I think the first photo is from 15th and the 2nd more recent one from 14th.

The victorian buildings were torn down for the Commerce Dept. building.

by Tom Coumaris on May 4, 2009 4:08 pm  

I believe the caption is correct -- the view is from 15th Street. The Commerce Building is located one block south of the buildings shown in the photo. This block -- now Pershing Park -- was built out until the 1930s. The 1901 McMillan Commission composed of Daniel Burnham, Olmstead and other design stars of the time proposed that the crime-ridden slums between Pennsylvania Avenue and the smelly mess the Mall had become in 1900 be replaced by a precinct of neo-classical buildings largely occupied by government offices. The western end of that "Federal Triangle" was to be anchored by a building that extended all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue, closing (or maybe passing over) E Street. After approval of that plan, the Feds started buying up all the buildings on the block -- including the ones in the photo. By the time the Fed Triangle was actually designed, the Commerce Building no longer needed to cross E Street so the government was left owning a whole block that it no longer needed for a building. So it built a park. From an urban design point of view, buildings would have provided better enclosure of the open space now known as Freedom Plaza and the additional park space is not really needed given all the green spaces just to the west of 15th St.

by Ron Eichner on May 4, 2009 4:52 pm  

I guess both are from 15th but the second only shows the eastern corner of Commerce which replaced the theaters and in the first the District building is in the distance mostly behind those buildings.

by Tom Coumaris on May 4, 2009 6:33 pm  

sorry, I now realize Pershing Park replaced the buildings, not Commerce. lost some nice victorians but at least we got some green out of the deal.

by Tom Coumaris on May 4, 2009 8:38 pm  

If I recall correctly, the Willard Hotel almost met a similar fate in the 1970s. It was abandoned, stripped of most of its interior furnishings, and nearly demolished to make way for a parking lot.

by monkeyrotica on May 5, 2009 6:52 am  

The Willard barely survived the urban renewal impulses of the '60s but was saved in the '70s. In the plan for the "revitalization" of Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Capitol that was to be presented to President Kennedy upon his return from Dallas, a monumentally huge open space called National Square was to be created from F Street to the Commerce Building which would have demolished the Willard and the Washington Hotels. Its main virtue seemed to be that it was to be bigger than Red Square. In the '70s the abandoned building almost burned a number of times due to homeless people who made fires inside to keep warm in winter. It was bought by the Feds, included in the then ongoing plans for Pennsylvania Avenue, and offered in a competition as part of a public-private partnership.

by Ron Eichner on May 5, 2009 9:52 am