Then and Now: F Street, NW

Historic

by Kent Boese • September 18, 2009 3:00 pm

F Street, NW, at 13th Street looking west, with F Street Plaza. (ca: 1970)

F Street, NW, looking west from 13th Street. Shown here ca. 1970 (left) and today (right). Historic photo courtesy of the DDOT Historical Photo Archives.

14 comments — Share	— tags: DC, downtown DC, historic comparison

Then and Now: 13th Street, NW (Nov 9, 2009)
Treasury Dept. wants to make F Street one-way (Sep 18, 2009)
Then and Now: 14th and U (May 11, 2009)
Then and Now: Surratt Boarding House (May 8, 2009)
Then and Now: 470 Louisiana Avenue (Feb 9, 2009)

Comments

Makes you appreciate facadectomies.

by BeyondDC on Sep 18, 2009 3:02 pm

Ouch!

by Thayer-D on Sep 18, 2009 3:12 pm

Now that is boxy!

by цarьchitect on Sep 18, 2009 3:15 pm

Notice the strip in the middle of the street with the lights? I remember seeing the circular sign in picture from F Street in National Geographic back in '60s. (The issue was from the sixties I didn't read it until the nineties)

by Steve on Sep 18, 2009 3:37 pm

The earlier picture shows the F Street Mall, a failed early '70s attempt to bring shoppers back downtown by adding a pedestrian median down the center of F Street. There were two lanes of traffic on each side of the median and parking wasn't allowed at certain times. The median was removed in the '80s. Another section of F Street, between 7th and 9th, along with a section of 8th street, was also completely pedestrianized, with no vehicle traffic allowed. Same goes for the section of G Street between 7th and 9th in front of the MLK library. Both were reopened to traffic in the late 90s.

by gern on Sep 18, 2009 4:03 pm

Correction, the G Street pedestrian section was between 9th and 10th.

by gern on Sep 18, 2009 4:09 pm

yep

I remember both places when they were closed to traffic.

In front of what is now the Spy Museum
[ it was the Ledroit Building]

there were these ugly concrete excuses for converstaion pits or fountains [ they never worked] and smelled of urine and other toxins.

It is better now since it re-opened, and they left a wide sidewalk which actually is quite useful for fairs and events.

by w on Sep 18, 2009 4:21 pm

The paved median down F Street used to be streetcar tracks before the F Street Mall.

by Old Timer on Sep 18, 2009 4:44 pm

The paved median down F Street used to be streetcar tracks before the F Street Mall.

I was going to guess that. Do my eyes deceive me or it there adequate room for two auto lanes, plus exclusive ROW for what used to be the streetcar?

by Steve on Sep 18, 2009 5:13 pm

Wait a minute - that bottom picture isn't current. I cross that street a dozen times a day - there's no center median at all on F St - that picture has to be several (like at least 10) years old.

by andy on Sep 18, 2009 10:56 pm

I'm not sure the pic shows a median, just a wide sidewalk with large curb-side trees. Looks current to me (the EXIF data on the Flickr page and the Google street view both seem to corroborate this).

by Jake on Sep 19, 2009 9:42 am

The bottom picture is current. Perhaps because of the perspective of the picture and the cars in the intersection and parked on F Street it would appear that there is a median but obviously there isn't. The median on that section of F Street, between 13th and 14th, was removed in the '80s.

by gern on Sep 19, 2009 7:46 pm

its so rare that the after is better than the before. if the scene wasnt completely lost to wholesale urban renewal then it was a change from slow, pedestrian friendly cobblestone streets to high speed traffic sewers and a transition from multiple small human scaled storefront buildings to a single monolithic hideous building.

by jon on Sep 21, 2009 2:12 am

Anybody remember what the food court used to look like before the big remodelling? That place used to be crazy.

by Drew on Feb 17, 2010 9:42 am