Wednesday marks 50 years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The killing of the civil rights leader sparked riots in the nation's capital that left parts of the city in ruin and shattered the dreams of hundreds of local family businesses.
The Levin family was among those who lost everything. Then they rebuilt.
The city was in flames for days. When the smoke settled, there was nothing left of Chuck Levin's dream.
"We went down the next day and the gates were standing and there was nothing left behind it... It was gone," recalled Levin's son, Alan, who was 16 at the time.
Chuck and Marge Levin had built Chuck Levin's Music Store near 12th and H streets Northeast, on the same block where Levin's father had a pawn shop.
"My grandparents had a pawn shop, and my father worked in that pawn shop," Alan said. "His brother had opened a pawn shop on the next block over. ...It was a typical family, I mean they lived over the business."
Alan and his sister, Abbe, grew up in that store on H street and remember it vividly.
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The night that King was assassinated, they sat at home with their parents watching everything unfold on television
"You know its something to see your parents lose everything overnight. My bedroom was near theirs and when the door closed I could hear the real reaction, the tears, you know, you lose it all," said Abbe Levin [[DOUBLE CHECK]].
Alan recalls standing next to his father looking at what was left of their fmily business.
"I can still smell the tear gas," he said. "It was bad... I mean, you watch your life go and that was it."
Abbe Levin remembers, "You can see in an old clip of Dad; 20, 25 years later, he tried to talk about it. He burst into tears. It was his everything."
The day after the family business burned to the ground, Chuck Levin gathered his family and his staff and started to rebuild the music store, but not where it had stood for 10 years. Like so many business and families, Chuck Levin Music moved to the suburbs.
"My parents were amazing people, if you think [about it,] we were burned out in April and we reopened here in August," Abbe Levin said.
This week, the Levin family will celebrate 60 years in business the same week they'll recall when their first shop was burned to the ground.
"It’s a tough one," said Alan Levin. "Like I said, I will watch what goes on in the world today. ...I don't understand it. It proves... burning things down proves nothing."
