We have been known to periodically mention government planing programs throughout the area that have caught our eye or are a nice benefit to our fine city. These programs often create lasting and substantial change.
However unfortunately for every urban planning project that has had success, there is at least one in the past that has failed.
Nowhere else in our town is there a more concentrated number of preserved small historic facades than in the area between Chinatown and Penn Quarter. This great shot by Jason Powell shows impressively how little has changed in the buildings, and how much has changed in the way people dressed (we still don’t get the strange hat thing).
This composition shot was taken right outside what is now the International Spy Museum block, and as you can see (short of a few new awnings), the facades remain the same as they were back in the 1920s when the black and white photo was taken. In case you were interested, all the people in the photo were crowded around the window of Selinger’s checking out a very cool display of old Army Wrist watches for sale. We just love these glimpses into the past!
[Photo: JasonEPowell]
We know that downtown has lost a lot of its character over the years as many of the smaller buildings have been gobbled up by block long larger buildings, and this great photo by Jason Powell really brings home how much distinctive architecture (whether you like it or not) has been lost!
Back in the 1920s (when the black and white photo was taken) the streets were lined with ornate and interesting styles of architecture. Now… especially in the central core of the city, you would be hard pressed to find many buildings that would make a person take a second look (with a few exceptions).
What do you think?
[Photo: Jason Powell]
It is pretty special when a building from 1865 is still around today, and the property at the corner of 7th & G St. NW is one of a few remaining examples left around representing the style of the day. It is even still being used for its original purpose as a bank. How do you think the architecture has held up over the years?
[Photo: Marcfoto]
Look familiar? Amazingly over the last 70 years the buildings at the corner of 18th Street and Columbia Road NW have remained mostly unchanged other than the Peoples Drug Store being replaced by a McDonald’s. The name Adams Morgan actually didn’t come into use until the 1950s from the names of the two area High Schools.
[Photo Credit: LeRoy O. King Jr.]
It may be hard to believe, but there was a time when Thomas Circle was pedestrian friendly. The area has undergone some major changes over the last few years to accommodate the increased traffic in the area, but it didn’t always look the way it does now. Lets take a look back at what the area looked like in 1903.
This is the view looking west from Thomas Circle. The huge National City Christian Church which dominates the Circle today was built on the site of the house shown on the right of the picture. Also look how wide that sidewalk was and how nice the row of trees looks!
Check out this great shot of Pennsylvania Ave from 1881. The most predominant building of the time was the recently built Willard Hotel. You can see how Pennsylvania Ave was a straight shot back then from the White House before it was realigned around Freedom Plaza. The varied storefronts on right were all demolished for the JW Marriott.
[Credit: National Archive]
Is there any other single architectural structure more defining or predominate in our city? The 555 ft Washington Monument towers over DC and defines its skyline, but the version that stands today isn’t exactly what Architect Robert Mills’ had in mind when he fist designed it back in the 1840s.
Mills original conception was of a neoclassical rotunda topped by a towering obelisk. Everyone one knows how the outbreak of the Civil War caused several delays (and the change in materials) to the monument, but the delay also resulted in a major change in design because of new architectural tastes and styles. The original design was heavily altered and the unadorned, pointed Egyptian obelisk we all know today prevailed. So what do you think? Would the original design (pictured above) have been better?
Back in 1941 there was a huge construction boom going on downtown fueled by the need for more government offices. The buildings were never designed to last but as you can see still took a huge effort to build. Thankfully the “temporary buildings” were all eventually torn down, reestablishing the continuity of the National Mall that we all know and love! Isn’t it cool how buildings were put together back in the day?
[Credit: Library of Congress via Dullshick]
Many people are aware that the original layout of the city of Washington was designed in 1791 by Major Charles L’Enfant and subsequently reestablished in 1901 by the McMillian Commision. For the most part (at least in National Mall area) the vision was realized. However we are really sad the some of the design for the southern half of the mall as pictured, and all those gardens were never realized.
The “Congress house” and the “President’s palace,” as L’enfant termed them, were the cardinal features of L’Enfant’s plan; and these edifices he connected “by a grand avenue four hundred feet in breadth, and about a mile in length, bordered by gardens, ending in a slope from the houses on each side.”
However the “southern pavilion” (shown in the lower right of the drawing) was never built. Currently all you find is the rental facilities for the tital basin paddle boats. Maybe congress will convene a second McMillan Commission 2.0 to re-re-establish the original plans? We can dream right? Then maybe they will build the South Capitol Street Mall toward the new stadium too.
So what part of the old plans would you keep and what should have gone?
Editors Note: Contributing editor KB takes a weekly look at our city focusing on covering historic preservation / restoration, architecture, public space, beautification, and transportation issues. This week, a look at what once was…
A friend lives in a 19th century row house on Rhode Island Avenue that is attached to a large apartment building. The house was once part of a row of 19th century rowhouses that stood where the condos now stand. The other homes were torn down in the middle of the night on February 5, 1989 before the neighborhood could secure preservation status for the other buildings. All that remains is that one rowhouse, strangely preserved by gutting the interior and connecting it to the condo complex.
It got me to thinking about other remaining examples of lost Washington – gates and walls and the other sad remainders of buildings town down in the twentieth century. I found a wonderful – and rather depressing – book called Capital Losses: A Cultural History of Washington’s Destroyed Buildings, by James M. Goode. It is worth looking at to see what has been torn down in the name of progress – and to compare them with the anonymous, brutal office buildings or apartment complexes they most often replaced them with.
Most of the hundreds of row houses, mansions, embassies and government buildings destroyed in the past century have completely disappeared with no remains. However, there are some left-over bits of the vanished city that have survived today – almost invisible unless we know what to look for and where to look. Some interesting examples after the jump, including Henderson’s Castle (pictured above)…
The picture at left is from September 1906 advertising a brand new townhouse for the very reasonable price of $8,250 on Monroe Street NW.
During the very early years of the 20th century in DC this area just north of what would become the National Zoo was all newly developed properties.
You can see the hand painted For Sale sign on the front pouch. Guess even back then people did “for sale by owner” to avoid the realtor fees.
The Burger King on the corner of 5th and G Streets, N.W., with the famous walk through window, occupies some pretty fancy digs, as far as fast food restaurants go. It’s a fine, pressed-brick Second Empire building, built in 1889 by a certain J.E. Moran.
If you want to be precise about it, it was originally Italianate in design; as built by Moran, the structure topped out at the third floor with a flat tin roof. A year of so later, George Bogus, a coal dealer, added the ornate mansarded fourth floor with its eyebrow dormers and central terracotta-finished cupola, creating the Second Empire look. The building remains one of the few such “ordinary” small-scale commercial structures from this particular time period left in Washington.
In addition to being the headquarters of the American Home Life Assurance Company in 1911, when the “Then” shot was taken, the building has hosted a wide variety of businesses and functions. It was the meeting hall of the United Order of the Golden Cross in the 1890s but also hosted more mundane enterprises, including the “White House” Lunchroom, a billiards parlor, pawnbrokers, and upholsterers.
The American Communist Party rented space on the third floor in the early 1940s, and the second floor had a Greek coffeehouse called the Arcadia restaurant for many years–until the police raided it for illegal gambling in 1968 and it shut down for good. The building was boarded up and abandoned until the early 1980s, when it was declared a landmark, carefully restored, and became the home of Burger King as well as attorneys’ offices on the upper floors. Attractive as it is, don’t be fooled by that beautiful red-brick finish; it’s paint. The original pressed-brick on the street-facing sides is actually beige.
Built back in 1818, the Decatur House on Lafayette Square is one of the oldest homes still standing in the District. The namesake was naval hero Stephen Decatur who commissioned the house as his “Southern” residence. We always wondered about the bricked over windows, but from the picture it looks like even back then they were blocked off.
[Photo: vpickering and DCPL]
Do you like to write? Are you interested in writing about the issues and have an extreme addiction to everything architecture and new developments around town? We are looking for a weekly feature writer with a sense of humor who wants to join the DCMetrocentric team. Sound interesting? Details and requirements after the jump…
