This past December, retired historian Nelson E. Rimensnyder mailed Christmas cards with a time-honored message: that the historic Rhodes Tavern is demolished but not forgotten. As artwork, the card boasted a 1982 cartoon recapping the building’s significance. Inside, Rimensnyder compared developer Oliver Carr to Scrooge—not for razing the building, but for his decade-long refusal to accept schoolchildren’s pennies to erect a commemorative plaque on the site. Rimensnyder says that those pennies ($1,400 worth) are still gathering interest at Riggs Bank. A spokeswoman for Carr Real Estate Services explained that the company turned down the offer because a tenant objected to the proposed plaque. She refused to specify the tenant or the objection—“I honestly don’t want to rehash the story,” she said politely—and offered a noncommittal statement that shows how far public relations has advanced since “bah, humbug.” The plaque, she says, is “something we may reconsider at another time.”