please save yourself time and ignore the remainder of this posting.

The vast majority of internships consist of a smorgasbord of office drudgery or, if you’re lucky, outright slavery under the cruel guidance of middle management. And we can respect that--some university students and recent grads crave that kind of “work experience.” But if minimal mental stimulation and ill-fitting business attire aren’t really your style, one or both of the following is likely true:
a.) you’re not meant for the typical corporate drudgery, and
b.) you’re exactly what we’re looking for

Konnessi isn’t your typical web development firm, and this is definitely NOT your typical unpaid internship. We don’t give our internship the title “Junior CEO” because we ran out of other things to call it. We need an innovator who can help us put our trademark Intellectual Equity Infusion strategy into play, recognizing massive upside potential in both local and national businesses. We need an entrepreneur with out-of-the-box business instincts, a passion for efficiency, and a deep distrust of all things bureaucratic. We need a self-motivated natural leader with ambition to spare and a deep trust of his own gut feelings.
Make no mistake, this position isn’t all glamour. You might spend late nights in the office, chowing down on MSG-heavy takeout food and strategizing with our project executives. You might have to convince our clients to make changes to SOP over beer and wings. Sometimes, this takes many, many beers. But no matter what you’re helping us to accomplish, you can be sure that you won’t be going at it alone, and that you’ll learn more about business than any of your coffee-delivering, PowerPoint-proofing, widget-hawking friends.