Big Chair Chess Club

Text Box: Anacostia’s Big Chair Anacostia has a very special landmark called the “Big Chair.” Everyone in Anacostia knows that the big chair is located on Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue and V Street, SE. The big chair was built for Curtis Brothers Furniture Company, which as established in 1926. Bassett Furniture Industries of Virginia constructed it. Based on a Duncan Fife design, this special chair was built form original plans by Leo A. Jiranek. At the time, it was said to be the largest chair in the world. The chair is made of African mahogany and weighs 4,600 pounds. It is 19 ½ feet high and stands on a concrete, 4-foot-high pedestal. Its seat is as large as two double-sized beds.

“To teach the un-teachable, reach the un-reachable, and always think before you move” is the core mission of the Big Chair Chess Club, Inc. at the Deanwood Branch located in the nation’s capital. The organization teaches chess to inner-city children and adults, not only as a board game, but also as an application to life skills, such as improving one’s concentration and self-discipline.

Big Chair Chess Club Inc.
xsolo3@comcast.net
4322 Sheriff Road Northeast
Washington, DC 20019-3737
202.705.3364

Text Box: This is the story of a chess club
founded for inner city youth.
Yet it’s different from most,
it’s distinguished and boasts,
of teaching not just chess, but truth.

It teaches young people to reason,
to deduce and to rationalize.
Use logic and intelligence,
cast a positive spell against,
deception, treachery and lies.

‘Cause Chess is the game of the Regal,
and Big Chair teaches just that.
Our ancestors were noble,
and their influence global,
our history reflects these facts.

So at Big Chair we’re on a mission,
to the minds of our children improve,
and teach the un-teachable,
reach the un-reachable,
and always think before you move.

Text Box: ©Ty Gray-EL September 2003,
For Eugene Brown and the Big Chair Chess Club

Text Box: Coming soon to a theater near you! "Life of a King" is the true story of one man's mission to give inner city kids of Washington DC something he never had - a future. After being incarcerated for eighteen years, Eugene Brown established the Big Chair Chess Club to get kids off the streets and working towards lives they never believed they were capable of. This is his inspirational story. Click on the picture below for a Synopsis (Use your back button to return)