Posts about History

THE POPULATION of the District of Columbia is expected to increase from an estimated 850,000 in 1955 to 907,000 in 1970 and 932,000 in 1980. The capacity of vacant land to absorb this growth is such that there will be no great pressure to build new apartments by displacing existing homes until after 1970, at which date the zoning should again be revised.

Lewis clearly failed to predict suburban flight, and also didn't anticipate the decline in family size, which means that DC has a far lower population even with more housing units than existed in 1956.

PUBLIC SENTIMENT in Washington is apparently not ready to back a thorough zoning effort in depth for the salvation of the downtown area and, pending the completion of further study and planning, limited zoning revision, as proposed, appears to be the best prospect.

In other words, people didn't quite want to destroy the city wholesale.

THE AVERAGE size of 3,800 semi-detached house lots studied was only 2,480 square feet compared with a minimum standard recommended by the American Public Health Association of 3,650 square feet; this represents the worst abuse of single-family standards to be found in the District.

More social engineering. Public health professionals of the time thought we had to force people to live in large suburban lots for their own good.

IF THE TREND toward blight and slums is to be arrested, all new construction must be the kind that will encourage the continued residence of the most sensitive and scrupulous elements of the population.

Racial overtones much?

IT MAY BE confidently expected that there will be continued increases in the population of the metropolitan area, in car ownership per family, and in average use of cars, all contributing to future traffic growth and increasing the parking problem.

That was right for a while, but average use of cars has declined more recently. Lewis also didn't anticipate the oil shocks of the 1970s, though in the '90s, gas was cheaper after inflation than at any previous time.

A DEVELOPMENT policy aimed at correcting the most characteristic condition of spreading blight has not yet emerged except for the general commitment to restore, through redevelopment and the inner loop highway, the ring of development around the downtown area.

Fortunately, the "public sentiment" Lewis mentions stopped at least the inner loop highway (or most of it).

And finally:

GROWING USE of the automobile provides a reasonable prediction that the trend toward its universal use as the principal means of transportation will continue.

Not quite.

Here's southeast Georgetown. Note the wooden bridge for K St. across Rock Creek, the factories and lumber yards on the water, and the fact Virginia Ave. used to go across the waterfront.

Here's southwest Georgetown. What's notable about this map is the streams that ran through Georgetown at this point, as represented by the black lines meandering through the neighborhood.

Here's northeast Georgetown. Notice that Q St. wasn't constructed yet, and Dumbarton House hadn't been moved yet. Plus, there was a giant streetcar facility on P St. (not to mention homes in what is now Rose Park).

Here's central Georgetown. What's notable here is that, as I discovered Monday, the addresses of homes north of Volta were different. And that's because Volta Place was Q St., Q St. was R St., Dent Place west of Wisconsin was S St. (east of Wisconsin it was Irving Place), Reservoir was T St. and R St. was U St. Oh and Wisconsin was called 32nd St. and 32nd St. was called Valley St.

Finally, here's northwest Georgetown. Note that Volta Park used to be the Presbyterian Burial Grounds, and that the weird Tudor style home on 33rd between Volta and Q was the Presbyterian church.

Constitution Avenue was once a river

Back when DC was born, water was integral to the development of commerce. Roads were unreliable, and other technologies didn't yet exist. Why else would the city's founders have placed it at the intersection of two swampy, humid, mosquito-filled waterways, the Potomac and the Eastern Branch (now called the Anacostia)?

In fact, Pierre L'Enfant's original 1792 plan for DC shows us that their city was far more watery than the one we know today. If the Washington Monument had been built then, it would have sat on the shores of the Potomac, and the Lincoln Memorial would be underwater. From the foot of Capitol Hill out to the Potomac, there ran a body of water called Tiber Creek (whose name had been changed from Goose Creek when it was decided that DC would become America's capital, because they were emulating Rome).

DC's founders and business leaders believed that the city's economic development would be vastly enhanced if only there was a canal connecting the Anacostia River (navigable to Maryland) to the Potomac (the gateway to the west) through the city. The Washington City Canal, completed in 1815, flowed up north from the Anacostia, passed west of the Capitol Reflecting Pool, and then headed due west along the Tiber River whose path is today's Constitution Ave. In other words, Constitution Avenue was once a river.

Ever wonder what that random tiny stone house is on the Mall?

In 1828, construction began on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, another dream waterway which would connect commerce up to Pittsburgh and through all areas in between. In the original plans, the C&O system was supposed to end in Georgetown, but that idea made DC leaders nervous. They imagined that the canal would help Georgetown outshine the capital, so they ransomed their $1M investment in the project and had that changed. The C&O would now end at the Washington City Canal.

Thus completed in 1833 and known as the C&O Branch Extension, DC's canal connection into the C&O began at the Rock Creek Basin and followed 27th Street down until it connected into the Washington City Canal at 17th and Constitution Avenues.

Someone was going to have to collect the tolls and keep the records, so a Lockkeeper's House was built at 17th and Constitution. Owned today by the National Park Service, the Lockkeeper's House is one of the last reminders that a canal ever flowed through DC.

A small federal style house built of fieldstone and measuring 30 feet wide and 18 feet deep, the Lockkeeper's House originally sat 40 feet west and 10 feet north of its current location, but was moved in the 1930′s to widen 17th Street.

According to some reports, the lockkeeper and his 13 children lived in the building. Otho Swain, a man born on a canal boat in 1901, whose father was a boatman and locktender and whose grandfather helped build the C&O, related this story:

My grandfather, he had boated coal down Constitution Avenue. There used to be a canal that crossed the Potomac there, and there's a little stone house still standing on the corner of 17th and Constitution Avenue. It was a lock house. My grandmother lived in that lock house, and that's where my grandfather met her.

The Lockkeeper's House was given to the National Park Service at the beginning of the 20th century during the construction of Potomac Park. For a time it was used as a "public comfort station", but today NPS uses it as storage.

Decline to slime

Although DC's founders believed that waterways would bring commerce, we know better today—railroads were the technology of the future. As the rail was developed, the canal system fell into disuse. (Plus, the Washington City Canal had always been a bit of a mess. The water was shallow and so could only handle boats drawing less than 3 feet of water.)

The canal system was completely abandoned by the end of the 1850′s. The C&O Canal only made it as far as Cumberland, MD before it went under. What did DC's residents do with this body of water running through its middle? Throughout the Civil War and after, they turned the Washington City Canal into an open sewer.

Luckily, when Boss Shepard came into power in the 1870′s, he added this smelly problem to his list of public improvements. A young German immigrant engineer, Adolph Cluss, was enlisted to move the body of water underground. He apparently built a tunnel from Capitol Hill down to the Potomac that is "wide enough for a bus to drive through to put Tiber Creek underground."

A river runs under it

Filling in the canal created B Street, which was subsequently renamed Constitution Avenue. Although the massive undertaking solved public health problems, the federal government apparently did not contemplate the potential engineering dilemmas that might result from building on top of an underground creek/sewer From Wikipedia:

Many of the buildings on the north side of Constitution apparently are built on top of the creek, including the Internal Revenue Service Building, part of which is built on wooden piers sunk into the wet ground along the creek course. The low-lying topography there contributed to the flooding of the National Archives Building (Archives I in Washington, DC), IRS, and Ariel Rios buildings that forced their temporary closure beginning in late June 2006.

In fact, until the mid 1990s, that part of Washington around the intersection of 14th Street and Constitution was an open parking lot because the underground water was too difficult to deal with. During construction of the Ronald Reagan Building (1990—98), the engineers figured out how to divert the water. But that dewatering then reduced the water level underneath the IRS building which caused the wooden piers to lose stability and part of the IRS building foundation to sink.

More information is in a Northwest Current article from 1997 about reports to the National Capital Planning Commission on the flooding issues, and this photo from BMS CAT shows flooding at the National Archives.

Maybe DC doesn't have real ghosts flowing under our feet, but that doesn't mean we aren't haunted by underground things from the city's past.

Cross-posted at The Location.

Former owner Roger Fons bought the then-closed Old Town Theater in 2003 with the intention of opening a live music venue but it quickly became a movie theater once again.

The Old Town Theater was in a thriving and popular part of town, a "date night" area. It was a unique building surrounded by a supportive community. With the right approach, it could have become a destination in its own right.

Instead, it was a mess. The theater was not cleaned well. Posters and lighting units were stored in plain sight. Movies never started on time, leaving patrons crowded in the small lobby or spilling out onto the sidewalk.

One reason the movies never started on time is that Fons couldn't resist a captive audience. When there was a full house, instead of showing coming attractions, Fons would stand in front of the theater and opine about anything that happened to be on his mind. The topics were generally related to the movie industry, but he would sometimes meander into stranger topics such as military conspiracy theories and tips on safe driving.

For years, the theater did not work with online services such as Fandango. The theater's Facebook presence was not consistently maintained, even though it once generated significant activity.

Fons did not recognize the neighborhood demographic and staged movies inappropriate for the old, small theater. Old Town residents are more likely to want to see smaller, arty, independent movies than big Hollywood blockbusters. Non-residents tend to come to Old Town for "date night" trips. Neither of these audiences wanted to see "Twilight" or "The Hangover." Those who do want to see blockbuster movies such as "Transformers" want to see them on the biggest screen possible with the full surround sound experience. The Old Town Theater could never compete on those technical fronts.

But it could have competed on another front. There are very few theaters in Northern Virginia which show independent films. Fons could have carved out a niche into that market. He was told this by many people many times over the years. He said that he tried but that no one came.

New owner Rob Kaufman said he has tried to find and is looking for a tenant who will keep the space a theater. But Kaufman said consultants have told him the space is not financially viable as a theater. Kaufman has also received permission from the Board of Architectural Review to proceed with a plan to demolish the 1940s-era marquee and box office, making the chances of the space reaching 100 years as a movie theater seem very slim. Rumor has it that J. Crew is interested in the space.

Despite the sale of the property and the planned destruction of the marquee, with proper management, marketing and demographic understanding, the Old Town Theater could be a charming gem instead of an ersatz dump.

In August 1814, with British troops descending on Washington's federal core, local citizens burned the Eastern Branch Bridge (the Anacostia River was then known as the Eastern Branch of the Potomac) to imperil their advance.

On the night of Good Friday, April 14, 1865 John Wilkes Booth made his escape over the Navy Yard Bridge, through Uniontown (now Historic Anacostia), to southern Maryland after shooting President Lincoln at Ford's Theatre.

Today, as part of a massive public works project, a new 11th Street Bridge is on the cusp of reopening.

Additionally, the Kiplinger family, long-time HSW benefactors, donated more than 4,000 prints, photographs, paintings, documents, and DC historical ephemera last month.

With Kiplinger collection, HSW's holdings documenting local history are now comparable to those in the DC Public Library's Washingtoniana Division and Peabody Room, and in the Library of Congress. Howard University's Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, George Washington University, recent recipient of the collection of Albert Small, National Archives, and DC Archives also contain material pertinent to city history.

"We have always sought to have our collection seen, enjoyed, and used by everyone from scholarly researchers to the general public," said Knight Kiplinger, editor in chief and chairman of the Kiplinger organization. "The Historical Society of Washington, with its large exhibition galleries in the grand Carnegie Library building on Mount Vernon Square, will be an ideal repository for our pieces."

Jerry A. McCoy, a special collections librarian for the DC Public Library's Washingtoniana Division and Peabody Room, is pleased to see the library reopening. "It is important for researchers to have access to the resources that the Historical Society holds, and as a long-time member I am elated to see them back in business," McCoy said.

"Historical Society leaders, members, and volunteer friends will celebrate Dr. King's memory by committing themselves to a Day of Service providing the Washington community with opportunities to learn more about the Society's collections and how to use them to explore their own personal stories," said Julie Koczela, chair of HSW's Bboard of Trustees.

According to Koczela, the Kiplinger collection is currently in crates in the east gallery. Once cataloged, the collection will join the more than 100,000 pieces already in HSW's collection.

President Lincoln's second inaugural party in March 1865 took place at the Old Patent Office Building at this intersection. Today, that structure is home to the National Portrait Gallery.

The corner is also home to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library and an entrance to the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station.

In the old image, streetcars prepare to head northbound on 9th Street NW, now a one-way southbound street. Clumps of snow are melting in the street. American flags hang between the columns of the Old Patent Office Building. Across the street a dentist and cigar shop are where today is a YWCA and a Segway tour company.

Too rural for street addresses, the German Orphan Asylum at 2300 Good Hope Road wasn't given an address until 1945. It first opened its doors in August 1880. Today, the Marbury Plaza apartment complex looms over Good Hope Road where the orphanage previously stood.

"In the second half of the nineteenth century, Washington's native-born and immigrant German population was significant in numbers," writes Mona E. Dingle in 1996's Urban Odyssey, A Multicultural History of Washington, DC. At their peak presence, Germans represented 10% of the city's population, significantly less than Chicago and Baltimore where nearly one-quarter of city residents were of German ancestry.

With an increase in the city's German population, a concern emerged to care "for orphans and the aged." In 1879 parishioners of Concordia German Evangelical Lutheran Church at 20th & G Street NW began to raise money for an asylum for needy German orphans. With financial support from leaders within the city's established and emerging German American community, the "German Protestant Orphan Asylum Association of the District of Columbia" was incorporated with a twenty year charter from Congress. The Protestant designation was later stricken from the title to allow admission of children of other religions and eventually non-German children were accepted.

"Admission requirements, based on race and age, stipulated that a child must be of the white race … at least three (3) years old but not over eleven (11) years,'" according to Louise Daniel Hutchinson's seminal 1977 work, The Anacostia Story: 1608-1930. These restrictions were relaxed in later years.

Before the turn of the century, the German Orphan Asylum was one of the first institutions built for the care and welfare of children in Anacostia, but other charitable efforts soon followed. The Stoddard Baptist Home for "colored elderly and indigent women" was founded in the Garfield community near Hamilton Road, present-day Alabama Avenue. In 1904 the Episcopal Diocese expanded its work to provide "for winter service to homeless children at Anacostia, D.C." according to Hutchinson.

Local beer manufacturer Christian Heurich, known for his popular "Senate" beer, was one of the earliest benefactors of the German orphanage. Later contributors included local department store owner Julius Garfinckel.

Simon Wolf, a German Jewish immigrant and successful lawyer, assisted the orphanage, with funding from Congress, in purchasing the 32-acre Good Hope Hill Farm from Captain Samuel G. and Flora Cabell in what is today the Fairlawn neighborhood. With the help of Wolf and friends of the asylum, a new brick building was constructed and dedicated in October 1890. The asylum had formerly occupied space in downtown Washington.

"The new two-story home, perched on top of Good Hope Hill measured 52 feet x 100 feet, and was designed to accommodate up to 80 children," according to, "To Help A Child: The History of the German Orphan Home," an article in the 2006 edition of Washington History by local historian Anna Watkins.

According to Census records from 1900, the orphanage had 52 "inmates" and was run by the Henry and Elizabeth Harrold along with their four daughters and one son.

The board of directors controlled the admission and release of the children, and selected their schools until they reached the age of about 14. The youngsters were then placed in carefully surveyed homes where they worked as household help or nannies, or were assigned as an apprentice to a trade or profession. The board retained responsibility for the children until they reached legal adulthood. The older adolescents attended public school in Anacostia, while the younger ones prepared for school at the asylum.

The orphanage taught, studied, and used both German and English. Due to the national mood during World War I, the board decreed in 1918 that use of the English language would take precedent "because we must show ourselves thoroughly patriotic and loyal; we are American in every sense of the word and proud of it." During this time the American flag was raised daily on the main building. However, in 1929, when an illustrated 50th anniversary history book was published, it was done so in both languages.

The Orphanage's relocation

With the growth and development of Washington following World War II the neighborhood dynamics around the orphanage began to change.

"Increasingly developed with housing and institutions, the area was no longer conducive to having children do farm chores as heavy traffic sped down the hill bordering the property," according to Watkins. Long-time Superintendent George Christman "noticed that more people were walking across the home's grounds. Some ran dogs on the property, teenagers had parties and played games there displaying loud and annoying behavior, and drunks used the front steps to take a rest."

With the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 and other factors, such as the construction of the Barry Farm housing development and urban renewal of the SW waterfront, the demographics of the surrounding neighborhoods began to shift. Herein the orphans began to face difficulties in the neighborhood schools.

The board began to consider relocating and selling their property on Good Hope Road. In early 1964, developer Charles Smith offered to rent the property for 99 years at a price that allowed the orphanage to relocate. The Smith Company would later demolish the facilities and build the present-day apartment complex Marbury Plaza.

Soon thereafter the directors of the orphanage purchased a large parcel of land in Prince George's County, opening a new home on Melwood Road in Upper Marlboro, Maryland in 1965. In December 1978, at the end of the semester, the orphanage closed to its last student.

According to land records, the two-story red brick building at 2021 Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE was constructed in 1906. With more than 3,000 square feet, the building has held temporary office space for non-profits in recent years but is currently without a tenant.

Launched in Ohio with 100 unemployed men, the protest moved through Pennsylvania, gathering strength. In the spring of 1894, Coxey's Army arrived 500 strong in Washington. Public interest and attention quickly fizzled, however, after Coxey and his followers were arrested for trespassing on the Capitol grass while trying to storm Congress.

Two decades later, in 1914, Coxey regenerated his army of "tramps" and marched on DC again. This time, Coxey was able to address a crowd from the steps of the US Capitol without being arrested; but his march made little lasting impact on the city or on national policy.

Resurrection City

After the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference continued plans already in motion to descend upon Washington. Members of the Poor People's Campaign, focusing on inequity in employment and housing, arrived in DC in mid-May. In the shadows of the Lincoln Memorial, the epicenter of 1963's March on Washington, "Resurrection City" quickly but haphazardly formed with a collection of self-constructed shacks. Deluged by rain and poor planning, the group quickly became a burden to the Johnson administration. By that summer, the protest had disintegrated.

According to the July 5th edition of Time Magazine,

Churning through the trash-strewn gumbo that had once been a manicured meadow, a federal bulldozer last week interred the last traces of Resurrection City. Its few remaining inhabitants scattered or imprisoned, the shantytown capital and symbol of the Poor People's Campaign had long since become an ugly, anarchic embarrassment to their cause.

Bonus Army

The Great Depression's Bonus Army is arguably the most well-known occupation-style protest that Washington has seen. According to The Bonus Army: An American Epic

In the summer of 1932, at the height of the Depression, some 45,000 World War 1 veterans - whites and blacks together - descended on Washington, DC from all over the country to demand the bonus promised them eight years earlier for their wartime service. earing violence after the Senate defeated the "bonus bill" Herbert Hoover's Army Chief of Staff, Douglass MacArthur led tanks through the streets on July 28 to evict the bonus marchers.

Set up on on the site of the old Anacostia flats, men, women, and children alike camped in structures built from materials scavenged from a nearby dump, but in a tightly-controlled environment in which veterans laid out streets, built sanitation facilities, and created an internal civil structure.

With martial law invoked, the Army set the shacks ablaze, and the veterans and their families left the city. Whether a result of the Bonus Army or not, that fall, President Hoover lost in a landslide to Franklin Roosevelt. Eventually, in 1936, Congress passed the "Bonus Act" that would pay out nearly $2 billion to WWI veterans.

If past is prologue and we can glean lessons from these past protests, Occupy DC and Stop the Machine might have ignominious conclusions. Time—and perhaps the onset of winter—will be the judge.