Before There Was CityVista
21 04 2008Once located on the current site of the City Vista development on Fifth Street, NW between K and L, stood the architecturally stunning Northern Liberty Market. During the turn of the last century, our city was once filled with grand market buildings like this one, serving the residents year round. Unfortunately the building was demolished in 1985, which was a loss of a real architectural gem in our opinion!
It’s always curious how other major cities around the world like London, Paris, and others managed to keep many of the similar style buildings from the time period preserved, while the District has knocked almost all of them down! At least the new City Vista will have a Busboys and Poets!
[Photo: WashingtonTimes via Rockcreek]
This is a great picture and I agree that it would be great if it were still here! Actually, though, the building in this picture burned down in 1946. It was partially rebuilt, but looked almost nothing like the architectural gem in the above photo, and that building was demolished in the early 1980’s.
Yes, it would have been nice if historic preservation was as strong then as it is now. CityVista isn’t bad looking as far as new condos go, but wow. Can you imagine if that market bldg was still standing? What an asset to the neighborhood it would be.
[…] District lost its historic Eastern Market in SE to a late night fire. Luckily this market will not suffer the fate of many others in DC and is being fully restored to it’s original 1873 design. In the mean time the temporary […]