The News4 I-Team and Tommy McFly joined forces to find out why a street sign was never hung after lawmakers passed a law designating Annie’s Way in 2013.
A street sign honoring a pillar of D.C.’s LGBTQ+ community is now up.
“Annie’s Way,” says the sign installed on May 24 in front of Annie’s Paramount Steak House on 17th Street NW. The sign honors restaurateur Annie Kaylor.
The sign went up more than 10 years after the D.C. Council and former Mayor Vincent Gray first approved the designation. As News4 reported, the installation was stuck in limbo for years, in part because Annie’s moved locations by a block-and-a-half.
The staff of the restaurant, a cornerstone of Washington, D.C.’s LGBTQ+ community for more than 75 years, have long awaited the installation of the sign honoring Kaylor.
Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse has a long history of supporting the LGBTQ+ community in the District, particularly during times of rampant discrimination. In particular, the restaurant's support and commitment to D.C.’s gay community during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s will be remembered.
Kaylor, who served drinks, love and sass from behind the bar, became an iconic figure whose spirit is still celebrated a decade after her death in 2013.
After years of advocacy, D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) and four colleagues introduced the Annie’s Way Designation Amendment Act of 2023, allowing the sign to be placed at the restaurant’s current location. The council and Mayor Muriel Bowser approved the bill in April.
The timing of the sign installation is especially meaningful because it went up in time for Pride Month.
Annie’s Way is near a section of 17th Street NW that was named Frank Kameny Way in 2010, as the Washington Blade reported. The honor was bestowed in recognition of a gay rights pioneer whose activism in D.C. and in the national gay rights movement began in the 1960s.
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Annie’s general manager Georgia Katinas told News4 this fall that she would be delighted to see Kaylor honored on a city street sign.
“That’s so rare. How many people get that recognition?” she said.
