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da Boss!

We’re sad to hear that Boss Shepherd’s closed on August 31st. A look back July 2014:

13th and E Street has turned a corner, so to speak, and da “Boss” is right there presiding over his namesake. Boss Shepherd’s restaurant is now officially opened. “The Boss is definitely back,” said DC’s original night-life guru Mike O’Harro whose seventies disco ‘Tramps’ was the epicenter of all things amusing.

Alexander Robey “Boss” Shepherd was one of the most controversial and influential civic leaders in the history of Washington, D.C. whose influence catapulted him to the top of the heap of powerful big-city political bosses of the Gilded Age. As Governor of the District of Columbia from 1873 to 1874, he is best known as “The Father of Modern Washington.” Well, for that and others things. To steal a line from John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

A brief history of Shepherd – courtesy of Wikipedia:

“Shepherd’s legacy has been a matter of some debate since his death more than one hundred years ago. He has long been maligned as a corrupt, cronyist political boss, often compared to Boss Tweed, the leader of the Tammany Hall political machine of the same time period.