Streets of Washington

Washington City’s Old Curiosity Shop

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:35:00 +0000

By: John Muller

The following is our first article written by a guest author. John Muller is a former reporter for the Washington Times and current contributor to Capital Community News, Greater Greater Washington and other D.C. area media. He is the author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia (History Press, 2012), a finalist for the DC Public Library’s 2013 DC Reads, and leads tours of Old Anacostia. This article is excerpted from his forthcoming Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: Adventures of a Capital Correspondent, set for publication later this fall.

If you’ve ever spent time at Capitol Hill Books, on C Street SE across from Eastern Market, and spoken with owner Jim Toole you have experienced the tradition of an eclectic Washington bookstore and its cantankerous proprietor that dates back to the 19th and early 20th century.

Inside the Old Curiosity Shop. Source: Around The Capital with Uncle Hank 1902.

“London may have its Old Curiosity Shop, a building no longer used for the purpose its name indicates, but famous as the locality that forms the title, motive, and basis for one of Dickens’ masterpieces,” wrote a city reporter in 1902. “Washington also has an Old Curiosity Shop worthy of the name, a place that is curious from top to bottom, and from end to end, full of curious things, owned by a curious man, conducted on a curious plan.”

The stairwell in Jim Toole's Capitol Hill Books. Photo by the author.

In Arlington National Cemetery rests the headstone for that “curious man.” A plain engraving reads, “JAMES GUILD 3rd Lt. 7 Battn. D.C. Mil. Inf. Died Jan. 19, 1916. AGED 95 Years.”

During his lifetime Guild, who arrived in Washington City in the 1850s from Philadelphia, wore many hats; president of the first Stonecutter’s Union after working on the first section of the Washington Monument and new wings of the Capitol, army officer in the first company to be raised in the District in 1862, and proprietor for nearly four decades of a transcendent used bookstore that became the haunt of generals, diplomats, senators, congressmen, journalists, everyday bibliophiles and famous authors including Mark Twain.

Advertisement for Guild's furniture store from Boyd's Directory, 1867.

After mustering out of the military, Guild “started in the mercantile business” and opened a furniture store at Twelfth and B Streets, near the Washington Canal. A prominent advertisement in the 1867 city directory declares, “New and second-hand Furniture, and house keeping articles of every description, sold or exchanged. Repairing, upholstering and varnishing strictly attended to.”

Notice of Guild's move to Pennsylvania Avenue in 1867 (National Republican).

Later that fall he relocated his shop to 106 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. According to recurring announcements in the city’s daily papers, Guild removed to the “southeast corner of Second Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, where he will be happy to see all his old customers and make as many new ones as possible.”

Around the same time, in late November 1867, Mark Twain came to Washington City to serve as secretary for Nevada Senator William Stewart (Nevada was admitted to the Union in 1 864) and to try his hand as a capital correspondent for a handful of newspapers.

In the shadow of the United States Capitol, Guild rose every morning, seven days a week, to stack a “melee of books, magazines and pictures” from “the dark mysterious interior” of his shop on the curbside. “This is the daily exhibition which never fails to attract the public,” the Washington Post reported in 1898.

On his way to and from the press gallery in the winter of 1867 - 1868, it is within reason to speculate that Mark Twain, then in his early 30s and “green,” would have first made contact with Guild, who was as easily greeted by the Speaker of the House as by one of his brother-in-arms.

Government being the business of Washington, Guild, once he looked up from whatever tome he was reading at the time and began talking, pulled no punches in extolling the benefits of his independence. “You see, they all know I’ve got no ax to grind, ain’t hunting office and wouldn’t take a government job if they presented it. They know they can come here and I don’t take advantage of knowing them. Just like my friend who kept stoves in Lincoln’s days. The President would drop in there and sit for hours at a time to keep away from the crowd.”

However inconspicuous Guild perceived himself or his shop to be, he was widely known throughout the region and the country as a top-rate auctioneer and for his unique book shop.

In Thomas Fleming's 1902 book, Around the Capital with Uncle Hank, the store is immortalized in both picture and prose.

“Leaving the Capitol grounds, the first thing to catch the eye is a quaint old second-hand book store on the right hand side of the street, the proprietor of which stands in his cave of volumes like a hibernating bear,” Fleming described. “Here you will often see statesmen stop on their way to the Capitol to examine some rare book which has accidently caught the eye, and then to bargain with the dealer for its possession. But if the volume in question should be found to posses any merit, rest assured it will not be secured without a payment fully equal to its value, for, however unassuming the old bookdealer may seem, he is quite an adept in price-listing his wares.”

That same year a Post reporter described the store’s physical characteristics, “This, the real curiosity shop of Washington, is located in an old-fashioned three-story brick building on lower Pennsylvania avenue, a structure built many years before the war, with gable roof, attic, and curious little windows that peer out through the roof like so many molehills. Entering this quaint old house, one finds, it literally packed and jammed with books, magazines, state and government papers, oil paintings, watercolors, steel engravings, objects of art, and pieces of old fashioned china and silverware.” (Guild was often called on to auction off items as various as Revolutionary-era munitions as well as Turkish, Persian and “elegant and varied collection[s] of Oriental wares.”)

List of Washington booksellers from Boyd's Directory, 1905.

No space went unused as, “Even the stairs are crowded by piles of literature on either side, affording only a narrow pathway to the top floor up or down, which only one person can pass at a time. Moreover,” the story continued, “these books, pictures, objects of arts are piled, stacked, scattered, strewn, and tumbled about in the most complete and thorough disorder.” To administer some semblance of order to the Curiosity Shop’s contents, “would take two men six or perhaps eight months of steady work, day in and day out.” On second thought, “it is more likely that a year would be sufficient.”

Although Guild, now nearing his eightieth year and going blind, had worked auctions with his sons, and a grandchild was known to pass time at the store, he was “the sole inmate of this wilderness of literature and art.”

Despite owning a property in the 900 block of Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Guild slept most nights in a room in the rear of the book shop where he could cook and eat his meals. In the twilight of life, Guild showed no signs of slowing down, respected as the patriarch of the city’s book merchants who, by 1905, were more than twenty strong.

It was the Curiosity Shop where “the literati of Washington resorted in search of rare volumes, and the great men of the nation stopped on their way to and from the Capitol.”

Mark Twain, the most famous American man of letters and former “Row Boy,” (a moniker for journalists who had spent time on Newspaper Row) during his decades of visits to the city to lobby for a new copyright law frequently stopped by the shop, where Guild did not particularly take a liking to him, refusing to treat him like a literary celebrity.

“Was Mark Twain ever here?” a reporter once inquired.

“You mean that Clements [sic] man? I don’t think much of either him or his books. First time he came here he walked in, ‘I’m Mr. Clements [sic],’ says he. ‘Well, an’ the devil,’ says I. ‘You must have heard of my books,’ says he. ‘I write under the name of Mark Twain.’ ‘No,’ says I, and went on with my reading. He tries to be funny, that man does. I tell you the fun in his books is forced out.”

As ambassadors, school children, writers and politicians continued to patronize the shop, Guild rarely budged from the groove in his worn chair, often paying his customers no mind until they were ready to pay. “I seldom bother to ask their names; in fact, I never bother,” Guild admitted, although he was always cooperative with police who had collared a book thief leaving his store.

Photo of James Guild from The Washington Times, June 7, 1910.

By the summer of 1910 Guild was now blind and fighting old age in his son’s souvenir shop just three stores down from the Curiosity Shop. “I feel better today. I must open the shop,” reported the Washington Times.

“They’re his books,” Alexander Guild said. “He’s been with ‘em going on forty year[s] now, and it’s not for me to open the shop to customers just to sell books. I’d not let one be touched with him lying there sick. No, the shop won’t open any more, unless he can open it.”

To their consternation, after fielding constant inquiries and well wishes, Alexander, a member of the Association of Oldest Inhabitants, told the senators and congressmen his father’s shop was unlikely to reopen. By the end of 1910, the senior Guild decided to close for good and liquidate what remained of his collection.

Proceeds from the once-in-a-lifetime sale injected new capital into Alexander’s souvenir and novelty shop at 111 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, where his father spent the last years of his life. With James Guild’s death on January 19, 1916, and quiet interment in Arlington National Cemetery, the history of a transformative era in Washington City that was indexed with the names of Garfield, Blaine and Reed -- all Guild confidants -- was bookended.

SOURCES:

“REMOVAL. - JAMES GUILD.” National Republican. Oct. 25, 1867, p. 1

*NOTE:This same note appeared dozens of times over the course of the fall of 1867 in the Evening Star and National Republican.*

Boyd’s 1867 Directory of Washington, p. 294 _ advertisement for Guild’s furniture store

“AUCTION SALES” Washington Post. Feb. 19, 1878, p. 3

*NOTE: Throughout the 1870s and 1880s auction notices regularly appeared in Washington and Baltimore papers with James Guild and his sons serving as the auctioneers. These were for individual estates as well as private businesses.*

“REAL CURIOSITY SHOP: Monument Book Store Quaintest Spot in the City.” Washington Post. Dec. 4, 1898, p. 13

“NOT AFRAID OF DUST: Owner of Old Curiosity Shop Not Easily Terrified.” Washington Post. Sep. 7, 1902, p. 11

Fleming, Thomas, Around The Capital with Uncle Hank Nutshell Publishing Co., New York, 1902 http://bit.ly/1051IBk

“OLD AVENUE BOOK SELLER ABSENT FROM SHOP DOOR.”

The Washington Times. June 5, 1910, p. 5 <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1910-06-05/ed-1/seq-5/>

“VOLUMES GROW DUSTY AS SELLER NEARS END.” The Washington Times. June 7, 1910. p. 16 http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1910-06-07/ed-1/seq-16/

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045433/1910-12-30/ed-1/seq-1/

“JAMES GUILD DIES AT 95; Worked as Mason on Capitol and Washington Monument. Soldier in Civil War and for Many Years in Book Business in This City.” Washington Post; Jan. 30, 1916; p. 20

“ALEXANDER J. GUILD.” The Washington Times. March 31, 1919, p. 4

From Masonic Temple to Women's Art Museum

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Thu, 02 May 2013 13:13:00 +0000

One of the stateliest private buildings in Washington is the old Masonic Temple at 13th Street and New York Avenue NW, completed in 1908 and now home to the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Like other Masonic temples, the imposing structure was built with unique cross purposes; it was meant to be both a public forum for lectures and performances as well as a private place for the fraternal order's meetings and rituals. Since the 1980s, this distinctive Renaissance Revival palace has had a remarkably fitting second life as a museum, and now the NMWA is looking to preserve the building for many more years with much-needed roof repairs. As a participant in the Partners in Preservation program, the museum will be hosting a festive open house this Sunday, May 5, from 12 to 5, offering a great, free opportunity to see this extraordinary building up close and appreciate the art it now displays.

Photo by the author.

The sharp-eyed visitor will notice decorative touches denoting the building's original use as a Masonic Temple. Freemasonry is a centuries-old tradition descended from medieval stone masons' guilds, although modern masons are a strictly fraternal order dedicated to benevolent acts. Masons organize themselves into lodges, which are chartered by regional Grand Lodges. DC got its own Grand Lodge in the mid 19th century. In 1870 it built a temple, still standing, at 9th and F Streets NW, but by the 1890s, with 49 Masonic lodges chartered throughout the city, the old hall was no longer adequate. The Masons resolved to build a magnificent new temple at a suitably prestigious location.

The site selection committee received some 20 offers for sites all around the city, and in 1899 they chose the distinctive trapezoidal corner lot formed by New York Avenue, 13th Street, and H Street NW, a prominent location that would allow unobstructed vistas of the new temple on three sides. The lot, once a knoll with a clump of trees known as "Seven Oaks," cost $115,000.

Next, six of the city's best architectural firms were invited to submit competing designs for the new building. The winner was the firm of Wood, Donn, and Deming, whose most famous partner was Waddy B. Wood (1869-1944), who would later go on to design buildings ranging from the headquarters of the Interior Department to distinguished houses in the Dupont Circle and Kalorama neighborhoods. For the Masonic Temple, Wood, Donn, and Deming chose a classical Renaissance Revival style that reflected the prevailing architectural preferences of the day. The heavily rusticated design—especially seen in the first floor elevation—conveyed institutional permanence and dignity but also served as a bravura display of the stonemason's craft.

The Masonic Temple c. 1920 (Author's collection).

True to classical tenets, the building displays pronounced differences between top, middle and bottom. Above the exquisitely-cut Indiana limestone first level—some 30 feet tall—the central section is brick with terra cotta and limestone trim and includes temple-like classical columns and pilasters. To modern eyes, it looks as if floors were added to the building at some point after it was completed; a couple of extra stories rise above the impressive limestone cornice that rings the building at the fifth floor. However this was part of the original design and appears to emphasize how the top floors of the structure, where the Mystic Shrine was located, were elevated above the lower spaces given over to the hoi polloi.

Postcard view of the 13th Street façade (Author's collection).

The interior design mirrored the exterior layout. Nearly the entire first floor was filled by a grand auditorium, which fit neatly into the building's trapezoidal space. The stage was set against the narrow 13th Street side, and seating for 1,800 people fanned out in front of it and in balconies ringing the opposite walls. Designed as a music hall, a grand organ was included as well as space for a dance floor. It was expected that suppers could be served in the large basement banquet hall directly underneath the auditorium.

Drawing of the planned first-floor auditorium from The Washington Times, Oct. 10, 1905.

The middle floors were devoted to office, library, and commercial space, while the fifth and sixth floors—the exclusive upper levels—held another, somewhat smaller auditorium for use by the Masons' Scottish Rite and Mystic Shrine. "The stage is to be so arranged that the most elaborate services of the Scottish Rite can be given in their entirety," claimed the Washington Times in 1905—without explaining what exactly that meant.

The former auditorium space as it appears today (photo by the author).

It took longer to design the building than to construct it. Wood, Dunn, and Deming got the job in 1903, but construction didn't begin until 1907. The cornerstone-laying ceremony, attended by President Roosevelt, was held June 8, 1907, and by October 1908 the Masons began a two-week-long celebration to open the new building, featuring opera singer Lillian Nordica (1857-1914) as well as the sensational young violinist Albert Spalding (1888-1953) in the grand auditorium. There were also many lectures, mostly on travel. L. Frank Baum (1856-1919), author of The Wizard of Oz, was another draw.

From the start, the first-floor auditorium was intended to be rented out as a source of income to the temple, and a wide variety of entertainment appeared there in the early days. In December 1908, just two months after the building opened, the auditorium featured a limited run of "Bradley's Novelty Pictures," a collection of early motion picture shorts. "Those who have seen them declare that no more artistic motion pictures are to be found in the American amusement world. They are educational and entertaining, and the coloring is done entirely by hand," the Washington Post observed.

Postcard of the Army and Navy center (Author's collection).

In addition to movies and other entertainment in the auditorium, various shops and offices rented space on the second floor of the building, including a dentist, insurance agent, and uniform supply company. The basement banquet hall became the Army and Navy Masonic Service Center, a USO-style lounge for servicemen. In 1941, the first-floor auditorium was thoroughly renovated and reopened as the Pix Theatre, a first-run commercial movie theater. After the war the Pix, like many of the second tier of downtown's movie houses, started featuring risqué material, and in the early 1950s it moved to 9th Street, where the city's burlesque houses congregated. At the Masonic auditorium, the Pix was replaced by the Art Cinema, which stretched the meaning of the term "art." An advertisement from 1955 featured a double billing of "Kerima The She-Wolf" (The Most Evil Woman Who Ever Lived!) and "Formosa" (The Hot Bed of the Far East!).

The Town Theatre circa 1983 (courtesy of NMWA).

The Masons were not happy with the direction the theater was going in, and the Art Cinema's lease was not renewed. In 1959 new management remodeled the space and opened the Town Theatre, a first-run venue complete with white-gloved ushers. Premieres at the Town included "Psycho," "To Kill a Mockingbird," and "La Dolce Vita." But the theater was living on borrowed time, as downtown was already declining when it opened, and the immediate neighborhood grew increasingly desolate. Though it never stooped to the skin trade as many nearby shops did, the Town's offerings shifted in the 1970s to kung fu and other action films, much as had happened at its venerable neighbor, the Keith.

The Masonic Temple, circa 1983 (courtesy of NMWA).

By the early 1980s, the Masons were ready to abandon their once prestigious temple. When they put the building on the market in early 1983, preservationists hurried to have the structure designated as an historic landmark to prevent developers from tearing it down, but their worst fears never came to pass. Later that year, the fledgling National Museum of Women in the Arts, an organization founded by art collector and philanthropist Wilhelmina Holladay, purchased the structure. The beautiful but highly unusual building had found a perfect new owner.

The NMWA undertook an $8 million effort to renovate the old temple and convert it into a museum. With the building's exterior protected from alterations, the architectural firm of Keyes Condon Florance focused on sympathetic alterations and restorations of the interior spaces, breathing new life into them. The grand first-floor auditorium was converted into special event space. The balconies were reconfigured and connected across the front of the room's old stage to form a mezzanine overlooking the elegant, newly-marbled main floor. With minor adjustments, the fifth floor auditorium was restored for use as the museum's auditorium, while other spaces became galleries and offices. Nancy Reagan cut the ribbon at the grand opening of the new museum in April 1987.

The fifth floor auditorium, viewed from the stage, before restoration (courtesy of NMWA).

The fifth floor auditorium, viewed from the rear, after restoration (courtesy of NMWA).

An original doorknob, circa 1984 (courtesy of NMWA).

The NMWA remains today the only museum solely dedicated to celebrating the achievements of women in the visual, performing and literary arts. The museum's aim is to honor women artists of the past, promote the accomplishments of women artists of the present, and assure the place of women artists in the future. As a participant in the Partners in Preservation program, which will distribute $1 million for historic preservation projects throughout the Washington, D.C. area, the NMWA seeks help in funding much-needed repairs to the building's unique roof and complex drainage system. By voting for NMWA at the Partners in Preservation website, you can help it try to win a larger share of the funds. The site with the most votes will have its proposed project fully funded, although the other participants will receive a share of funding as well.

The NMWA today (photo by the author).

This coming Sunday, May 5, the NMWA will host a festive open house, with free admission to the museum and live entertainment from noon to 5pm. Youth and adult musicians affiliated with GirlsRock!DC will showcase their talents during a series of performances, helping visitors discover their inner rock star on guitar, keyboards and drums during instrument shares throughout the afternoon. It's also a chance to view intriguing exhibits dedicated to Impressionist-like Danish modern painter Anna Ancher (1859–1935) and Washington, D.C.-based artist Freya Grand.

* * * * *

Special thanks to Gordon Umbarger and Amy Mannarino of the National Museum of Women in the Arts for much helpful information and the use of historic images. Thanks also to Elyssa Rae who is helping to coordinate the Partners in Preservation program. Additional information came from historic newspapers and magazines as well as the building's National Register of Historic Places nomination.

The Hot Shoppes: Teen Twists, Mighty Mo's, and Pappy Parker's Fried Chicken

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:02:00 +0000

A version of the following article will appear in Historic Restaurants of Washington, D.C.: Capital Eats, to be published this September by the History Press, Inc. To keep up with the latest on the book, "like" our new Facebook page.

Of all the mid-20th-century icons of everyday life in Washington, Hot Shoppes ranks among the most memorable. The chain of casual drive-in restaurants founded by J. Willard "Bill" Marriott (1900-1985) in 1927 once had a commanding presence at dozens of sites across the metropolitan area, serving up thousands of fast, friendly meals every day. Beginning with a tiny root beer stand in Columbia Heights, the chain rose rapidly to prominence in the 1930s, expanded in the 1940s and 50s, and then almost as dramatically dwindled away in the 1970s and 80s, eventually slipping into history after winning the hearts and stomachs of several generations of Washingtonians.

Matchbook cover from the early 1960s (Author's collection).

The Marriott rags-to-riches story used to be one of the most oft told in the city. The son of a Utah sheep rancher, Bill Marriott was imbued at an early age with strong Mormon beliefs and an intense work ethic. As a teenager he experienced firsthand how hard it was to make a living raising livestock out west and resolved to get into a line of business less subject to market volatilities. In September 1921, after spending time in New York, Marriott passed through Washington on his way home to Utah. He spent a day sightseeing and noticed how vendors of ice cream, lemonade, and soda would sell out to the sweltering crowds practically as soon as they arrived on the scene with their carts. Six years later, when he was ready to start out on his own, Marriott decided to return to Washington to open a franchise selling A&W root beer.

The original Hot Shoppe on 14th Street (photo courtesy Historic Photographs collection, Marriott International Archives).

With a partner from Utah, Marriott rented out a slim corner storefront at 3128 14th Street NW in the Arcade Market, where the DC-USA shopping center now stands. Inside was a counter with nine stools. Offering frosted mugs of cold root beer for a nickel, Marriott did a booming business. Within a few months, he had gone out to Utah to marry his college sweetheart, Alice "Allie" Sheets (1907-2000), driven her back to D.C. in his rickety Model T, and opened his second root beer stand downtown at 606 9th Street NW, another resounding success. While Allie counted the nickels every evening, separating the ones stuck together with root beer syrup, Bill would wrestle with problems like how to keep expensive frosted mugs from shattering when they were plunged into boiling water to be sanitized. (With the help of well-connected friends, he was able to get D.C. regulations changed to allow cool chlorine-based sanitization.)

Selling root beer was great in warm weather, but once the temperatures dropped, Marriott needed something else to keep his business going. By some accounts it was Allie who came up with the scheme to sell Mexican food. Washington was no stranger to Mexican eateries, which typically featured hot tamales and chili con carne in those days. The Ranch, in business since 1900 at 507 F Street downtown, was a good example. The challenge was to get good recipes and find a source for quality ingredients. Bill recalled that the Mexican Embassy was located over on 16th Street, just a couple blocks away from their shop. Allie, who had majored in Spanish in college, talked the embassy's chef into sharing recipes and providing contact information for a San Antonio supplier of Mexican foods. After that, all they needed was a name for the place. The story goes that a good friend asked, "Hey Bill, when are you and Allie going to open this hot shop I've been hearing about?" And so, with a few letters added to dress it up, the Hot Shoppes were born.

What to do next? For his third Hot Shoppe, at Georgia Avenue and Gallatin Street NW, Marriott planned something new, a drive-in like those he had known in Utah. The Georgia Avenue Hot Shoppe would be one of the first such restaurants on the East Coast, offering curbside service to customers who could drive up, order a meal, and eat it right in their cars off of a tray propped on the door. After struggling again with the D.C. government to get approval for the curb cuts he needed, Marriott opened the new Hot Shoppe in the summer of 1928. The little building in the center of the parking lot became a model for future Hot Shoppes, topped as it was by a bright orange roof to draw the attention of passing motorists—like the shops in the Howard Johnson chain that were getting started at about the same time.

Postcard view of a typical 1940s Hot Shoppe (author's collection).

Publicity for the new place invariable focused on the "curbers," the young waiters who would run out to cars to take orders and run back with trays of food, all for whatever they could earn in tips. Marriott commissioned a graphic artist to design a logo for Hot Shoppes featuring one of these newly-famous "Running Boys," who epitomized the Hot Shoppes' cheerful, automobile-friendly service.

Matchbook cover from the 1940s (Author's collection).

The Georgia Avenue store was shrewdly located away from downtown competitors and on a major artery where it could lure in commuters. The Marriotts took to staking out major roads and intersections around the city to try to pinpoint the best locations for future Hot Shoppes. The next to open would become the chain's flagship, at 4340 Connecticut Avenue NW, in the area now known as Van Ness. Opened in 1930, this was the fifth Hot Shoppes. Mrs. Marriott later recalled that the Connecticut Avenue site was “pretty much a wilderness” when they moved in, although plenty of automobile traffic already flowed past. Like the Georgia Avenue store, this was a low, orange-roofed structure in the center of a large parking lot. The curbers brought it to life. When it opened the shop had 50 curbers; 40 girls and 10 boys. It soon had to add 50 more. In the midst of the Depression, the jaunty Hot Shoppe with its exuberant curbers was among the city's trendiest destinations, particularly for high school and college kids looking for inexpensive eats.

View of the Connecticut Avenue Hot Shoppe, circa 1957. The former Chevy Chase Ice Palace is visible in the rear. It was a studio for the WMAL Channel 7 TV station at the time (photo courtesy Historic Photographs collection, Marriott International Archives. Click to enlarge).

By 1933 there were six Hot Shoppes across the city grossing $1 million annually, and more were being added all the time. In 1938 Marriott built offices and a central commissary, including a kitchen, bakery, and butcher shop, at 1234 Upshur Street NW in Petworth to supply and oversee all his eateries. That same year, developer Garfield I. Kass built the snazzy Chevy Chase Ice Palace and Sports Center (see previous Streets of Washington article) directly across the street from the Connecticut Avenue Hot Shoppe, instantly supplying it with hordes of new customers, hungry and thirsty after their workouts on the skating rink or at the bowling alleys. Throughout the war years, a steady stream of servicemen and civilian workers would wend their way up Connecticut Avenue on their free nights to take in the twin attractions of the Ice Palace and the Hot Shoppe.

Girls at the Connecticut Avenue Hot Shoppe after skating at the Chevy Chase Ice Palace, December 1941 (Source: Library of Congress).

Another scene from the same busy night in December 1941 (Source: Library of Congress).

The chain's Mexican cuisine, supplemented by barbecue, had quickly evolved into a classic line-up of what people now call comfort food—hamburgers, steak sandwiches, grilled cheese, ham and eggs. A wartime menu featured an assortment of sandwiches some of which would be a hard sell today: peanut butter and lettuce, fried egg with grilled spiced meat loaf, liverwurst with lettuce and egg salad. Main entrees included creamed flaked tuna fish on toast and "crab meat and chopped egg in a tomato," among other items.

A special Easter 1946 Hot Shoppes menu (Author's collection). Click on any of the images in this article to see a larger version.

By the 1950s the chain took on a more up-to-date, fast food profile, highlighting new inventions like the Mighty Mo, a tasty triple-decker hamburger named after the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, which had just been retired. The Mighty Mo competed with the Big Boy, a triple-decker burger offered by rival Bob's Big Boy (which Marriott Corporation would later buy). The Hot Shoppes was also known for its grilled ham sandwich, called the Teen Twist, as well as its breaded onion rings, a milkshake called the Orange Freeze, and Pappy Parker's fried chicken.

Hot Shoppes drive-in eating, circa 1952 (photo courtesy Historic Photographs collection, Marriott International Archives).

The original tiny Hot Shoppe on 14th Street had closed in 1935, but in 1950 Hot Shoppes returned to Columbia Heights with a new coffee shop and pantry house around the corner at 1404 Park Road NW. Longtime neighborhood residents recall that, unlike the Waffle Shop next door, the Hot Shoppe welcomed African American customers. The Hot Shoppes chain had always tried to cultivate its image as a welcoming, family-oriented eatery. In 1955, waitress Beulah Heflin of the Park Road Hot Shoppe won the "Miss Good Morning" title as the most polite hostess in D.C., part of a nationwide contest sponsored by Kellogg cereals. Her counterparts in Maryland and Virginia won for their jurisdictions as well.

Undated photo of J.W. Marriott (photo courtesy Historic Photographs collection, Marriott International Archives).

By 1964, a total of 73 Hot Shoppes restaurants and cafeterias were operating in 13 states and the District, including food service operations at hotels and other institutions as well as highway rest stops. One of the largest fast food chains in the country, the combined operation used more steaks than any other enterprise except the U.S. Army. Indeed, Hot Shoppes seemed to be on top of the world in those days, at least in the Washington area, but change was already in the air. The company modified its name that year to "Marriott Hot Shoppes, Inc.," and in 1967 dropped the "Hot Shoppes" part altogether. That was the same year the last Hot Shoppe was built.

Hot Shoppe in the Colorado Building at 14th and G Streets NW, circa 1955 (photo courtesy Historic Photographs collection, Marriott International Archives).

The shift in direction had started back in 1957. That was the year the company's first hotel, the sprawling 110-room Twin Bridges Marriott, opened in Arlington, right at the Virginia end of the 14th Street Bridge. Marriott's son, Bill Marriott, Jr., had orchestrated the hotel's opening, and within a year he was named head of the company's embryonic hotel division. Under his leadership, the company's energies increasingly focused on its hotels and away from the iconic Hot Shoppes. In 1974, two years after he took over as CEO, Bill, Jr., announced that the company was planning to phase out its Hot Shoppes brand. The iconic eateries were too costly to run, he said, and at around 3 percent, their profit margin was too thin.

Family dining at the Hot Shoppes, circa 1954 (photo courtesy Historic Photographs collection, Marriott International Archives).

There were only 20 Hot Shoppes left that year (not including the various food service operations and other eateries like Jr. Hot Shoppes), and 8 of those were slated to close, dropping the total to 12. The remaining dozen, it was promised, would remain open as long as they were profitable. The flagship Connecticut Avenue Hot Shoppe was one of the ones closed that year. It was sold for $6.5 million to the National Bank of Washington, which razed the old eatery and replaced it with a 5-story office building. (The structure still stands today and is owned by the University of the District of Columbia. The Ice Palace building across the street is also still standing but is to be torn down this summer.) Another Hot Shoppe remained open nearby at 4110 Wisconsin Ave NW, but it too closed in 1977. Meanwhile the company's 34 Junior Hot Shoppes were converted to the Roy Rogers nameplate. The Roy Rogers chain, which specialized in roast beef sandwiches, was considered more profitable. It had more expensive offerings, didn't offer wait service, and didn't stay open late at night. The corporate accountants much preferred it.

Roy Rogers matchbook cover (Author's collection).

As Marriott Corporation continued to grow and dominate the hotel business, it seemed to lose interest in restauranting. In 1989 the company announced it was getting out of the fast food space altogether rather than continuing to compete with the likes of McDonald’s and other hard chargers. By this time it owned the Bob's Big Boy and Howard Johnson's chains that had challenged Hot Shoppes in the old days, as well as its own Roy Rogers brand, and the decision was made to sell them all off. The dozen remaining Hot Shoppes would be spared for "auld lang syne," as Bill Marriott, Jr., explained.

One by one the remaining 12 eventually closed as their leases expired and weren't renewed. The newspapers ran stories about people who had been going to Hot Shoppes for 20 or 30 or 40 years. "This was where I met my husband," one old-timer told the Washington Post in 1995 when the Bethesda Hot Shoppe was closing. Gene Kelley, another long-time patron, summed it up: "For my generation, this was it. I hate to see the change. I think it's very sad. It's progress, but I don't want to be here for it." The very last Hot Shoppe to close was the one in the Marlow Heights Shopping Center in Temple Hills, Maryland, which was shuttered in November 1999. With that, the chain became extinct, although every now and then glimmers of the past have been known to surface. It's said you can order a Mighty Mo, even though it's not on the menu, at certain Marriott hotels, and they'll serve it to you on a Hot Shoppes plate. And the new downtown Marriott Marquis being built at 9th Street and Massachusetts Avenue NW may offer some of the old Hot Shoppes menu items when it opens in 2014. The legend, quaint as it may be, lives on.

* * * * *

Special thanks to Beth Schuster, Corporate Archivist at Marriott International, Inc., for her gracious assistance in locating and sharing vintage photographs from the Marriott archives. Additional sources for this article included John Mariani, America Eats Out (1991); Marriott Corporation, Hot Shoppes Cookbook (1987); Robert O'Brien, Marriott: The J. Willard Marriott Story (1977); Richard Pillsbury, From Boarding House to Bistro (1990); and numerous newspaper and magazine articles.

Historic Bridges of Rock Creek Park

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:58:00 +0000

I spoke on Wednesday, April 17, at the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Library about the historic bridges of Rock Creek Park. We had a great turnout! Prior related posts on Streets of Washington covered Peirce Mill, Boulder Bridge, the Harvard Street Bridge, and the Old Rustic Log Bridge.

The Northumberland, an elegant preservation time capsule

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:21:00 +0000

Washington has one of the highest concentrations of apartment dwellers among American cities, and fortunately many of its historic apartment houses from the early decades of the 20th century have survived. Among these, the Northumberland, opened in 1910 at 2039 New Hampshire Avenue NW, is one of the best preserved. Thanks in part to its very early conversion (1920) to cooperative ownership, the building has benefited over the years from the meticulous care and attention of farsighted owners and remains a jewel-like oasis of turn-of-the-century urban living.

The Northumberland (photo by the author).

The Northumberland was one of many projects undertaken by the relentlessly energetic Harry Wardman (1872-1938) in the early years of his career when he was building row after row of houses in Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights and just starting to construct towering apartment houses. "In apartment building the most expensive structures in the city are the work of Mr. Wardman," the Washington Times noted in 1911, soon after the Northumberland was completed. Wardman was a developer's developer, putting up the most desirable buildings possible at the least possible cost and then quickly moving on. "His money is always active and he is always borrowing," the Times explained. "He always takes profits and goes at something new."

The Northumberland circa 1914, before the roof crest was removed (click to enlarge. Author's collection).

Along with the Dresden Apartments at Connecticut Avenue and Kalorama Road NW, the Northumberland was one of the first large apartment buildings Wardman built. It was designed by Wardman's chief architect at the time, Albert Beers (1859-1911), who had moved to Washington in about 1903 after many successful years in Bridgeport, Connecticut. For the Northumberland, named after Wardman's home county in England, Beers designed an eclectic Georgian Revival building with features evocative of Italian Renaissance architecture. The façade is divided into three roughly equal bands (in many Classical Revival buildings the middle band is much taller than the top and bottom bands), and it is finished in tapestry brick and pressed brick with Indiana limestone trim. The unusually large windows make for airy, light-filled apartments. The front entrance is framed by an impressive columned portico, and a forceful, heavily modillioned cornice rings the roofline. The one major change to the exterior of the building was the early removal (sometime around 1920) of the original medallioned crest on top of the cornice.

The Northumberland circa 1920, after removal of the roof crest (Source: Library of Congress).

Located on New Hampshire Avenue just a block to the east of 16th Street and immediately south of Meridian Hill, the Northumberland was in one of the city's hottest residential neighborhoods when it was new. Led by the powerful Mary Foote Henderson (1846-1931), 16th Street property owners and investors vied bitterly with their Massachusetts Avenue counterparts to bring the wealthiest and most prestigious residents and their most extravagant mansions to what was briefly called the Avenue of the Presidents. Mrs. Henderson probably would have preferred palatial mansions to large apartment houses, and, according to Kim Williams, she didn't think much of Wardman, the brash young Englishman who was building everything up. But, as Northumberland board member Richard Cote explains, Wardman tried to meet Mrs. Henderson's vision for the neighborhood in the elegant design and construction of the Northumberland, which would remain one of his most decoratively rich projects. Well-to-do upper middle class Washingtonians soon filled the new apartment house.

The lobby and main staircase (photo by the author).

One VIP to move in to the Northumberland early on was Chief of Police Maj. Richard H. Sylvester (1860-1930), known as the father of modern police professionalism. Sylvester quickly restored peace and quiet to what had become a noisy early-morning routine at the Northumberland. As the Washington Post reported in September 1910, tradesmen were in the habit of making early morning deliveries via the alley that ran along the back of the building: "Ice men have been in the habit of rattling up to the back entrance and chopping ice for their customers. Milkmen have been banging their bottles, laundrymen bumping their baskets, and grocery men dumping boxes off their wagons. As a result of the various activities of these energetic tradesmen, pandemonium reigned just about the time some of the tenants were most enjoying their sleep." After a rude awakening the first morning he spent in the building, Major Sylvester had an officer from the 8th precinct stationed behind the building to prevent deliveries before 8am. Problem solved.

One of the two decorative fireplaces in the lobby (photo by the author).

The Northumberland's lavishly decorated lobby—one of only 15 interior spaces in D.C. that are designated as historic landmarks—evokes the atmosphere of an English hunting lodge with its connotations of upper class refinement and a life of leisurely diversions. The walls and stately Corinthian columns have a warm, faux-marble finish and are handsomely framed by black base trim. On either side of the entrance are waiting areas with elaborately decorated fireplace mantels, again finished to look like warm Sienna marble and surmounted by heraldic flags and arms that appear to be carved in stone (they are actually scagliola plaster). The main staircase in the center of the lobby leads up to a rounded landing where three stained-glass windows let in warm, colored light and lend a quaint atmosphere to the space.

Photo by the author.

Originally the building had 68 apartments ranging from efficiencies and one-bedroom "bachelor" apartments to three-bedroom "housekeeping" apartments. They tend to be light and spacious with sometimes unusual layouts as they spill around the C-shaped building. The floors are finished in parquet "wood carpeting," made up of contrasting red and white oak segments with mahogany border strips. Many apartments still have their original built-in wall safes, and some also still have the faux fireplace mantels that were installed in each unit. Like all apartment buildings of that era, the Northumberland included these faux fireplaces to give residents the feeling that they were living in a house. Elegant chandelier-like light fixtures were also standard at the Northumberland, and many still remain.

A faux fireplace in a Northumberland unit (photo by the author).

In keeping with his modus operandi, Wardman sold the Northumberland within a few years of its opening, and it was sold again several years after that. In 1920, the building's third owners, developers Clarence Calhoun and James Sharp converted the building to a cooperative, selling it to an association of owners for $480,000. Cooperatives were not new at the time. According to James Goode, the first cooperative in the city had been the Concord, constructed in 1892 at New Hampshire Avenue and Swann Street NW (and demolished in 1962). However, they were still "more or less of an experiment in Washington," as described by the Washington Post. Another very active developer, Allan E. Walker (1880-1925), had made a splash in 1920 by promoting his "Walker plan" for converting apartments into co-ops. Eight Walker buildings were converted that year, and the Northumberland, not a Walker building, rode the co-op bandwagon to conversion in October. At a time when the city was growing quickly and rents were climbing, the cooperative scheme was an attractive option for owners to control costs and invest in their homes.

Many of the enthusiastically-founded 1920s cooperatives failed during the Depression, unable to pay their underlying mortgages. Co-ops grew less common in Washington, although the Northumberland survived unscathed. In fact, employees at the Northumberland received raises, building improvements were made, and monthly stockholder assessments were temporarily dropped. Board minutes show that during World War II discussions were held about what to do if the Germans started bombing Washington.

After the war the neighborhood around the Northumberland began to decline. Embassies and wealthy property owners moved away, and real estate values dropped. Bucking the trend, the Northumberland gained a reputation as a haven for "old Washington," with many long-time residents staying on. At one point in the 1960s the lobby was redecorated in a contemporary Danish modern style, as if to visually mark what may have seemed the twilight of the venerable building's historic ambience. Then came the 1968 riots, with burning and looting less than two blocks away on 14th Street. According to Richard Cote, people were on the roof of the building during the riots, pouring water to protect it from flying cinders.

An original apartment room chandelier (photo by the author).

In the late 1970s, the downward trend finally began to reverse as the historic character of buildings like the Northumberland, along with their affordability, became a draw. The building earned landmark status in D.C. in 1978, and the exterior was listed on the National Register of Historic Places two years later, the same time that a thorough restoration of the lobby was undertaken. People were charmed by the many elements of the building that had never changed, such as the quaint mail delivery system. A 1978 Washington Post article noted that "Each day the postman presents the mail to Miss [Elsie H.] Anderson, the building's resident manager. She places it in a wicker basket that has been used for that purpose for 40 years, and personally delivers the mail to each apartment."

The Northumberland stands today as one of the oldest continuously operating cooperatives in the city. Cooperative ownership "has been a good thing," says Patrick Sheary, president of the board. "It kept the building original inside and out rather than having a contractor gutting it and renovating it on the cheap. We own the building so we take care of it." The Northumberland is well positioned for another hundred years of elegant urban living.

* * * * *

With reporting by Susan Decker in Mount Pleasant. Special thanks to Susan and to Richard Cote, Patrick Sheary, and other members of the board and residents of the Northumberland. Other sources included James Goode, Best Addresses (1988); the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Northumberland (1980); the Northumberland Apartments website; and numerous newspaper articles.

Romancing the Stones: Charting the Seneca Quarry's role in building Victorian Washington

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:46:00 +0000

The city's historic structures were built from materials as unique to their age and as varied as the architectural styles used to mold them into buildings. Those materials often have their own rich stories to tell, as Garrett Peck ably demonstrates in his lively new book, The Smithsonian Castle and the Seneca Quarry. Seneca sandstone has a lot going for it. In addition to its rich, dignified color, it also has the unique property that it is relatively soft and easy to cut when it is taken out of the ground but hardens after the cut stone is set in place, making for an excellent building material. It's a wonder that more D.C. buildings are not made from it.

The first quarry to be used heavily in constructing early Washington was the Aquia Creek quarry near Stafford, Virginia. Peter L'Enfant purchased that quarry on behalf of the government to supply stone for the Capitol and White House, but the pale Aquia Creek sandstone discolored easily (one reason why the White House was painted white in 1798), and better sources of stone were sought out. The cliffs along the Maryland side of the Potomac at what is now the small village of Seneca offered superior stone.

Robert Peter (1726-1806), a Scottish immigrant who became a prosperous Georgetown tobacco merchant, purchased a large tract of land in Maryland, including the sandstone cliffs, in 1781. The first small amounts of stone were quarried there some time in the late 18th century. Peter's son Thomas built the regal Tudor Place mansion that still stands today in Georgetown as one of the city's best house museums. Thomas also built a distinguished country house on the land at Seneca, but it was not until Thomas's son, John Parke Custis Peter (1799-1848), inherited the property that the Seneca Quarry started to figure prominently in D.C. construction.

South side of the Castle (photo by the author).

John P.C. Peter made a daring lowball bid in 1846 to supply the stone for the new Smithsonian Building to be constructed on the Mall. The iconic structure could have been made of pale Aquia Creek sandstone, white New York marble, or gray granite, but at a below-market 25 cents per square foot, Peter's Seneca red sandstone got the nod from the building committee. The eccentric Romanesque Revival building, designed by James Renwick, set the stage for the Victorian era of red Washington architecture. While many red Victorian buildings would be made primarily of brick, Seneca sandstone was prominent as well, often used in water tables because it was considered waterproof.

The water table and belt courses on the old Agriculture Building are of Seneca sandstone (author's collection).

Renwick used the stone as trim for the original Corcoran Gallery of Art building (now the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery) as well as the chapel at Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown. Just to the west of the Castle, the original Agriculture Department building, designed by Adolf Cluss and completed in 1868, had a Seneca sandstone water table and belt courses. Other Seneca buildings past and present, as cataloged by Peck, include a number of C&O Canal locks and houses, the McClellan Gate at Arlington National Cemetery, the Luther Place Memorial Church facing Thomas Circle, and many private houses. Although he hasn't found evidence to confirm it, Peck tells me he suspects the trim and belt courses on the striking National Security & Trust building at 15th Street and New York Avenue NW may be Seneca sandstone as well.

It's possible that the trim on this building is Seneca sandstone (photo by the author).

But Peck's book goes beyond the buildings to delve into the fascinating stories of the people behind the stones. John P.C. Peter died unexpectedly in 1848 after scratching his thumb on a rusty nail and contracting tetanus, but the quarry continued to prosper without him. It was the site of a skirmish during the Civil War and a scandal afterward, when it fell into the hands of robber barons during the corrupt years of the Grant administration. Peck fills in all the details of these episodes and paints a vivid picture of quarry life, including the role of African-Americans who did much of the stone-cutting.

Ruins of the stonecutting mill (photo by the author).

The quarry shut down around 1901, having exhausted the best of the redstone that was readily available. By that time Washingtonians had decided the city's old red architecture was bad-bad-bad and should be replaced by the imperial white marble and limestone piles envisioned by the McMillan Commission. The forgotten quarry site gradually fell into ruins. Today it lies in densely overgrown parkland just east of the C&O Canal at Seneca. In winter months, when the undergrowth is dormant, Peck leads tours of the site. Though the quarry and its various related structures stand on parkland, none are marked with interpretive signs, and there is no marked trail through the site, so Peck's extensive knowledge of the old quarry is essential. The ghostly ruins of the old stonecutting mill, with initials carved in the sandstone by workers of yore, are particularly poignant.

Quarry master's Seneca sandstone house (photo by the author).

It would be a great addition to the cultural resources of the Washington area if the Seneca Quarry site could be turned into an historical park, as Peck envisions. He closes his book with an engaging discussion of the individuals who have saved parts of old Seneca, like the Kiplingers, who own Thomas Peter's country mansion Montevideo, and the Albiols, who have restored the old quarry master's house. Peck argues for a modest investment to clear the brush from the stonecutting mill site and other key spots, lay out a marked trail through the park, and install a few key interpretive signs. It would make for a unique memorial to a distinctive aspect of 19th-century culture. With publication of The Smithsonian Castle and the Seneca Quarry and fresh interest in the site, perhaps the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission might take action.

The Washington Post's historic home on Rum Row

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 01:32:00 +0000

Recent news articles about the Washington Post's plan to sell its headquarters building have occasionally mentioned the newspaper's historic home, which once stood at 1341 E Street NW on Washington's old Rum Row. While the newer building has witnessed some of the newspaper's greatest journalistic achievements, its plain and functional architecture is a far cry from the Post's old building, which was one of the finest and most ornate Romanesque Revival structures ever built in Washington.

The Post Building is on the left in this circa 1908 postcard (author's collection).

The E Street building was the Post's fourth home. The paper began in 1878 when Stilson Hutchins (1838-1912), who had previously founded the St. Louis Times, came to Washington to start up a Democratic Party organ in the Nation's Capital. His new daily first set up shop in the former headquarters of the Washington Chronicle at 914 Pennsylvania Avenue NW but moved within a year to Jackson Hall, at 339 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, a prominent Greek Revival structure where the Congressional Globe had been printed for many years. From here, Hutchins planned the first building specially designed for the Post, at 10th and D Streets NW, which the newspaper occupied beginning in 1880.

Stilson Hutchins (Source: Library of Congress).

By the 1880s Hutchins became less interested in promoting the Democratic Party, and after acquiring the Daily Republican in 1888—the only morning rival he had left at that point—he announced that the Post would no longer be aligned with any political party. The following year, after the Post swallowed the Evening Critic, Hutchins sold his newspaper to two former politicians, Frank Hatton (1846-1894) and Beriah Wilkins (1846-1905). It was on Hatton and Wilkins' watch that the newspaper's move to its iconic building on E Street took place, in October 1893, when the Post's circulation stood at 16,00 daily and a paper cost 3 cents.

The new building was designed by Appleton P. Clark (1865-1955), a native Washingtonian who has been called the "dean" of Washington architects. Although he had no formal training as an architect, Clark designed many distinguished D.C. buildings. Surviving examples include the Victor Building at 9th Street and G Place NW (see our previous post), the facade of the Homer Building at 13th and F Streets NW, and the stately Roosevelt Hotel at 2101 16th Street NW.

For the Post building, Clark used the imposing Romanesque style that had been highly fashionable in the 1880s, producing an appearance that "happily combines an air of richness with an assurance of solidity," as the United States Government Advertiser put it at the time. The roughly-finished Indiana limestone is the same material that was later used, in smooth-cut ashlars, to clad the office buildings of Federal Triangle. It was solid indeed—two feet thick on the sides and four feet thick in front. Whimsical touches graced the building's lively façade: the carved heads of an eagle and an owl gazed down on visitors approaching the main entrance, suggesting patriotism, wisdom, and round-the-clock vigilance. A delicate, engaged Venetian Gothic balustrade crossed above the second floor. The unusual roofline with its pronounced gable featured decorative crockets and gargoyles at its corners and a unique little circular window within a crow's nest-like balcony at the top, a fearsome carved lion glaring down from its bowl. Stonecutter James F. Earley (1856-1906) did all the carving of the figures in situ, once the stones had been laid.

This circa 1921 photograph shows the building with its eastern 1906 addition (Source: Library of Congress).

Inside the great counting room on the first level was paneled in red cherry wainscoting with a marble floor, iron grilles, and heavy swinging doors with beveled plate glass windows. Carved stone ornamental pillars supported a stuccoed ceiling. To the rear were the press room, engine room (a 50-horsepower McEwen engine ran all the building's equipment), and mail room, the composing room being on the floor above. Editorial offices were on the third floor, with the upper floors leased out to other news organizations, including the United Press. The modern building had all the most up-to-date conveniences, including steam heat, lavatories, a Graves hydraulic elevator, and both gas and electric lights.

Reporters likewise were equipped with the latest high-tech gadgetry: cast-iron Remington typewriters that were far speedier than writing out stories in longhand. The composing room featured 10 Linotype machines, which streamlined typesetting by allowing compositors to key in a full line o' type at a time, to be cast into a single recyclable lead slug, rather than having to set each letter individually in a frame. The Linotype machine had been invented by Baltimore native Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1883 with the active support of Stilson Hutchins. In fact, Hutchins had sold the Post to concentrate on marketing and securing worldwide patents for this revolutionary invention, which would earn over $3 million for him.

The Post Building is the gabled building at the center of this postcard view (author's collection).

While officially on E Street, the Post's new building really faced Pennsylvania Avenue, separated from it by a triangular bit of parkland. The added space created what was informally known as "Post Square," an area where passersby could congregate to learn the latest news. Major sporting events would draw crowds anxious to follow the games, and the Post set up an elaborate public scoreboard on the front of its building in 1912 so fans could see the results of that year's World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Giants. This was already a neighborhood of newspapermen, with dozens of out-of-state news organizations located just around the corner in offices along 14th Street, a block known as Newspaper Row.

The 1912 World Series scoreboard (Source: Library of Congress).

In contrast, the E Street block where the Post set up shop was known as Rum Row, home to a motley assortment of bohemian restaurants and saloons. As the name suggests, Rum Row was a place for drinking—and naturally an assortment of other vices as well, including gambling and prostitution. Originally a line of federal townhouses housing early residents and professionals, Rum Row changed character dramatically during the Civil War when soldiers swarmed the streets looking for cheap entertainment. Previously respectable homes and commercial establishments were replaced with saloons and gambling joints. On the other side of the Post building's site were Engel's and Shoomaker's, two Rum Row fixtures. Shoomaker's dated back to Civil War days, when young Shoo, as everybody called him, was the "handsomest man and the gamest gambler in the country," according to an 1895 Post article. John Hall ran a gambling joint directly above Shoo's saloon, and "it was a common thing for [Shoo] to lose a couple of thousand against Hall's game in the morning and win it back in the afternoon." Shoo would hit the faro tables with the likes of John Usher, owner of the popular White House saloon a few doors down, a favorite watering hole of theater folk and war-weary hard drinkers alike. Doc Parker, Bud Kirby, Redwood Vandegrift, Squirrly Robbins—they all ran gambling dens in the rooms above the White House and Rum Row's other storefront saloons.

After the Munsey building expanded to take over its original location, Shoo's moved to this spot at the other end of Rum Row. (Source: Library of Congress).

By the time the Post moved on to the block, the gambling joints had been closed by a concerted police crackdown in the 1880s, but the saloons survived and doubtless saw an uptick in business after the Post's employees settled in. The central location of this strip made it the rendezvous for all elements of society. “On the row a man met and mingled with the elite, the bon-ton, the busy man-about-town, the Bohemian, the poet laureate, the soldier of fortune, and everything but the bootlegger, a type that at that date had not come into existence,” wrote the Post in 1921.

As well-known as any of Rum Row’s fixtures was Gerstenberg’s Restaurant, immediately to the west of the Post building. Gerstenberg’s was renowned for its beer, of course, but also appreciated for its steaks and German cuisine. The Post’s 1921 article offers this fond encomium:

Along around the evening hour, when the appetites which called for foodstuffs had been whetted and whipped into shape by the tang of tinkling iced Manhattans and dry Martinis, the old timers repaired themselves to Gerstenberg’s where steaks were the piece de resistance—great, juicy, luscious steaks, with a wreath of garnishments on the side, potatoes, crisp and brown, a leaf of lettuce, and a strenuous stein of beer, the steak costing 50 cents, with the accouterments thrown in, and the beer—Wurtzburger and Pilsner—at 10 cents a mug, each mug draped with an iridescent cloud of foam that oozed over and ran down the cool, earthen side of the stein like the filigreed lace veiling of a bride.

To the east of Shoomaker's saloon was the aging Lawrence Hotel, which would be torn down and replaced in 1905 by the soaring 12-story Renaissance Revival headquarters for Frank Munsey's Washington Times newspaper (see our previous post). Eventually the two newspapers would end up with adjoining buildings. In 1906 the Post built a modest expansion on its east side, shortly after the newspaper was sold to John R. McLean. Then, in 1915, the Munsey building expanded west, nearly doubling its size and eradicating the old Shoomaker's and Engel's saloons. The Munsey building at that point abutted the eastern side of the Post building. A second addition to the Post building, on the west side, was completed in 1934, taking the place of the old 3-story building that had housed Gerstenberg's Restaurant.

Passersby inspect a U.S. Weather Bureau kiosk, c. 1921 (Source: Library of Congress).

After McLean took its helm, the Post "imperceptibly began to lose some of the sparkle which had marked it under Hutchins and under Hatton and Wilkins," as delicately put in a 1947 retrospective by Post reporter Marshall Andrews. McLean allowed the paper's editorial direction to drift into tabloid-like sensationalism. But the real trouble began on McClean's death, when his son, Edward B. McLean, inherited the paper. Editorially, Ned McLean turned the paper sharply political, using its influence to help keep the U.S. out of the newly-formed League of Nations. The Post probably reached its editorial nadir in July 1919 when it helped foment that summer's deadly race riot, just as the National Intelligencer had incited the Snow Riot in 1835. McLean's neglect also doomed the paper financially. Readership sank and after the onset of the Great Depression it became insolvent. Finally an auction was held on the front steps of the organization's ever-so-solid looking building in June 1933. Industrialist Eugene Meyer (1875-1959) purchased and rescued the the newspaper, investing in it heavily and promoting journalistic excellence in a way the Post had not seen for decades. The paper finally became consistently profitable again in the 1950s.

Eugene Meyer (Source: Library of Congress).

James Goode includes a colorful quote in Capital Losses about life in the old Post building during World War II, taken from Chalmers Roberts' The Washington Post: The First 100 Years. It is well worth repeating:

At times it seemed amazing that the paper ever got printed. The old building shook and the lights flickered each evening as the presses, popularly believed to be held together by baling wire, began to roll. The second floor city room, easier to reach by steep stairs than by the single rickety elevator cage, was jammed with clerks and by ten o'clock was full of cigarette smoke. In the morning reporters wiped inky dust from typewriters. Acid from the engraving room dripped through the ceiling into the small "morgue," or library room. Reporters and deskmen could still get away with drinking on the job; one editor who had his in a popular mouthwash bottle was famous for his repeated gargling. An electrician and his girl, having a tryst on the roof, crashed through a skylight into the printers' proof room.

Of course, all the fun at the Post building was bound to eventually come to an end. The numerous inefficiencies and hazards of the old building, as well as its limited space, had to be overcome. Initially the Washington Post Company planned to build just a two-story printing plant on land it had purchased in the 1500 block of L Street NW, but soon a decision was made to build an entirely new headquarters there. The seven-story streamlined office building, designed by Albert Kahn Associated Architects of Detroit, was completed in 1950 and the first editions of the newspaper were printed there in December.

The former Rum Row as it appears today (photo by the author).

The old E Street building, which stood on land owned by the Willard family estate, was initially leased to the General Services Administration for use as government office space. The State Department used part of it for a library, and the Small Business Administration also had offices in it. In 1954 the building was torn down and replaced with a parking lot, followed a few years later by a parking garage. In 1980 everything that still stood on the block west of the National Theater, including the impressive Munsey Building, was razed, and the J.W. Marriott Hotel rose in its place.

* * * * *

Sources for this article included George Rothwell Brown, Washington: A Not Too Serious History (1930); James M. Goode, Capital Losses (2003); Chalmers M. Roberts, The Washington Post: The First 100 Years (1977); and numerous newspaper articles.

Popovers and Hobbyhorses at the Water Gate Inn

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 23:42:00 +0000

One of the most distinctive restaurateurs of 20th century Washington was Marjory Hendricks (1896-1978), owner of the Water Gate Inn, which she operated from 1942 to 1966 on the current site of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Like all great restaurateurs, Hendricks knew how to keep her guests charmed and entertained, and her Pennsylvania Dutch-inspired eatery was unique in Washington history.

Interior of the Water Gate Inn (author's collection).

Born in Seattle, Hendricks came to the D.C. area with her family in 1918. After a brief first marriage and early restaurant experience in Reno, Nevada, Hendricks traveled to France in 1929 to study cooking. On her return in 1931, she acquired a failing country club in Rockville, Maryland, which she turned into the Normandy Farm restaurant, a rustic inn of the type that were very popular in the era. The restaurant remains in business today, its name spelled slightly differently.

Eleanor Roosevelt was among the Washingtonians who discovered Normandy Farm, and she is said to have encouraged Hendricks to open a "branch" restaurant in D.C. In 1941 Hendricks bought the former Riverside Riding Academy at 2700 F Street NW as the site for her new in-town eatery. The location was something of a gamble: the Foggy Bottom neighborhood was a semi-industrial backwater at the time. Some even called it a slum. It was far away from most of the city's established nightlife, although across the street stood another former riding facility that had been turned into a supper club, The Stables. Nevertheless, with the tremendous influx of newcomers to the city at the beginning of World War II, existing restaurant facilities—particularly for large groups—were inadequate, and a talented restaurateur like Hendricks was in high demand wherever she might choose to set up shop. Wartime materials shortages kept her from opening the new place until August 1942, after which it soon became a hit with local diners.

For her new venture, Hendricks decided to adopt a Pennsylvania Dutch motif, reflecting growing interest in the culture and its artifacts. Her sister, Genevieve Hendricks (1893-1976), a well-known interior designer, was in charge of decorating the new space with Pennsylvania antiques, including a number of old hobbyhorses, which became emblematic of the new restaurant. Large windows offered an enchanting view of the Potomac River, and the quaint décor gracing the former stables’ heavy wooden carpentry lent a cozy, rustic atmosphere to the restaurant, which customers found very appealing.

For many of the authentic Pennsylvania Dutch dishes offered at the Water Gate, Hendricks relied on Flora G. Orr (1893-1953), a long-time friend and culinary consultant who developed recipes and trained the kitchen staff. Several Water Gate Inn dishes were consistently singled out by critics and customers alike as especially memorable, including the popovers, which had first been introduced at the Normandy Inn. The inn’s menus would usually list a traditional dish, such as the unpronounceable “Sigh Flaysch Rick Mays El mit Rode Graut” (pork tenderloin cooked with red cabbage) or the popular “Shrimp Wiggle Esche Puddle” (shrimp and peas in cream sauce). Other dishes included traditional pork-and-sauerkraut recipes, layered dishes called Gumbis (shredded cabbage with layers of fruit and/or meat), as well as new recipes inspired by traditional Pennsylvania Dutch techniques. One dish, Chicken Barbara (battered chicken breasts with cream sauce), was so successful that Hendricks trademarked the name. The dish, she claimed, was an impromptu concoction invented for a finicky customer and named after his girlfriend.

In 1960 the restaurant was first threatened by plans for the new National Cultural Center, which would become the Kennedy Center. While the inn was not directly in the footprint of the proposed center, architect Edward Durrell Stone felt that additional green space was needed around the center, which would necessitate removal of the inn. Hendricks fought back, urging her patrons to write their congressmen to protest the plan. "This product of private enterprise, the culmination of the owner’s thirty years in the distinctive restaurant business, and means of livelihood of ninety employees, would be destroyed," she warned.

The restaurant stayed open until 1966, when Hendricks finally reached an agreement with the government on the sale of the property, reportedly for $650,000, significantly less than the $1 million she had hoped for. With bulldozers already rumbling all around it, the inn closed in May. “No more Dutch noodle soup, piping hot popovers with melting butter, rich Mennonite chicken, oven-baked loin of veal with Pennsylvania egg noodles, fresh yellow squash, bread-and-butter pickles and apple-tart pies,” the Evening Star’s John Rosson lamented.

Menu from the Water Gate Inn dated April 2, 1954 (click to enlarge).

Hendricks at first thought she might open a new restaurant, and she had purchased the old Childs Restaurant at 2 Massachusetts Avenue NW (see our previous post about Childs) in 1961 with that in mind. The new restaurant never materialized, and Hendricks instead ran the Renaissance Gift Shop in the space for several years. By the time the Water Gate Inn closed she went into full retirement. Hendricks died in 1978.

Illustrations are all from postcards in the author's collection. A version of this article will be included in the forthcoming book, Historic Restaurants of Washington, D.C.: Capital Eats, to be published by History Press, Inc., in late 2013.

Washington's Unloved, Never-Finished, Crumbling Peace Monument

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 15:23:00 +0000

"Why is peace such an untellable tale?" wonders one of the patrons in a Berlin library as he is observed by a kindly angel in Wim Wenders' classic film, Wings of Desire (1987). Just as peace is hard to write about, so it seems to be hard to erect a memorial to. We have countless monuments to wars and their heroes, but relatively few to celebrate peace. Even our Peace Monument, erected in 1877 at the foot of Capitol Hill where Pennsylvania Avenue ends, is really more about war than peace, and like the city's many war memorials, people have bickered over it at least as much as they've celebrated its theme of tranquility.

The Peace Monument (photo by the author). Click on any of the photos in the article to enlarge them.

The monument was the brainchild of Admiral David D. Porter (1813-1891), one of the top two naval commanders of the Civil War. In 1864 Porter had led the successful naval campaign to take Fort Fisher at Wilmington, North Carolina, in what would be the last major naval campaign of the war. It was after the fall of Fort Fisher that Porter began a campaign to have a memorial erected to all of the brave Navy men who had been killed in the war, just as his famous father, War of 1812 hero David Porter (1780-1843), had commissioned the first naval monument to heroes of the Barbary Wars. That memorial, now known as the Tripoli Monument, had been completed in 1806 and originally stood in the Navy Yard but was moved to the Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1860.

When the Civil War ended, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles (1802-1878) made Porter superintendent of the Naval Academy, where he would go on to institute many reforms that enhanced the professionalism of the navy. While at the Academy, Porter worked to get the new naval monument built so that it could join the venerable Tripoli Monument at Annapolis. He collected contributions from Naval officers and seamen totaling $9,000 and sketched out the design of the monument himself. Sculptor Franklin Simmons (1839-1913), who also sculpted the equestrian figure of General John A. Logan at the center of Logan Circle, was hired to carve the figures for the monument in fine white Carrara marble in his studio in Rome. So far so good. A reading of the National Register listing for Civil War monuments in Washington suggests that the ensuing production of the memorial was accomplished with efficiency and purpose: "The sculpture was erected by the government with contributions from Navy personnel under a Congressional Act approved July 31, 1876 (19 Stat. 114). It was sculpted and carved in Rome in 1877 and dedicated in the same year."

The Peace Monument c. 1880, from a stereoview in the author's collection.

However, things didn't really go quite that smoothly. For one thing, it seems that Admiral Porter and Secretary Welles may not have gotten along well together. According to retired Navy officer C.Q. Wright, who wrote about the Peace Monument in the Washington Post in 1923, "the few surviving letters which passed between [Porter and Welles] concerning the location of this monument seem to indicate indifference in the mind of Mr. Wells to the erection of the monument or a quiet disapproval of the affair in which he may have thought he saw sign of the high-handed self-assertion of Admiral Porter." Wright suggests that friction between Porter and Welles may have led to changes both in where the memorial was to be placed and how it was to be designed.

A contract with sculptor Simmons had been signed in 1871, and the Baltimore Sun reported in 1873 that Simmons was making good progress and was expected to finish the work in about two years. The monument at that time was a straightforward paean to the war's lost naval heroes. It included two allegorical figures atop a grand 40-foot pedestal: America (or perhaps it is Grief) weeping for her lost sons on the shoulder of History, who records the names of the heroes for all time in a book. On the front of the pedestal a third figure, representing Victory, holds a laurel wreath over two smaller cherubic figures representing Neptune (the Navy) and Mars (the Marines). According to the Sun, once completed, the monument would "be conveyed to Annapolis in a man-of-war."

The front (western) side of the memorial. Photo by the author.

Detail of the figures of America (Grief) and History.

But the monument never made it to Annapolis, and its warlike theme was modified. In 1876, an addendum to Simmons' contract was signed adding a new figure on the back side of the pedestal representing Peace, holding an olive branch and overlooking symbols of agriculture and the arts and sciences. Once the sculptural work was finished in 1877, the pieces were shipped to the Washington Navy Yard aboard a freighter called the Supply. Annapolis was no longer the destination, and no man-of-war ever brought the sculptures over from Italy. Congress pitched in $20,000 to have a large pedestal built for the monument, including a surrounding basin built on a raised platform, and the monument was now destined to be constructed at the foot of the Capitol. Edward Clark, the architect of the Capitol, designed the base.

Victory, with Mars and Neptune at her feet.

Construction began in the spring of 1877, but the memorial was never really finished. According to Keim's Illustrated Handbook of Washington and Its Environs (1883), it was supposed to include a decorative fountain around its base and four street lamps at the corners. "Cascades flow from the mouths of bronze dolphins in the sub-base, and four artistic lamp posts stand at the rim of the basin," Keim writes. Keim seems to have based his description on the proposed design of the memorial rather than the completed structure, because these decorative elements were never built. Instead, the marble base of the pedestal includes four bare holes that dump water out into the surrounding basin, and the four granite piers that were meant to hold the "artistic" lampposts have naked screws sticking out of them, waiting patiently (for 135 years now) for the lampposts to be installed.

The pedestal, basin and granite piers for lampposts.

One of the unfinished granite lamppost piers.

Wright speculates that the project ran out of money before the bronze dolphins and lampposts could be fabricated, but it seems clear from the unfinished construction that they were expected to be added in short order. Keim's Handbook notes that the 44-foot monument was "erected without ceremonies" in 1877. Presumably a formal dedication was put off until the memorial could be completed. Since that never happened, it appears that the monument was never formally dedicated.

Interpreting the thematically complex monument—the grieving pair at the top, Victory on one side, Peace on the other—was challenging even at the time it was built. As early as May 1877, while the monument was still under construction, the National Republican felt compelled to publish a clarification about its meaning:

The misnomer "Statue of Peace" is applied to the structure now under process of erection at the intersection of Pennsylvania avenue and First street, at the foot of the Capitol ground. It isn't a "Statue of Peace." It is a monument to commemoriate the deeds of our navy during the war of the rebellion...

An Evening Star reporter queried one of the German laborers working on the monument as to its meaning. "Vell, I don't can tell you vot dem vimmens is already, but I tink dey be officers' vives." the laborer supposedly replied. "One of dem vimmens, de one what cry all de time, she just heard dot her husband got wounded, and she feel awful bad about dot, and she don't can write, so she get de udder vimmen mit de fedder pen to write a letter for her."

Though many people greatly admired the towering memorial, it had plenty of detractors as well. The sorrowful figure of America, hanging on the shoulder of History, seemed a bit maudlin even in Victorian times. The Star formally reviewed the monument in June 1877 and found much to be desired.

For a work of its importance, it is deficient in originality and power; but it is likely that the artist was in some degree hampered in his efforts, since it is given out that the design is in whole or in part that of a high naval officer—who probably knows a good deal more about the high seas than he does about high art.

The Star reviewer went on to liken it to cemetery memorials "which rich and disconsolate husbands who marry again in a year or two are in the habit of erecting over the graves of their recently deceased wives." Last but not least, the siting was criticized, as the monument seemed to be overwhelmed by the Capitol building behind it. It would have fared better "against rich green foliage or the clear blue sky, like the splendid Scott statue in the 16th street circle." The Post would comment some years later that "it is quite the most depressing and lugubrious bit of marble that we can remember having seen anywhere outside of a graveyard."

The figure of Peace on the rear (eastern) side of the monument.

As it was being sized up in the press in 1877, the monument was far from complete. In January 1878, the Star reported that "The Naval Monument has just been completed by putting in place the figure of Peace." Of course, the bronze fixtures at the base remained missing. The Star's reporter had a very different view of the monument than his colleague who had offered the sarcastic comments the previous summer. This time the Star wrote:

The whole composition of the work is new, and quite unlike any other memorial erected to commemorate the Civil War. The composition and the general simplicity of the design and execution of the drapery shows that the artist made a careful study of the best models of antiquity, and endeavored to form a style after the best principles of classic art. This group, when it was completed by Mr. Simmons in his studio at Rome, excited great interest among the artists of all nations, and it was generally spoken of as one of the most original and satisfactory works of our time.

Postcard view of the monument in the 1910s (author's collection).

Masterpiece or not, the monument has languished at the foot of Capital Hill ever since. In the late 19th century, before so much of the surrounding area was turned into empty green space, this was a rather desolate and unsafe neighborhood. In 1884, a certain John L. Ransom was attacked and robbed under the tranquil gaze of the Peace Monument's figures after he had emerged from nearby Bryan's Saloon. A letter to the editor of the Post in 1894 complained that the monument had become "rather a tramp headquarters than a monument to the beautiful angel of peace." A trolley car employee, "under a greasy umbrella" stood watch over a "horrible pit," with a stable just behind the monument filled with the "spavined skeletons" of the horses who dragged trolley cars, known as herdics, up Capitol Hill. What's more, "the water basin surrounding the monument has long been dry, and is a convenient receptacle for the garbage collected by wind and weather instead of being the handsome fountain and pool which it was intended to be." The following year a fight erupted at the base of the monument between Edward Lackey and Charles Ward, two men "well known to the police" over who should pay their trolley fare. Lackey's hand was slashed, and both men were thrown in jail. Grief, History, Victory, and Peace all looked on, unmoved.

The Peace Monument c. 1910, still a trolley stop (Source: Library of Congress).

As early as 1892, there was talk of moving the monument, perhaps to the small park at Connecticut Avenue and Q Street, NW. Fortunately, that didn't happen. Later suggestions were made to move it to Arlington National Cemetery or even the Naval Academy in Annapolis, where it was supposed to go in the first place. No action was taken.

In 1904, the Army was given the responsibility for maintaining the memorial as the surrounding areas were cleaned up, cleared of railroad tracks, saloons, stables, canal remnants, and other structures, and the modern pristine landscape was created.

Postcard view of the monument in the 1910s (author's collection).

By 1903, the ravages of time and weather were already apparent, with several of the figures showing holes and chipped pieces. The Post even alleged that the statues had been made of Keene cement rather than Carrara marble, thus leading to rapid erosion, but there is no other evidence to support this claim. A 1931 Post article further sounded the alarm about extensive acid erosion to the Peace Monument and other DC landmarks.

Little, if anything has been done over the years to preserve the never-finished monument, and the marble figures are now badly eroded. It appears that a chunk of marble broke from the side of the head of History at one point, and a clumsy repair was made. The faces of all of the figures have worn down to the point that they seem to have a vague, ghostly presence. The left arm of Peace broke off at one point and has been repaired. The right arm of the cherubic Neptune also broke off but was never replaced.

The faces of America and History as they appear today (photo by the author).

The Post recently chose, fittingly, a beautiful photo of the Peace Monument to represent our collective desire to commemorate those who have been victims of senseless violence, as occurred in Newtown, Connecticut. If such memorials are indeed important to us, we may want to consider taking steps to preserve our grand Peace Monument—and perhaps even finish the parts of it that have been left undone for 135 years.

* * * * *

Sources for this article included: George Rothwell Brown, Washington: A Not Too Serious History (1930); Federal Writers' Project, Washington City and Capital (1937); James M. Goode, Washington Sculpture (2008); B. Randolph Keim, Keim's Illustrated Hand-Book: Washington and Its Environs (1883); the National Register listing for Civil War monuments in Washington; and newspaper articles.

The Argyle Apartments in Mount Pleasant

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:03:00 +0000

Completed in 1913, the Argyle apartment building was conveniently located at the northern terminus of the Mount Pleasant trolley line. Today it is an aged and humble-seeming structure, yet it was constructed with quality materials and elegant finishes and marked a turning point for its developer, who would go on to build two of Washington's most notable landmarks.

Postcard view of the Argyle around the time it opened (author's collection).

The Mount Pleasant community, which The Washington Post recently termed "a sought-after, happy sort of neighborhood known for its leafy streets and great jogging areas," was a fast-developing bedroom community at the beginning of the 20th century. After the Civil War, Washington City had burst out of its early L'Enfant borders (marked on the north by Boundary Street—now Florida Avenue) and was rapidly filling the rest of the District of Columbia. The community of Mount Pleasant was one of the earliest of the suburban neighborhoods to be developed, beginning in the 1870s as a village of frame country houses with spacious yards. Thirty years later, the country village was quickly evolving into an urban neighborhood with brick row-houses replacing the earlier frame structures and apartment buildings springing up at central locations.

The corner of Park Road and Mt. Pleasant Street (the "old" 16th Street before a straighter extension of 16th was built just to the east) was one such central location, the spot where the 16th Street trolley turned around. A large apartment building called the Park Regent, still standing at 1701 Park Road NW, had been completed there in 1909 by renowned developer Harry Wardman. Wardman would go on to build the elegant Northbrook Apartments at 16th and Newton Streets in 1917. Between those two projects, the relatively modest Argyle was constructed by the Kennedy Brothers in 1913.

The Argyle circa 1921 (Library of Congress).

Edgar S. Kennedy is one of the largely forgotten developers of the real estate boom days of the early 1900s. Born in Virginia at the dawn of the Civil War, Kennedy came to Washington as a young man and got involved in the building trade. Kent Boese has written an excellent paper about Kennedy and his work in the Park View neighborhood, another suburban development in the former Washington county. Kennedy had built blocks of relatively modest houses, both in Park View and in Mount Pleasant, but the Argyle was his first large apartment building.

The building presumably got its name from the country estate of Thomas Blagden (1815-1870), also called Argyle, which was located just north of Mount Pleasant on the hills beyond the Piney Branch valley of Rock Creek Park. Designed by Alexander H. Sonnemann (1872-1956), Kennedy's long-time collaborator, the building featured costly detailing to appeal to upper middle class Washingtonians of the day. The four-story structure was elegantly finished in tapestry brick with terra cotta trim, and almost all of the forty apartments had at least one bay window, many with sweeping views of the city and Rock Creek Park. The larger apartments, which could have as many as six rooms, included sleeping porches, a highly sought-after amenity in the days before air conditioning. All the apartments were finished in mahogany trim with "double quartered" oak floors and featured the latest Chicago Jewel gas ranges in their kitchens. The lobby, main stairway, and corridors were trimmed with expensive snow-white Colorado Yule marble, the same marble used for the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Beneath all of this elegance, in the basement, were "sufficient servants' rooms to accomodate all the servants who will be employees in the apartments," according to the Washington Times. Monthly rent on a three-bedroom apartment was $28.50. Five-bedroom units went for $32.50. Such rates were competitive but not cheap.

Advertisement from the October 11, 1913 Washington Herald (Library of Congress).

Part of the first floor space was designed specifically as a "modern" pharmacy, with marble countertops and elegant mirror-back glass shelves to show off hundreds of shiny bottles. The strategically-located Argyle Pharmacy served as a tea room in its early days and later had a soda fountain, which historian Mara Cherkasky notes would become a favorite neighborhood fixture in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Argyle Apartments today (photo by the author).

Whether it was a deliberate shift or not, the Argyle served as a turning point for Edgar Kennedy and his brother William, who lived in Mount Pleasant. The pair would go on to build two of Washington's very finest apartment complexes. In 1915, just two years after finishing the Argyle, the Kennedy Brothers swapped the property for a parcel of land at 16th Street and Crescent Place, where they built the Meridian Mansions apartment complex, a lavish apartment hotel, now called the Envoy, across from Meridian Hill Park. James Goode has written that Meridian Mansions, which first opened in 1918, was for many years one of the truly great apartment houses in the nation's capital.

Postcard view of Meridian Mansions, circa 1923 (author's collection).

One of the few apartment buildings that could possibly outdo Meridian Mansions was another Kennedy Brothers project, the Kennedy-Warren at 3133 Connecticut Avenue NW, which opened in 1931. It stands to this day as the finest Art Deco apartment house ever built in Washington. Alexander Sonnemann, architect of the Argyle, was involved in the design of both of these structures. While the humbler Argyle, tucked away in Mount Pleasant, is often overlooked, it was an important springboard for these two later landmarks.

The Kennedy-Warren (photo by the author).

* * * * *

Sources included Kent Boese, "Houses With Novel Points: Kennedy Brothers, Princeton Heights, and the Making of Northern Park View" (2009); Mara Cherkasky, Mount Pleasant (2007); James Goode, Best Addresses (1988), and a number of vintage newspaper articles.

Garfinckel's, Washington's Fashion Arbiter

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 22:39:00 +0000

The retail enterprise founded by Julius Garfinckle (1874-1936) in 1905 was a relative latecomer to the city's department store field. Woodies, Lansburgh's, the Palais Royal, Kann's, Goldenberg's, and Hecht's all were established by the 1890s, making for a saturated and highly competitive market by the turn of the new century. But Garfinckle's store (he later changed his and the store's name to Garfinckel) carved out a unique, high-end niche and held on to it for 85 years, cultivating generations of dedicated shoppers who depended on the store for the trendiest and classiest apparel. When Garfinckel's finally declared bankruptcy and closed in 1990, it was a heart-wrenching experience for employees and customers alike.

The former Garfinckel's building as it appears today (photo by the author).

Born in Syracuse, New York, Garfinckle went to Colorado as a young man, hoping to strike a fortune in silver mining. Instead he became a clerk in a dry goods store. He moved to Washington in 1899, where he found employment with Parker, Bridget & Company, a prominent fashion-oriented dry goods store at 9th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. As a buyer for that store's women's clothing department, Garfinckle traveled frequently to New York and learned all the ins and outs of the retail fashion industry.

In 1905 Garfinckle set out on his own with the founding of his namesake store, which occupied the bottom floor of a seven-floor building at 1226 F Street NW. With his Parker Bridget experience and contacts, Garfinckle was able to fill his new store with "a carefully selected stock of women's suits, cloaks, furs, &c, together with imported novelties and specialties," according to the Washington Post, which observed that the new store's "popularity is already assured." In keeping with the expectations of his high-end customers, Garfinckle made sure that each received exceptional personal attention.

Garfinckle's original store (Source: DC Public Library, Star Collection, © Washington Post).

The Post's early prediction of success soon came true. Garfinckle's gradually filled all seven floors of its host building, an odd-looking structure that was originally half-built to allow for future expansion. Within a few years Garfinckle's booming business led him to take over the two-story space on the corner previously occupied by Brentano's bookstore and then to build out the missing floors above it.

But even that complete building wasn't big enough, and by the 1920s, after Garfinckel changed the spelling of his name, he had his sights set on constructing a grand new building better fitting his prestigious business. He began assembling as much property as he could at the northwest corner of 14th and F Streets NW, and in 1928 announced plans for an imposing new 8-story building.

Like many a modern-day developer, Garfinckel immediately ran afoul of the city's zoning regulations. He had planned for the full 130-foot elevation of his building to extend out to the property line, but new zoning rules adopted in 1927 required a setback for the floors above 110 feet. Protesting the requirement, Garfinckel's attorneys pointed out that the newly-completed National Press Building, located cater-corner to the site, had no setback. However, that building had been completed in 1927, just before the new rule took effect. When finally constructed, the Garfinckel building dutifully included the required setback.

The Garfinckel's building in 1955 (Source: DC Public Library, Star Collection, © Washington Post).

The beautiful Garfinckel's building, which Mrs. Herbert Hoover officially opened in October 1930, reflected the store's carefully cultivated air of sophisticated elegance. Designed by the New York firm of Starrett and Van Vleck (no lowly Washington architect would do for this building), its stately limestone facade was in a restrained classical style, embracing the clean lines of art deco but avoiding any unseemly exuberance. Inside it sported the latest amenities, including a "scientifically" controlled system of cleverly hidden ducts and vents that would provide both warm air in the winter and cool air in the summer (amazing!) as well as cold storage for the furs of Washington's most fashionable women, a system of conveyor belts for sending parcels down to delivery vans, and even an automatic sprinkler system for fire protection. It was a very advanced building indeed.

Julius Garfinckel, the lord of this impressive fiefdom, was by all accounts a very likable individual. Everyone said he had a great sense of humor, and he made a point of walking the entire store and visiting with each employee every day. He knew and asked about everybody's family members. He was similarly charming and attentive with all his customers, even going out of his way at times to see to their individual needs. If he were in Paris on a buying trip, for example, he might select a special dress for the planned wedding of a customer's daughter. Loyal customers came to revere Garfinckel and defer to him without question in matters of fashion and taste, making him a rock star in DC's small world of haute couture.

Julius Garfinckel (Source: Library of Congress).

Garfinckel was distinctly eccentric as well, but that only added to his mystique as a fashion arbiter. Without exception, he never attended dinner parties or other social events. As the National Register nomination for the Garfinckel's building explains, "He was reportedly a teetotaler and a vegetarian, who stood on tiptoes when talking to customers to compensate for his small stature, and rushed to wash his hands after shaking hands with visitors." Never married, he lived first in an apartment at the Burlington Hotel at 1120 Vermont Avenue NW and later in a suite at the exclusive Hay-Adams Hotel on Lafayette Square. His sole known diversion was horseback riding, and he could be seen at times on the trails of Rock Creek Park. President Calvin Coolidge, another famously reserved individual, sometimes accompanied him.

Single-mindedly dedicated to his store, Garfinckel worked long hours and often on weekends and holidays. He took advantage of the eighth-floor setback that he was forced to include in his new building and had his desk placed outdoors under an awning on the balcony from early spring to late fall. Distracted reporters in the National Press Building opposite could watch in fascination as an endless parade of pretty women would come out on the balcony to model new clothes for Garfinckel's personal approval. He was as uncompromising as he was eccentric, insisting that Garfinckel's be the exclusive outlet for any and all of its merchandise. He instructed his managers to immediately discontinue any item found to be on sale at another D.C. store.

When Garfinckel died in 1936 after a bout with pneumonia, the loss was widely lamented. While noting that he was "of a retiring disposition" and "not particularly socially inclined," The Post noted that his obvious business accomplishments "did not overshadow his outstanding work in many civic and charitable organizations and movements in Washington." His philanthropic streak was borne out in his will, which left the bulk of his $6 million fortune to charity, including the YWCA, which was to establish a home and school, named after his mother, to support "worthy women under the necessity of earning their own livelihood." The Harrison Center for Career Education continues to this day as a component of the local YWCA.

Garfinckel had been the sole owner of his store, and after his death changes inevitably occurred, included an eagerly anticipated public stock offering in 1939 that was to pay very well for its savvy investors. The store changed in subtler ways as well. Garfinckel had insisted that the mannequins in the display windows be headless and armless because he thought full human figures distracted from looking at the clothes; this policy was soon dropped under the new regime.

The Greenbrier Restaurant in 1948 (Source: Library of Congress).

Another notable change was the opening of the Greenbrier Garden tea room on the fifth floor in 1940. Beginning early in the century, most department stores featured tea rooms—casual restaurants where women could gather and socialize over sandwiches and cakes—as a fundamental amenity. The Woodies tea room, for example, was famous and much-loved. Garfinckel's was unusual in not having such an eatery when it first opened, but in typical fashion, Garfinckel's sought to be more elegant and sophisticated than any of the others when it finally decided to launch its own tea room. Designed by the New York firm of William and Harrell, specialists in department store tea room planning, the new 100-seat Greenbrier drew rave reviews. The modernistic "garden" layout included a grass-green floor and blond furniture upholstered in a flowery variety of pasteled chartreuse, rose, purple, and peacock. A fancy trellis held potted flowers, and a large potted palm sat in the middle of the room. The custom tables had shelves for pocketbooks and were fitted with trays at each setting so that it would be quick and easy for the waitresses to remove and replace the dishes. Customers paid 60 cents as they entered and were assigned to a numbered table where a trio of waitresses rapidly—but graciously!—served them. Even the waitresses were chosen to fit in with the design scheme: all were redheads, decked out in blue blouses and candy-striped peasant skirts.

Your 60 cents bought you a choice of five "salad entrees," a beverage, and a cake or pastry from a cart that was wheeled past your table. During afternoon tea, the fee dropped to 50 cents and included your choice of sandwiches or "tea salads," beverage and pastry. At the eatery's press preview, a fashion show was held that included a chic Native-American-inspired outfit complete with feather headdress and handmade jewelry from a western reservation. Supposedly the feather headdress was "functional for keeping the wind from blowsy-ing your hair," according to Katherine Smith of the Times-Herald. No word on how well it sold.

A match cover with a gilt finish (undated), as was placed at each table setting in the Greenbrier (author's collection).

The Greenbrier quickly became an exclusive Washington institution that continued for fifty years (until Garfinckel's closed), an extraordinary run for a Washington restaurant. As a luncheon haven for well-to-do socialites, it had a distinctly conservative bent. In fact, when its concessionaire filed for a permit to serve alcohol in 1969, the move was protested by the Washington chapter of the Women's' Christian Temperance Union. Arguing that the Greenbrier was "just about the only place you can go for lunch in the downtown area and not be met with a rowdy crowd," the WCTU's local president argued that there was no need to taint the venerable old tea room with alcohol. She also threatened that her 600 D.C. members would boycott Garfinckel's if alcohol were served at the Greenbrier, which she implied would be a substantial blow. Nevertheless, the Greenbrier got its permit—the first for a D.C. department store—and the Evening Star soon observed that remarkably "no unlady-like tipplers have had to be mopped up from the corner of 14th and F Streets." In fact, one in every four customers was ordering a drink, and in that heyday of cocktails they were Whiskey Sours, Manhattans, Martinis, Old Fashioneds, Pink Ladies, Sidecars, and Daiquiris, in that order of popularity. "Women are embarrassed to go where there are a lot of men," one patron remarked to the Star's reporter, "but we like to be able to have a cocktail occasionally when we're downtown shopping."

Ultimately, the only way to be truly exclusive is to exclude people, and Garfinkel's, like many other Washington institutions of its day, did just that. It was a whites-only enterprise until forced to give up the policy by the success of the civil rights movement. Speaking to the New York Times in 1988, Elsie M. Monroe, who came to Washington in 1951, remembered the store bitterly: "I am from Richmond, the Gateway to the South, and I never remember being turned away from a store there. But blacks could not shop at Garfinckel's...You had the money; the money was the color green, but your money would not spend in that store." Boycotted along with other downtown department stores in the late 1950s, Garfinckel's didn't hire its first African-American clerks until the early 1960s. Many blacks refused to shop at Garfinckel's even after it dropped its discriminatory practices.

A Garfinckel's advertisement from the 1960s.

Garfinckel's had its best days in the 1940s and 1950s. An article in the New York Times in 1961 called it the arbiter of tastes in the capital and rattled off all the famous people that had been outfitted there, beginning with Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt and including all the first ladies through the elegant Jackie Kennedy. Visiting queens and other dignitaries shopped there as well. A bevy of models was once sent to Blair House so that King Saud of Saud Arabia could see a special collection of fur coats on live models. Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower's Mollie Parnis dress came from Garfinckel's, as did Mrs. Robert Kennedy's Christian Dior and Norman Norell dresses. Even Mme. Hervé Alphand, wife of the French Ambassador, had her hair done at the Garfinckel salon.

The business grew steadily over the years. Garfinckel's opened its first branch store in Spring Valley in 1942 and steadily expanded into the suburbs beginning with a store at the new Sevens Corner Shopping Center in Virginia—the first suburban shopping mall in the D.C. area—in 1956. Garfinckel's would eventually have eight locations throughout the region. The company also started acquiring other businesses beginning in 1946 when it bought Brooks Brothers, the prestigious New York clothier, from the great great grandson of Henry Sands Brooks, who had opened his first store in 1818. The company later bought the DePinna fashion stores, also in New York City, and a Richmond, Virginia, department store chain, Miller & Rhoads, in 1967, which made the company as a whole larger even than Woodies in sales volume. Then in 1977 it acquired the Ann Taylor chain, a trendy fashion retailer that had been founded in 1954.

Logo from the 1970s. Garfinckel's original logo was in pink and gray.

But things began to change in the 1970s as Garfinckel's executives attempted to "modernize" the venerable store that had lived for so long off of its distinguished heritage and impeccable credentials. Fellow downtown department stores were suffering, and some, including Lansburgh's and Kann's, had gone out of business, prompting nervousness about the need to appeal to a broader clientele. Indicative of change were the new "verité" display windows adopted in 1976. Post reporter Nina Hyde observed a Garfinckel's window laid out with female mannequins dressed in work clothes, a cigarette dangling from the lips of one, a ladder and tools scattered about, and paint splashed on the window. A Garfinckel's patron in a navy linen suit and pumps passed by. "They've lost their minds," she remarked.

And so it seemed they had. The company spiraled into financial peril as management changes put it in serious jeopardy. Even as it made money and talked of further expansion and acquisitions in the late 1970s, it began to "attract the sharks," as Post columnist Rudolph Pyatt later explained. In 1981 New York-based Allied Stores, Inc., acquired Garfinckel's in a hostile takeover. Allied, in turn, was acquired by a Canadian firm in 1986, which promptly spun off Garfinckel's to help pay for the acquisition. Garfinckel's by this point was languishing, an old-fashioned store with no one to breathe new life into it. As bidders circled, there was talk of selling the majestic building at 14th and F Streets NW, and preservationists grew concerned. Late in 1987 Raleigh's Stores, Inc., bought Garfinckel's and promptly fired six of its top executives. Preservationists, including the D.C. Preservation League, ensured that the flagship main building was quickly designated an historic landmark in 1988, but that didn't stop Raleigh's from selling the building and leasing back space to keep the store running. But Garfinckel's was fatally unprofitable by then, its assets plundered to finance the wheeling and dealing of corporate raiders. It finally filed for bankruptcy and closed in 1990.

The Garfinckel's building in 1990. Photo by Betty Bird, from the National Register nomination.

Having embraced the pinnacle of Washington's social life for so long, Garfinckel's loss seemed to mark the passing of an old order. Everyone remembered above all the high level of service, the quality goods. My father used to rave about how expertly the Garfinckel's staff would fit shoes or suits. Women remembered buying wedding dresses there, being seated and waited upon with elegant fashions brought to them to inspect. All gone. As the Post's Kara Fisher wrote in June 1990, the store's going-out-of-business sale was the ultimate insult, a chaotic madhouse of angry customers, blaring orange discount signs, frazzled clerks—everything that Garfinckel's had scrupulously avoided over its long and distinguished career.

The first floor sales area in 1990. Photo by Betty Bird, from the National Register nomination.

There followed several years of wrangling over the fate of the store's landmark building, which was zoned exclusively for use as a department store. Many wanted another department store there, and for a time it looked like Lord & Taylor might move in, but it never came to pass. In 1993, the D.C. government abandoned efforts to try to get another department store in the space, and recommended that a mixed office/retail use be allowed. Downtown congregations fought the decision in court, arguing that a department store would create more jobs, but lost the case. Redevelopment of the building finally began in 1997, and it reopened as Hamilton Square in 1999. Borders Books moved into the ground and basement retail floors in 2000 and was subsequently replaced by a massive restaurant called The Hamilton in December 2011.

* * * * *

Special thanks to Faye Haskins and Mark Greek of the Washingtoniana Division of the D.C. Public Library and to Bruce Yarnall of the D.C. Historic Preservation Office for their valuable assistance. Other sources included the National Register of Historic Places nomination form for the Garfinckel's building (1995), William Hogan, "Washington's Merchant Prince" in Regardies (Sep-Oct 1981), and numerous newspaper articles.

Union Station's "forgotten" historic interior spaces

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:38:00 +0000

Union Station probably reflects better than any other single Washington building the remarkable self-assuredness and imperial aspirations of its age. The architecture is stunningly elegant, both outside and in, and it was one of the first properties in the District of Columbia to be named to the National Register of Historic Places. After having been brought back from near-death in the 1980s, the station is once again the subject of development debate. Instead of dreaming up improbable and unneeded functions like the ill-conceived National Visitor Center of the 1970s, planners are now focusing on the hard realities of the station's increasingly heavy use as a transportation hub, which strain its resources and demand modernization. A vision of an almost unrecognizably transformed space has been put forth.

(Photo by the author)

While the feasibility of this multi-billion dollar plan is debated, a more immediate proposal is on the table to make alterations to the station's main waiting room (primarily by cutting two escalator holes in the floor) to allow visitors to more easily access the retail space that has been created in the basement. Repairs have also been underway in the main waiting room and surrounding areas as a result of damage sustained during the 2011 earthquake. All of this activity raises questions about how well the station's grand interior spaces have been preserved and whether it is time to revisit compromises made back in the 1980s. Most notably, a few of the building's finest public spaces—the Ladies' Waiting Room, the Lunch Room, and the Smoking Room (or Men's Waiting Room)—suffered in the 1980s rehab and could once again be grand if finally given the chance.

To the casual observer hurrying to catch a train, it would appear that Union Station's interior has been carefully preserved, and in many ways this is true. A group of architects and developers, including Benjamin Thompson & Associates, who had worked on Boston's Faneuil Hall and Baltimore's Harborplace, as well as Harry Weese & Associates, who had designed the Metro system's stations, collaborated on the redevelopment under many watchful eyes, including those of the National Park Service and the D.C. Historic Preservation Office. Painstaking attention was paid to bringing the building's four most prominent public rooms—the Main Waiting Room, West Hall, Dining Room, and Presidential Suite—back to something close to their original appearance. Approximately seven pounds of 22-karat gold were applied as leaf to the 320 octagonal coffers that line the main waiting room's vaulted ceiling. The original white marble floor, long since replaced and cut into for the visitor center, was carefully reconstructed. Plaster everywhere that had suffered deterioration and water damage was meticulously restored. Original wall colors, buried under twenty-two layers of paint, were recreated, as were delicate murals in the former dining room. The entire effort, from 1985 to 1988, was widely acclaimed as a preservation success.

What is now known as the Main Hall was the station's general waiting room, as seen in these postcard views. Other than the addition of the raised cafe pavilion in the center and the lack of mahogany benches, this space was largely restored to its former appearance in 1988.

View of the main hall prior to earthquake damage (photo by the author).

The Presidential Suite was designed to be completely separate from the main waiting room and to serve as a reception area for the chief executive. President James Garfield had been assassinated in the old railroad station on the Mall, and homeland security planners of the day aimed to prevent a repeat of that incident. After World War II the President wasn't using the station as much, and the room was turned over to the USO for use as a servicemen's lounge. It now hosts B. Smith's Restaurant.

The Presidential Suite as it appears today (photo by the author).

The former dining room, just to the east of the main waiting room, was meticulously restored in the 1980s rehab and now serves as a concourse for a variety of retail stands.

The dining room space today (photo by the author).

The cost for all of the beautiful restoration work was that developers were allowed to radically modify other interior spaces (while preserving the underlying historic structure). For example, the vast passenger concourse immediately to the north of the main waiting room was converted to retail space. While the original walls and arched, skylit ceiling were preserved, the space was nearly filled with large, two-level steel structures framing numerous retail shops. Large holes were cut in the floor for stairways and escalators to the new food court installed in the basement. The effect was to dramatically alter the former terminal space, creating an enclosed shopping mall that bore no recognizable connection to its former use.

The concourse as originally configured.

Part of the concourse space today (photo by the author).

No one currently plans to remove all those shops and recreate the vast open space of the old concourse. But what about some of the station's other "lost" interior spaces? The former Ladies’ Waiting Room is an example of a space that could be strikingly restored to its former glory. The room is located at the front of the station on the south side (right side as you face the station from in front). Its imposing neoclassical entrance is at the southeast corner of the main waiting room and now leads to the Thunder Grill restaurant, which fully occupies the old waiting room. Originally open space, the room offered large bright windows on its south side and a graceful, elliptically arched ceiling. It featured fine tapestries on its walls and served as a smoke-free haven for women travelers. During the 1988 renovations, this space, like the Passenger Concourse, was broken up by the insertion of a raised steel-framed, mid-level platform that gives the restaurant some extra "mezzanine level" tables. Walking into the restaurant today, one has no idea what the room used to look like. The following views, however, show what it once looked like. Removal of the steel "mezzanine" would sacrifice some restaurant tables but bring back a magnificent historic space.

The twin of the ladies' waiting room is the former Smoking Room across the main hall on the southwest corner, intended as a refuge exclusively for men. It was more functional and less decorated than the ladies’ waiting room and was divided into smaller rooms, including a cigar stand in the smoking area and a barbershop to the rear. Like the ladies’ waiting room, this bright space was divided during the 1988 renovations by the insertion of a raised steel-framed, mezzanine platform. Until very recently this space was used for a restaurant.

The third unrestored historic space is the former Lunch Room located just north of the dining room. The dominant original feature in this high-ceilinged room was a marble counter shaped like a backwards “J” that was long enough to provide seating for many customers. Originally the walls were decorated with murals in the same Pompeian style as the adjoining dining room. During the 1988 renovations, this space was divided into two floors, with a stairway to the upper level installed near the entrance on the northeast corner of the main waiting room. The upper level includes restored elements of the lunch room's walls but the lower part, which is now used for retail stores that open onto the former dining room space, has all its historic features hidden.

The restoration compromises made in the 1980s were well understood, deliberate, and much worried over. Congress wanted the federal government to be free of having to take care of the station and willingly allowed commercial development as a way to get the building preserved and made once more into a viable enterprise. No one knew for sure how the reinvented building would work, and so the developer seemed to focus on attractions that would make local people visit the station purely as a retail destination (mall) rather than for its transportation purpose. Building a multi-screen movie theater in the basement, for example, was seen as a key anchor to the enterprise, given it wasn't feasible for a department store to anchor it. Of course, the movie theater has now long gone out of business with little ill effect. And no one cares about department store anchors any more. Instead Union Station is thriving for what it really is—a major transportation gateway to the city. The changed circumstances would seem to raise the question of whether the tradeoffs made in the 1980s are still valid. Since station patronage is virtually guaranteed to continue and even increase, maybe now is the time to give serious consideration to bringing back a few of the station's lost interior spaces.

The D.C. Preservation League and the Committee of 100 on the Federal City recently filed a proposed amendment to the National Register listing for Union Station that would extend historic designation to the station's important interior spaces as well as a number of external features, such as the great sandstone retaining walls and the remaining orignal train sheds, that lie to the north of the head house and contribute to the station's historic presence. The two advocacy groups are members of the Union Station Preservation Coalition, which has issued a call for a deliberate and reasoned approach to any new alterations to the historic fabric of Union Station through adherence to basic preservation principles. Let's hope that everyone can agree at least on this as a basis for moving forward.

* * * * *

Sources for this article included the proposed amendment to the National Register listing for Union Station, Carol M. Highsmith and Ted Landphair, Union Station: A History of Washington's Grand Terminal (1998); EHT Traceries, Inc., Washington Union Station Main Hall Project Section 106 Assessment of Effect 2010-2011 (2011); William M. Wright, "White City to White Elephant: Washington's Union Station since World War II" in Washington History, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1999) and Now Arriving Washington: Union Station and Life in the Nation’s Capital; and various newspaper articles.

Tourist trap: Macerated money at the Treasury Department

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 01:43:00 +0000

What to do with worn-out paper currency? Macerate it! Today's picture is of a classic tourist souvenir from the early years of the 20th century—a postcard made from macerated currency.

(Author's collection)

Aside from the notorious "Continentals" issued to help finance the American Revolution, paper currency did not come into general use until the Civil War. An act of Congress in 1862 authorized the Treasury Department to come up with a method for destroying old paper notes that were no longer fit for circulation. At first they were burned in a special furnace located on the "White Lot" behind the White House, but this method proved to be problematic. It was hard to thoroughly incinerate bundles of notes, and undestroyed fragments could escape through the chimney. Enterprising individuals would scour the White Lot for fragments of bills that they then submitted to the Treasury Department for replacement, claiming the notes had been accidentally burned. Treasury officials soon caught on to the scam, however, and looked for a better way to destroy old bills.

Burning old money in the White Lot furnace (source: Mary Clemmer, Ten Years in Washington or Inside Life and Scenes in Our National Capital as a Woman Sees Them, published in 1882).

In 1874 a new method of destruction was approved: maceration, the shredding of the bills into millions of tiny worthless bits of paper. The curious thing is that this tedious procedure, borne of practical necessity, blossomed into one of Washington's biggest tourist attractions in the late 19th century. Charles M. Pepper, writing in Every-Day Life in Washington in 1900, found the maceration process "one of the most entertaining features of the Treasury Department." Tourists, after seeing how new money is made at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, could visit the Treasury and be taken down to a "sub-cellar room hid away from the face of the earth." There they would witness Treasury employees dumping millions of dollars worth of worn currency into the macerating machine, which dutifully chewed it all into confetti. It was great fun.

And of course, as always, the best part of being a tourist is purchasing souvenirs, and macerated currency made for some unique items. In addition to postcards, souvenir shops on Pennsylvania Avenue offered a variety of medallions and other trinkets, including little Washington Monuments and busts of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln that were advertised to be made from $20,000 worth of currency.

The Washington Post reported in 1903 that over 30 "remembrance shops," "souvenir stores," and "memento stands" graced the Avenue selling all sorts of baubles like these. The advent of such tourist traps was seen as a welcome relief for Washington's famous public buildings and monuments. In earlier days, before the business got started, visitors would regularly resort to vandalism to create their own D.C. souvenirs, chipping off bits of the Washington Monument, breaking off a fragment of the White House wall, or even whittling a shaving off the leg of a chair in the Capitol. The incidence of such souvenir-driven vandalism reportedly declined significantly after ready-made souvenirs came on the market.

Apparently there is some unwritten law that requires all cheap souvenirs to be made in a single foreign country. Lately it has been China, before that Taiwan, and several decades ago Japan. In 1903 it was Germany, credited by the Post with inventing the cheap souvenir industry. After flooding European cities with their wares, the Germans "then invaded the American market, and to-day every place of interest, from the Capital to Pike's Peak, and from Niagara Falls to St. Augustine, Fla., is supplied with trinkets made in Germany." And why couldn't American manufacturers compete with the Germans? The usual reason: the cost of labor. "Here is a cup and saucer of excellent china, with a picture of Cabin John Bridge on one side and Arlington on the other. It sells for 75 cents. If made in this country, $2.25 is the lowest price at which it could be sold."

Dramatic nighttime views of major buildings and monuments were popular in the early 1900s. This hand-colored postcard was printed, naturally, in Germany (author's collection).

Even postcards, still mostly printed in the U.S. in 1903, were under pressure from the Germans, who would soon dominate that part of the market as well, producing a multitude of exquisitely colored cards until World War I cut off trade. The only small niche in the market not dominated by Germany was that of the macerated money souvenirs and postcards, proudly made in Washington by James F. Jarvis, among others.

Postcard view of the new Treasury macerator, circa 1915 (author's collection). Visit Shorpy for another view of a macerating committee.

But even that booming business was not destined to last long. Just five years later, in 1908, the Post wrote again about the maceration process. An unfortunate change was at hand: "No longer will remote likenesses of George Washington, or the shaft of masonry that bears his name, representing vast sums of money, be manufactured by clever artificers from the papier mâché of the bureau of engraving and printing and the Treasury Department. A new macerating machine, involving a chemical process, does not permit even that ghostly green tint that formerly enveloped these relics with some of the glamour that attaches to the magic cash which they represented." The new machine dissolved the old notes into a homogenous gluey pulp, and to make matters worse, "vistors are not admitted into the macerating room." Just like tours of the FBI building, a popular attraction suddenly vanished, and along with it a very distinctive genre of souvenirs.

Manufacturing uniform slabs of pulp from macerated currency at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 1914. The pulp was sold to make cardboard and other low-grade paper products (Source: Library of Congress).

Today turn-of-the-century macerated souvenirs are rare and highly sought after by collectors. But the freshly macerated shreds of worn-out currency can still be obtained, if you know where to look. Visitors who tour the Treasury Department building receive little packets of macerated currency as souvenirs. It's well worth getting up early on a Saturday morning to see the inside of one of Washington's handsomest public buildings and to get your own macerated memento—for free.

Book Review: Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 12:47:00 +0000

Frederick Douglass (c. 1818-1895), the most famous African American of the 19th century, has been in the news lately because his statue is to be added to or near Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building to represent the District of Columbia. It's a notable and long overdue recognition for both Douglass and the District.

Frederick Douglass, c. 1880 (Source: Library of Congress).

Douglass, as is well known, was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, escaped as a young man in 1838, and fled to New York, where he became passionately involved in the abolitionist movement. When his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave was published in 1845 it became a bestseller. White people marveled that a black man and former slave could write so eloquently, and they were even more astonished when they heard him speak. Douglass became a powerful civil rights advocate and the embodiment of all that African Americans could achieve in the face of truly daunting adversity.

But how does the District fit in to this picture? Scholars have largely focused on Douglass' early abolitionist years, but in later life, once he was famous and successful, he moved to the District and became a prominent city official, settling in to a charming 21-room country house atop a hill in Anacostia with a commanding view of the city. John Muller, a journalist and native Washingtonian, has meticulously researched the great man's comings and goings in our fair city and collects his insights in his new book, Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia.

Muller assumes that his readers know who Douglass was and, after a quick glimpse of his childhood, jumps quickly into the whirlwind of his life in D.C. Douglass visited Washington during the Civil War to advise President Lincoln on the enlistment of black soldiers in the Union Army but did not settle here until 1872, following a fire that destroyed his house in Rochester, New York. Originally living in a spacious townhouse on Capitol Hill, Douglass acquired his mansion in Anacostia, called Cedar Hill, in 1877.

Postcard view of Cedar Hill, c. 1905 (Author's collection).

By that time, he was much embroiled in the city's Reconstruction-era politics. Muller provides a wealth of information about several pivotal moments, including his near election in 1871—even before he had moved to the city—as a non-voting delegate to Congress and his subsequent brief appointment as a member of the legislative council of what was then the Territory of Columbia. Douglass' prominence was due not just to his lectures and writings but to the newspaper he helmed, the New National Era, which had begun publication in 1870. Douglass by this time was an experienced newspaperman and he foresaw the financial challenge of starting up a newspaper for blacks in Reconstruction times, and, in fact, the New National Era lasted only a few years. Nevertheless it left an important mark on the city and on African American journalism in the years to come.

"Colored citizens paying their respects to Marshal Frederick Douglass" from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, April 7, 1877 (Source: Library of Congress).

Though he lost money on the newspaper venture, Douglass had plenty of other irons in the fire, including his appointment by President Hayes as U.S. marshal for the District of Columbia. Muller points out the irony of this position, given that Douglass had spent much of his early life evading the law, first as a fugitive slave and later as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Though his appointment was opposed by conservative Democrats, Douglass was confirmed by the Senate and served from 1877 to 1881, a tumultuous time for race relations in the nation's capital. Douglass subsequently also served as the D.C. Recorder of Deeds for several years.

Douglass was in great demand for speaking engagements in addition to his official duties and had other important commitments as well, including serving as the last president of the federally-chartered Freedman's Savings Bank, which closed in 1874. Despite his many commitments, Douglass was also on the Board of Trustees of Howard University, an institution he staunchly supported.

Equally important as his many public commitments was his family life in old Anacostia, then known as Uniontown. Muller fills in telling details about this thriving little community on the other side of the Anacostia River from the Navy Yard. Clearly the most tumultuous event to occur in Douglass' life on Cedar Hill was the death of his wife, Anna Murray Douglass, in 1882. The loss for Douglass was heart-breaking, but two years later he married Helen Pitts, a white woman who had been his secretary when he was recorder of deeds. Muller describes how family, friends, and others in the black community were offended by this move, but the bonds of affection between Douglass and Pitts seem to have been genuine. The two were together until Douglass passed away 11 years later.

Cedar Hill in 1977 (Source: Historic American Buildings Survey).

They called him the Sage of Anacostia. He was a celebrity, well off and widely respected. Yet Douglass's story during his Washington DC years is one of ambivalence about his prominence, even occasional discomfort. There's no doubt that he sought positions of influence and, as Muller points out, was sometimes criticized for his political ambitions. Yet he was prone to doubting his own abilities—or maybe he just wanted to avoid being drawn too far into the system. He turned down an opportunity to run for the U.S. Senate, as he did an offer of the presidency of Howard University. How could a man who never had any formal education be president of a university, he reasoned. It's also striking to see his apparent perplexity about the backlash over his marriage to Helen Pitts. —Had he not realized that his life was no longer his own at that point, that he was obliged to embrace the constraints of his public image rather than make his own personal choices? For a man who had so famously overcome slavery, the subtler bonds of his successful later years must have presented very real challenges of a different sort.

* * * * *

Cedar Hill is now a National Historic Site administered by the National Park Service, and it is well worth a visit. John Muller's book, published by History Press, will be available on October 2.

Wearley's Oyster House

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Washington has had many notable seafood restaurants, including many oyster houses. In the 19th century, Chesapeake Bay oysters were abundant and cheap, constituting possibly the most common food item consumed in public cafés and eating houses. The most famous oyster restaurant in Washington's history was undoubtedly Harvey's, which began before the Civil War and for many years stood just east of the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue. However, Harvey's wasn't the only prominent oyster house, and today's postcard highlights another venerable favorite from the early decades of the 20th century.

Author's collection.

Oscar B. Wearley, a native of Crisfield, Maryland, opened Wearley’s Oyster House in 1898 near the corner of 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. When the next-door Raleigh Hotel expanded in 1911, Wearley’s moved just to the north of it at 418 12th Street NW, doing a prosperous business there for nearly four decades.

In 1943, during the height of war-related food shortages, two enterprising reporters from the Washington Post conducted a less-than-scientific survey of the availability of beer in their Pennsylvania Avenue neighborhood, and they dropped into Wearley's:

Next stop was Wearley's Restaurant on Twelfth Street where we encountered a "one-beer-to-a-customer" rationing program. The manager was not optimistic. "Most of our meals are seafood," he said, "and a majority of persons seem to like beer with their meals. We have enough on hand to last until tomorrow and we have to ration that to insure continued food sales." Asked whether customers were content to have wine as a substitute, his reply was an emphatic "No!" Washington is not a wine-drinking town, he said.

Wearley's circa 1922, with competing oyster houses on both sides (Source: Library of Congress).

Inside Wearley's, circa 1922 (Source: Library of Congress).

In 1950, Wearley’s moved over to 516 North Capitol Street, close to Union Station, occupying a building that formerly housed the States Restaurant. It stayed in business in its new location well into the 1960s.

Matchbook cover from the original location (Author's collection).

Matchbook cover from the North Capitol Street location (Author's collection).

The Talented Mr. James Wormley

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:18:00 +0000

In addition to the big hotels like the Willard and the Arlington, smaller boutique hotels were very popular among the rich and powerful in late 19th-century Washington, both as places to stay and for their elegant dining rooms. One of the most notable of these was run by James Wormley (1819-1884), an African American who was truly an exceptional individual in the city's history. Wormley had an unusual dexterity in navigating the disconnected worlds of whites and blacks in 19th century Washington. He opened his first catering business in the 1500 block of I Street NW in the 1850s and rapidly became very successful. The English writer Anthony Trollope stayed at Wormley’s in 1861 and offered these observations on Wormley’s skills as a host:

I put up at one of the lodging houses of Mr. Wormley, a colored man, in H Street, to whose attention I can recommend any Englishman who may chance to want quarters in Washington…. My landlord told me that he was sorry I was going. Would I not remain? Would I come back to him? Had I been comfortable? Only for so and so or so and so, he would have done better for me. No white American citizen, occupying the position of landlord, would have condescended to such confortable words. I knew the man did not in truth want me to stay, as a lady and gentleman were waiting to go in the moment I went out, but I did not the less value the assurance.

Wormley’s growing reputation soon gained him a spot as the head steward of the Metropolitan Club on nearby Lafayette Square, where he attracted the attention of wealthy statesman Reverdy Johnson (1796-1876). When Johnson was named minister to England in 1868, he chose Wormley to accompany him overseas as his personal chef. Wormley brought live terrapins with him on the transatlantic voyage and greatly impressed the British with his delicious terrapin stew. It was on the heels of this triumph that Wormley returned to Washington to open a five-story hotel and restaurant on the southwest corner of 15th and H Streets NW in 1871.

James Wormley (Source: BlackPast.org)

Wormley was widely celebrated as a sophisticated caterer and restaurateur, and his hostelry was frequented by the rich and powerful. In later years the Evening Star called him “one of the most widely known stewards and hotel proprietors in the country.” The Boston Herald observed that his hotel “while not the largest, was the most strictly aristocratic of any in the city, its quiet elegance and high prices attracting a very select circle of patronage.”

Wormley opened his hotel at 15th and H at about the same time as John Welcker’s elegant hotel was started just down the street. After New York impresario John Chamberlin opened his own establishment a block to the north in 1880, this stretch of 15th Street, so close to the White House and the elite residents of Lafayette Square, became Washington’s most exclusive enclave for fine dining and hospitality.

A fervent supporter of the cause of racial equality, Wormley was close friends with Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner (1811-1874), who had steadfastly championed the rights of African Americans both before and after emancipation. One of Wormley's prize possessions was a portrait of Charles Sumner painted by Henry Ulke and originally intended for the Charles Sumner School on M Street NW. The state of Massachusetts reportedly offered to purchase the Sumner portrait from Wormley, but he refused. “Never shall any one say that I parted with the picture of the man who befriended me and my race, for any money consideration,” he was quoted as saying. He later decided to donate the portrait to Massachusetts rather than sell it.

When President James Garfield was fatally shot in 1881, Wormley was chosen to prepare special meals for him. According to an article in the New York Herald-Tribune, Wormley had a “patented method” of making beef tea (beef broth), which he prepared for the wounded Garfield as he had previously done for the stricken Charles Sumner. The special tea “was made by broiling the tenderloin of a porterhouse steak, and while the meat was yet smoking putting it into an iron receiver heated for the purpose. A crank was then turned which brought hundreds of pounds of pressure on the steaming steak, causing every particle of its juice to stream forth. A little seasoning and the tea was ready. There was no water about it, and it was the pure juice of the beef.” Wormley also prepared chicken broth for Garfield, using the chickens grown on his farm out in the suburbs near Tenleytown. Garfield, of course, did not recover from his wounds but not for any shortcomings in the food sent him by James Wormley.

Probably the most famous historical event to occur at Wormley’s Hotel was the so-called “Wormley Conference,” which occurred in secret in February 1877. The conference was actually just an informal meeting among representatives of the Democratic and Republican parties regarding the outcome of the 1876 presidential election. The election had been held the previous November and the popular vote was very close but favored Samuel Tilden, the Democratic candidate. The electoral vote, however, hinged on the results in three southern states where massive irregularities in voting and vote counting had occurred, resulting in an impasse about how the election should be decided. In essence, over the course of several months, a deal emerged whereby Democratic congressmen agreed not to fight an electoral vote count that would put the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, in office in exchange for the Republicans agreeing that the Reconstruction constraints they had previously imposed on the south (constraints that had protected the rights of African Americans) would be abandoned.

Supposedly this dirty deal was struck one February evening at the famous meeting or "conference" at Wormley’s hotel, where Democratic congressmen were staying. If true, it would indeed be ironic that a deal that ended federal reconstruction efforts supporting black rights in the South took place at a hotel owned and operated by an African American. However, as Carol Gelderman has pointed out in her insightful new book A Free Man Of Color and His Hotel, the deal had already been made by the time the Wormley Conference occurred. Wormley himself certainly did nothing to abet such deal making and surely would have done what he could to thwart it if it had been in his power.

Gelderman's short book is incisive and well-researched, although it ultimately focuses more on the politics of the rigged election of 1876 than it does on the life of James Wormley. Gelderman begins her book with absorbing details about Wormley's life, his career in Washington, and his aristocratic ancestry. She then moves into the politics of the Grant administration and the myriad scandals that made people yearn for a new political order. Change was in the air, especially after the Supreme Court issued crucial decisions that paved the way for jim-crow segregation in the South. Gelderman describes how the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia—a perfect opportunity to highlight the strides that had been made in social equality since the Civil War—instead turned out to be the signpost of a harsh new political order when the exposition included no exhibits dedicated to African Americans. When Frederick Douglass, the most famous black man in the country, showed up with his ticket, he was refused admission to the special platform for dignitaries, according to Gelderman.

Gelderman's point is that the handwriting was on the wall. She goes on to explain in fascinating detail the outrageous shenanigans that accompanied the election of 1876 and the fact that the Republican party, with leaders like Sumner gone, had lost its fervor for championing civil rights. The result was a giant step backward for civil rights that would take many decades to reverse. Gelderman closes with a compelling run-down of the similarities between the 1876 election and the election of 2000.

And what became of Mr. Wormley? He continued to renovate and expand his posh hotel in the early 1880s but unfortunately became afflicted with kidney stones and died in Boston in 1884 after an operation to remove them. His passing was mourned across the country. He had been an ardent supporter of education for African Americans, chairing the building committee that oversaw construction of the Sumner School in 1872, and at the request of his son, a new elementary school for black children on Prospect Street in Georgetown was named after him in 1885.

Another son, James T. Wormley, who had been sent to Paris by his father early in his career to learn the culinary arts, took over management of the Wormley Hotel after his father's death. However, the hotel did not do well under the younger Wormley’s care, and after he sold it in 1893 it soon closed. A sheriff’s auction was held in 1895 and all of the rare furnishings that Wormley had accumulated were sold at bargain basement prices to customers who seemed indifferent to their historical value. Two divans that had been owned by Charles Sumner sold for three dollars apiece. The 200-room building was soon completely cleared. It was razed in 1906 and replaced by the imposing neoclassical Union Trust Company building that stands on the site today.

Professor Gelderman will be giving the Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Lecture at the 39th Annual Conference on DC Historical Studies, Thursday October 18th, 2012 at 6:30 pm at the Historical Society of Washington DC.

Kann's Department Store: The Low-Cost Favorite

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 12:37:00 +0000

The story of S. Kann, Sons & Co., once Washington’s second largest department store behind Woodward & Lothrop, begins just north of us in Baltimore. There a German immigrant named Solomon Kann (1836-1908) opened a clothing store during the Civil War. As time went on, he brought his three sons—Louis Kann (1860-1920), Simon Kann (1861-1932), and Sigmund Kann (1865-1930)—into business with him. In the early 1890s, the family learned that a Washington, D.C., clothing merchant by the name of Dorsey Carter wanted to sell his business, and Solomon Kann sent Louis and Sigmund to investigate. The sons bought the stock of the old business and later two other nearby stores as well, combining their offerings and opening S. Kann, Sons on the northeast corner of 8th Street and Market Space NW in 1893. The location was perfect, right in the heart of Washington’s commercial district, directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from Center Market (where the National Archives now stands). Louis (called “short, quick, and aggressive” by the Washington Post) and Sigmund (“tall, deliberate, and reserved”) soon brought Simon (“short, stocky, and wearing thick-lensed spectacles”) in as well, and the brothers’ store prospered under their energetic management.

Kann's Busy Corner in 1907 (author's collection).

Kann’s, like Woodies which had preceded it by only a few years, was one of the new breed of progressive department stores, imbued with radical business policies: goods were offered at a single, fixed price—no haggling—and customers were welcome to return goods they didn’t want and have their money cheerfully refunded, something previously unheard of. Kann’s and Woodies both vigorously promoted the “customer-is-always-right” philosophy, and it paid off in booming sales, which allowed them to keep prices low. Kann’s in particular was committed to selling goods at the lowest price possible, even resorting to shaving prices to various fractions of a cent—two thirds, three quarters, seven eights—a tactic that had a powerful psychological effect on price-conscious shoppers. "Always the best of everything for the least money," Kann's advertised.

Kann's circa 1935 (Source: Library of Congress).

Frances Folsom Cleveland (1864-1947), the stunningly attractive first lady who had returned to the White House with her husband in 1893 for his second term, was an early customer of Kann’s. According to the Washington Post, “Washington was eager to see and admire her as she drove about the streets in the highly polished White House landau, drawn by a fine team of horses, attended by a coach and footman, visiting many of the stores along the avenue.” The story goes that as she shopped at Kann’s she attempted to have her purchases charged to her account, just as she did everywhere else, only to be informed by the nervous clerk that Kann’s policy was strictly cash-and-carry. Fortunately, Mrs. Cleveland had sufficient funds to cover her purchases and took no offense. The bargains at Kann’s were worth it.

Advertisement from The Washington Times, Sept. 30, 1897.

Kann’s, which advertised its location as “The Busy Corner,” gradually acquired or leased various adjoining buildings to steadily expand its complex. But eventually it ran up against the other large retailer on the block, A. Saks & Co., which occupied a prominent six-story building on the adjacent corner, constructed in 1885. Andrew Saks (1847-1912) had begun his dry goods business here in Washington and only later opened a store in New York, where his firm would become famous. The two businesses competed with each other directly as clothing retailers until 1901, when they reached a convenient agreement. Kann's turned over all their men's merchandise to Saks, and Saks gave all their women's and children's stuff to Kann's. The arrangement kept the two stores going quite amicably but did nothing to resolve Kann’s craving for more room.

(Source: Author's collection.)

In 1924 the company purchased the Homer Building at 13th and F Streets NW and a few years later the building next to it. Plans were announced in 1928 to build a new, larger store at this site to replace the cramped old warren of structures on Market Space, but the plan was never carried out. Instead, in 1932 Kann’s bought and absorbed the adjacent Saks store, allowing it to expand out into the entire southern end of the block. While the company retained ownership of the Homer Building on 13th Street, the store remained in its original location for another four decades.

Postcard view of Kann's from the 1920s (Author's collection).

Unlike many Washington commercial establishments, Kann’s generally did not discriminate against African American customers, although its record was not unblemished. In 1946, Kann’s management caved in to pressure from whites, who constituted 75 percent of its patrons, and agreed to jim-crow its lunch counter. A section at the far end of the counter was designated for non-white customers. Previously, Kann’s had been one of the few stores that didn’t have such a policy. The white customers had their way for four years, until Dr. Mary Church Terrell’s Co-ordinating Committee for the Enforcement of the D.C. Anti-discrimination Laws instituted a boycott of Kann’s in 1950. Kann’s soon reversed its ill-advised policy. In the end, Kann’s would be known as a remarkably liberal business; among other achievements, it was the first in Washington to use black mannequins in its display windows.

Kann's Virginia Square store in 1953 (Photo by Lionel Freedman, courtesy © Lionel Freedman Archives via DC Public Library).

In 1951, Kann’s opened its only suburban branch store, in Arlington, Virginia, on an empty site west of Clarendon dubbed Virginia Square. As described in the Post, the store’s exterior, designed by the architectural firm of DeYoung Moscowitz & Rosenberg, was of “brick, crab orchard stone, glass and natural wood” intended to “harmonize the structure with the casual beauty of the Virginia environs.” The modernist building opened in November 1951 within weeks of the opening of rival Hecht Company’s “Parkington” branch store less than a mile away. The adjoining Virginia Square shopping center debuted the following year.

The Virginia Square store offered every efficiency a mid-century shopper could want, including parking for 1,000 cars and large, unobstructed shopping floors color-coded to indicate the type of merchandise on display. Items could be purchased one by one and dropped off at a collecting center on each floor that would send them down to the parking level via conveyor belt for speedy delivery to one’s car. On a more eccentric level, a large glassed-in cage on the second floor housed four squirrel monkeys, imported from Brazil, that were destined to leave a vivid impression on many a young Kann’s shopper. Downstairs in the basement was the store restaurant, called the “Kannteen.”

The main store downtown had for many years used nearby warehouses for storage, and, in a foretaste of future tragedy, these warehouses suffered significant damage in two major fires, in 1947 and 1953. After the second fire, which was set by a young warehouse employee upset with his supervisor, the District coincidentally decided to close a nearby fire department facility that housed a rescue squad. Kann’s officials pleaded with the city to keep the firehouse open and put fire-fighting equipment in it. A Kann’s attorney was quoted as saying “Our viewpoint is that one trained fireman at that station house is 100 times as valuable as the best equipment a few minutes away. This is an area of old buildings, and after the fire Saturday, we think it is particularly to our interest to have added protection.” District officials were unmoved, and the station was closed.

Kann’s then began the slow decline that permeated downtown businesses in this era. Kann’s officials decided in 1959 to try to boost the main store's appeal by “modernizing” it, hiding its assortment of old buildings behind uniform, grey, anodized-aluminum sheeting. The result, duly approved by the Fine Arts Commission, was a giant featureless box that would ultimately doom the historic buildings hidden behind it. However modern and up-to-date it may have seemed when completed in 1961, the box’s appeal did not last long.

In 1971 Kann’s was sold to a West Virginia company that kept it going for just four more years. The store finally went out of business in May 1975, much to the consternation of long-time customers and employees alike. The owners said that Metro construction had driven them out of business, but the newspapers reported that the store’s real problem was that it had failed to adapt to changing times. Rather than aggressively courting suburban shoppers as other stores had done, Kann’s clung to the patronage of its dwindling downtown clientele. Its demise was inevitable.

As early as 1964, when Kann’s was still in business, the President’s Council on Pennsylvania Avenue had recommended tearing down the building and everything else in a broad triangular area north of Pennsylvania Avenue to be replaced by an array of sterile-looking office blocks. The council’s plan was thankfully never implemented, and the following year the Department of the Interior designated this area as the Pennsylvania Avenue Historic Site, which provided some protection to the Kann's building. A succeeding group, the President's Temporary Commission on Pennsylvania Avenue, refined the official plans for the avenue. That commission's successor, the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, finally developed a revised plan that was approved by Congress in 1975. The revised plan noted that its predecessor had been criticized for “sterility and over-monumentality” but nevertheless retained the idea of leveling a large “superblock” of properties, including the Kann’s building, and replacing them with a new residential complex of townhouses, apartments, and shops. An open square was also to be created in the southern part of the Market Space area, which would be in keeping with the original L'Enfant plan for the city.

On a single day in January 1978, the PADC acquired two major landmarks: the Willard Hotel at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue for $5 million and the Kann’s Building for $4.3 million. Whereas the Willard was to be preserved and restored, the Kann’s Building was to be torn down according to the approved PADC plan. However, in the fall of 1978 DC’s Joint Committee on Landmarks recommended that PADC not be permitted to demolish the historically-landmarked building. Committee members thought enough hadn’t been done to explore preservation of some or all of the buildings hidden behind the grey aluminum. The store was “an extremely handsome building before the façade was put up,” Nancy Taylor, a member of the committee and a staffer for the National Capital Planning Commission, was quoted as saying. PADC countered that the old building was structurally unsound, that stabilizing it would cost $2 million, and that it was unclear what remained of the original Victorian facades underneath the aluminum sheathing. Further, according to the Post, the PADC argued that tearing down the historic building would indicate progress in an area of downtown that showed few signs of an economic turnaround.

In January 1979, as it prepared to demolish the building, the PADC instructed its contractor to remove a portion of the aluminum covering to determine whether any of the old façades underneath were still intact enough to be removed and possibly reused on other new buildings nearby. As had been the case with the old Greyhound Terminal on New York Avenue, removing the metal covering revealed that the old façades were remarkably intact. Don’t Tear It Down, the predecessor of the D.C. Preservation League, became involved in efforts to convince PADC to save and restore the entire old complex of buildings. A developer proposed turning the old buildings into residential units—an idea that today would seem like a no-brainer for the distinctive and irreplaceable structures.

PADC dug in its heels, saying it had to stick to its congressionally approved plan to tear down Kann’s and build the planned superblock of new buildings. At the request of Congress, the U.S. General Accounting Office reviewed PADC’s plans and actions and found that there was nothing improper or illegal about them.

On the scene after the fire was extinguished (Source: Archives of the D.C. Preservation League).

Then on March 31, 1979, the same day that the GAO issued its findings, the Kann’s building was consumed in a massive five-alarm fire, reported to be the worst to hit downtown D.C. in thirty years. The newspapers printed photos the next day of thick, acrid smoke billowing out of the doomed structure. The conflagration was reported at 2 o’clock in the morning and continued to burn until 2:30 in the afternoon. At the peak of their efforts, 150 firemen poured 1 million gallons of water per hour on the building to try to control the blaze. They were hampered by the fact that the building’s sprinkler system had been turned off and partially disassembled (the fire department had previously recommended that PADC keep it functional) and by the impenetrable aluminum cocoon that prevented access to much of the building.

The ruins after demolition had begun, 8th Street corner (Source: Historic American Buildings Survey).

Crews spent two hours in the early morning removing six of the aluminum panels on 7th Street with power saws and air chisels. Later a wrecking crane was used to dent some of the panels on 8th Street so that firemen could pull them off. Even after the blaze was put out, firemen kept up a watch throughout the night to ensure that it did not start back up.

The ruins after demolition had begun, seen from 7th Street (Source: Historic American Buildings Survey).

“Although the roof collapsed and the inside of the building was virtually destroyed, there appeared to be little damage to the store’s elaborate 19th century façade,” the Post reported. Nevertheless, the Interior Department delisted the building as an historic landmark, and the PADC moved swiftly to demolish it as soon as the fire department had completed its investigation in April. None of the historic façade elements were saved, despite the PADC’s reported statements before the fire that it would consider doing so. The D.C. fire marshal testified at a Senate hearing in May that the fire was of suspicious origin and may have been started by someone inside the building. “The possibility of an accidental cause of fire is excluded,” he said. Although there was no evidence that the PADC had any involvement in setting the fire, its exact cause was never determined.

The Kann’s site remained empty for another decade, until the Market Square complex, designed by Hartman Cox, was completed in 1991. The PADC had changed its plans and done away with the superblock idea. The twin Market Square buildings, which Benjamin Forgey has called "stentorian landmarks," are consciously (or perhaps self-consciously) designed to contribute to a grand, ceremonial Pennsylvania Avenue, in contrast to the hurly-burly of the Victorian buildings that used to be there. Meanwhile, the Kann’s Virginia Square store was taken over by George Mason University Law School in 1979 and has been occupied by the university ever since. Plans are to demolish that building too, however, so that eventually no trace of Kann’s will survive.

The eastern Market Square building now stands on the former Kann's site (photo by the author).

Special thanks to Faye Haskins of the Washingtoniana Division of the D.C. Public Library and to Jo-Ann Neuhaus for their invaluable assistance. The views expressed in this article are my own.

The Oldest National Bank in the District

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:03:00 +0000

This week's vintage postcard proudly depicts the extraordinary marble banking lobby of the National Metropolitan Bank at 613 15th Street NW, circa 1907, around the time the building was completed. The card boasts that the National Metropolitan is the "Oldest National Bank in the District of Columbia," having been organized in January 1814. The claim is a bit deceptive. The rival National Bank of Washington was actually five years older, having been established as the Bank of Washington in 1809. However the National Metropolitan Bank was reorganized in 1865 under the National Banking Act, and in 1907 it was the oldest national bank in DC. So there you have it.

(Author's collection.)

The Bank of the Metropolis, as it was originally called, opened for business in March 1814; its original building was the historic Rhodes Tavern at the southern end of this same block. Of course, 1814 was not an auspicious year to start a business in Washington. Only five months after the bank took up residence in Rhodes Tavern, the British arrived and methodically burned the public buildings of Washington. After they set the Treasury Department building and the White House on fire, they considered torching Rhodes Tavern as well. However a certain Sarah Sweeny, a “woman of reduced circumstances” who worked as a custodian for the bank, fended them off and saved the building. Sweeny was later awarded $100 by the bank “for her friendly agency in interceding with some British officers…to prevent the conflagration of the Banking House,” according to the Daily National Intelligencer. The bank went on to loan the government $100,000 to aid in rebuilding the public buildings of Washington destroyed by the British.

The 1907 National Metropolitan Bank building, circa 1910 (author's collection).

In 1836 the bank moved half way up the block to its final location at 613 15th Street NW, occupying another Federal style building not unlike Rhodes Tavern. That same year President Andrew Jackson made the bank the depository for federal funds after he refused to extend the charter of the Bank of the United States. The bank flourished here for many decades and through the ups and downs of prosperity and financial crises, being renamed and reorganized in 1865. Finally in 1907 its old building was torn down and replaced with an elegant and imposing Beaux Arts structure. The new building was designed by Washington architect B. Stanley Simmons (1871-1931). The Washington Times called it a "masterpiece of architectural art" when it was completed. The newspaper marveled at the grand banking lobby, two stories tall, finished "in bronze and marble with fine mahogany fittings," and crowned by a "magnificent domed skylight."

Up the street at H Street NW, the new Union Trust Company building also went up in 1907 as did the Hibbs Building in the middle of that block. It all led the Times to christen 15th Street the "Wall Street of Washington." A financial panic that same year would eventually cool a little of the enthusiasm.

The facade of the National Metropolitan Bank (photo by the author).

The National Metropolitan Bank remained in business until 1958, when it merged with the American Security & Trust Company. Unfortunately, several years earlier the bank had undertaken a drastic remodeling and modernization of the grand banking lobby, destroying most of its ornate decor. Twenty years later the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The nomination form, completed by Don't Tear It Down (predecessor of the D.C. Preservation League) notes that the lobby had been altered and that "no documentary evidence remains to illustrate the original appearance of the interior, and the exact nature of the alterations is unknown." Too bad they didn't have this postcard to refer to!

I've previously told the story of how the Rhodes Tavern was lost and only the facades saved of the National Metropolitan Bank and the adjoining Keith-Albee Building, so I will not retell it here. Suffice it say that the grand facade of the bank survives, and its noble, neoclassical entrance now leads anticlimactically into the lobby of the Metropolitan Square office building.

Takoma Hall in Takoma Park

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:20:00 +0000

Today's postcard view of Takoma Hall in the early 1900s looks like it could have been taken somewhere west of the Mississippi. The little town of Takoma Park, straddling the border between the District and Maryland was indeed a frontier outpost in those days, one of the first commuter suburbs meant to be accessed via the Baltimore & Ohio railroad line that ran through it. The town was founded in 1883 by Benjamin Franklin Gilbert (1841-1907) as a restful and healthful retreat from grimy downtown Washington.

Takoma Hall circa 1910 (author's collection).

In addition to beautiful and spacious Queen Anne houses that sprang up on the development’s new lots, a small commercial strip developed along the railroad tracks that had the look and feel of a frontier town. At its heart was an elegant little train station, designed by railroad architect Ephraim Francis Baldwin (1837-1916) and completed in 1886. Just to the east of the railroad station stood Watkins Hotel, a three-story frame structure that burned in 1893, the year after it was built. In its place rose Takoma Hall, constructed by the Masons as a meeting place for clubs and fraternal societies that also saw many other uses, including as a school, church, and bowling alley. In March 1895, the Washington Post noted approvingly that a comic opera entitled "Our American Minister" was playing at Takoma Hall, offering “plenty of good singing, bright costumes, and catchy music.”

More raucous than the comic opera was the exhibition of the Capital Poultry and Pigeon Association in January 1913. Every variety of chicken, from “ponderous Cochins, Brahmas, and Orpingtons” to little “red-game bantams” was on display at Takoma Hall, 1,000 birds altogether. The fighting gamecocks—such as a white Plymouth Rock capon, worth $1,700, that was displayed in the “freak” section of the show—were big draws. On the last day, two prize-winning black Cochin bantams, upon being taken out of their cages to be photographed, plunged into a frantic fight and had to be separated before either was seriously hurt. Meanwhile, an estimated $500 worth of eggs, laid throughout the show, were dropped and broken on the floor before it was all over. Despite these chaotic moments, the show’s organizers pronounced the whole affair a tremendous success and promised to bring even more birds the following year.

Another view of Takoma Hall, from the Library of Congress.

Takoma Hall was located at 317 Cedar Street NW just east of the railroad tracks. In later years it became the first home for the Bliss Electrical School and after that housed a variety of commercial enterprises. The building survived into the 1970s and was finally torn down to make way for Metro construction. The site is now open, partly paved space that is part of the Metrobus access area next to the Takoma Metrorail Station, which opened in 1978.

Diana Kohn and others at Historic Takoma, Inc., have researched and written extensively about the rich and fascinating history of Takoma Park, including Takoma Park: Portrait of a Victorian Suburb (1984) and the recent Images of America: Takoma Park (2011), available at Historic Takoma's website. The organization recently moved into new headquarters at 7328 Carroll Avenue in Takoma Park, Maryland, and plans to hold a grand opening this fall.

The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the Willard Hotel in the 20th Century

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:09:00 +0000

Last time we re-lived the Willard Hotel's early era, when it was run by brothers Henry and Joseph Willard and occupied a sprawling complex of low-rise 19th-century buildings on the northwest corner of 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. With the death of Joseph in 1897, control of the hotel fell to his son, "Captain" Joseph E. Willard (1865-1924), who had big changes in mind. As the 20th century dawned, a new era and a new building were in store for Washington's most prominent hotel, and there would be plenty of drama ahead as well. At one point the building was abandoned and left in ruins, but it finally took on a new life as the once-again grand hotel we know today.

The Willard Hotel, circa 1910 (author's collection).

The younger Joseph, though born in the Willard, immediately began planning to replace it when he gained control of the property. He hired architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh (1847-1918) to design a thoroughly modern new building. Hardenbergh had designed New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and would soon be working on the Plaza Hotel there as well. For the Willard, he created a soaring Beaux-Arts palace that resembled in many ways his other Washington hostelry, the Raleigh. Sometimes called Washington's first skyscraper, the new Willard used advanced construction techniques, including a steel frame and reinforced concrete base. The stately exterior finishes included rusticated Indiana limestone curtain walls on the first three stories with beige brick and terracotta detailing above. The highly-ornamented top-floor dormers, curved mansard roof, and bullseye windows have become iconic.

Construction took place in two phases so as to allow hotel operations to continue uninterrupted. The first part of the new hotel—the southern section on Pennsylvania Avenue—went up between 1900 and 1901, while guests stayed in the northern part of the old hotel opening on F Street. The hotel's sumptuous new main lobby on Pennsylvania Avenue opened for business in October 1901. After guests moved into the new structure, the rest of the building went up between 1902 and 1904.

Like the Raleigh, the new Willard included a lavish ballroom and private dining room on the top floor with magnificent views of the city. At street level were the restaurants. The main restaurant on the first floor was "one of the largest and most elegant dining halls to be found anywhere," according to The Washington Times. "With its richly decorated ceiling and great columns it is a sight worth looking upon." Across the long main corridor, which in time would be called Peacock Alley, was the so-called Pompeian Room, a "dangerous" place in some people's minds, because men and women could mingle there, and women were allowed to smoke. Overlooking all this activity was a balcony designed to accommodate the hotel's in-house orchestra.

The 10th floor ballroom arranged for a banquet. Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston (Source: Library of Congress).

The new Willard's ballroom, dining rooms, and other public spaces were the place to see and be seen in turn-of-the-century Washington. The first time Mark Twain stayed at the new hotel, he supposedly went downstairs for dinner via the elevator and discovered that it provided an overly discreet way to get to the restaurant. Vexed by this, he promptly climbed back upstairs one flight and crossed over to the grand staircase in the front of the building, where he made a much more ostentatious descent and was besieged by legions of mostly female admirers, much to his content. All was right in the world.

The dining room, photographed by Frances Benjamin Johnston (Source: Library of Congress).

Of course, the opulence and snobbery were objects of ridicule as well. In 1910, a writer for the Kansas City Star penned this lampoon of Peacock Alley:

Peacock Alley, or Alimony Avenue, it may be stated for the benefit of benighted persons who do not live in Washington, is the corridor that runs through the Willard Hotel from Pennsylvania avenue to F street.... It is a gorgeous tunnel, carpeted in red, lined with gilded mirrors and hung with tapestries. The price tags have been removed from these articles, but it is believed the figures they bore were almost as large as those now on the dinner menus in the adjoining dining rooms.

Some haughty-looking chairs and divans, carved, upholstered and inlaid, stretch in front of the mirrors and invite such as feel they are worthy to sit on them. Opening off these exclusive and Oriental precincts are the dining rooms, in which aristocratic and expensively dressed waiters glide about among diners almost as aristocratic and expensively dressed, to the music of an expensive orchestra, playing the most expensive tunes to be heard anywhere....

Late one night in April 1922, a devastating fire broke out in the top-floor ballroom, where just hours before the Gridiron Club had held their annual banquet. "Perhaps not in years has Washington seen so spectacular a fire," the Washington Post commented. "Standing on a hill, the Willard is easily within sight of outlying portions of the city and when the flames ate their way through the roofing and leaped high in the air the gigantic torch made a spectacle that could be seen for miles."

The 10th floor ballroom after the fire (Source: Library of Congress).

Miraculously, no one was hurt in the blaze. Guests were roused from their sleep and hurried downstairs, where many enjoyed an early breakfast. The hotel graciously kept the elevators running for a full half hour after the fire was noticed so that guests would not have to use the stairs. The fire department eventually put a stop to this exceedingly dangerous practice, but only after it was noticed that "the flames started eating their way down the [elevator] shaft."

The hotel had been filled to capacity, with many notable guests attending the Gridiron Club dinner or an assembly of the Daughters of the American Revolution that was also underway. Vice President Calvin Coolidge and his wife Grace were living at the hotel at the time, and were among those roused from their sleep by the commotion. Coolidge remained unfazed by the incident, socializing in the lobby and passing out cigars to newspapermen. In the end, the damage from the fire was cleaned up, the great ballroom rebuilt, and the Willard saga went on.

As a luxury hotel, the Willard struggled during the Great Depression but managed to stay afloat. In 1930, a decision was made to save money by eliminating the dining room orchestra, but there was such a hue and cry from wealthy patrons that a new, much-smaller orchestra was reinstated at a sharply-reduced cost. Nevertheless, amidst the economizing, improvements and modernizations continued. In 1934 air conditioning was installed, and in 1937 bathrooms were added in every room. When the war years came, business suddenly boomed, and it became hard to find a room at the Willard. Several floors were leased out to the British government and other war-related agencies.

A matchbook cover from the 1950s (author's collection).

Various management companies had been running the hotel for many years, and in 1946 the Willard family decided to sell the hotel to Louis Berry's Abbell hotel chain, which had also taken over the Raleigh. In retrospect, it seems like a fateful turning point. The institution was headed for a tailspin.

The barber shop in the 1950s (author's collection).

Despite extensive remodeling in the 1950s, the Willard was more an "old man" than a grande dame among Washington hotels; the Mayflower, Statler, Shoreham, and Wardman Park all were newer and located in more fashionable areas. By the 1960s, bookings were in decline. The Willard's old rival on the avenue, the Raleigh, closed and was torn down in 1964. That same year, the President's Council on Pennsylvania Avenue, commissioned by John F. Kennedy to find ways to spruce up the dilapidated thoroughfare, issued its report, calling for the Willard (along with the rest of the block, including the Hotel Washington) to be leveled and replaced by a vast, barren National Square. "If built to the Council's recommendations it is believed that this will be the first truly urban, truly national, square in the United States," the report exclaimed. Though Congress didn't set aside any funds to carry out the plan, it won the approval of the National Capital Planning Commission as well as the Commission of Fine Arts. The Willard's days appeared to be numbered.

With patronage down and the government wanting to raze the building, the Willard's last straw came when the April 1968 riots precipitated a swift and dramatic decline in the old downtown. In July the hotel abruptly shut down with no advance notice. Bookings were canceled, guests sent on their way, and staff laid off. From veteran employees who had spent their careers at the hostelry to the bartender who had been hired the previous day, all were suddenly out of work.

The Willard lobby in 1969, before the big sale of furnishings and fixtures (Historic American Buildings Survey).

As Richard and Marie Carr have explained, the closing of the Willard, abrupt as it was, seems to have struck a chord with the public, and many people began to reconsider how important it was to the city's heritage. Particularly troubling was the no-holds-barred fire sale of all the hotel's fixtures and furnishings, held in October 1969. "Thousands of souvenir hunters and nostalgic shoppers thronged to the doomed Willard Hotel yesterday looking for bargains," the Evening Star reported. The selling went on for several months. By December the Star was reporting on people coming in to buy anything and everything they could get their hands on—pieces of oak molding from doorframes, marble panelling from bathrooms—it was all for sale: "Two girls emerged from the elevator into the columned lobby, dragging a yard-square hunk of grey marble. 'Who do we pay for this?' asked the shorter brunette with the brick hammer in her hand. 'Is there anyone who can help us get it into our car?'"

Even before the old building was stripped, a protracted struggle was underway over what to do with it. At one point the General Services Administration suggested a land swap: unwanted federal property—Miller Field on Staten Island or the old Navy barracks on Columbia Pike in Arlington—in exchange for the hotel. Negotiations dragged on for years but ultimately went nowhere. The hotel's owners, two investors from New York and California, became frustrated and filed suit in 1969 for the right to tear down their empty hotel and replace it with an office building. The Fine Arts Commission blocked that option as incompatible with the Pennsylvania Avenue Plan.

A stairway photographed in 1976 for the Historic American Buildings Survey.

The owners then attempted further legal maneuvers to win the right to either tear down the building or radically alter it, none of which succeeded. A key player was Don't Tear It Down, predecessor of the D.C. Preservation League, which was fresh from a successful battle to save the Old Post Office. The group intervened in 1974, when the Willard's owners won a court ruling allowing them to remove the facade and convert the structure into a new office building. Acting in the nick of time, Don't Tear It Down successfully sued to delay the destruction, a move that turned out to be crucial in buying time to find a way to preserve the venerable building.

The empty building in the 1970s, photographed for the Historic American Buildings Survey.

By late 1974, key government agencies such as the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation and the National Park Service had had a change of heart and came out in favor of saving the Willard. A study was commissioned that showed the building could be restored to service as an historic hotel. More legal maneuvering ensued, but finally in 1978 a settlement was reached whereby title to the hotel was transferred to the PADC for $8 million.

Restoration work photographed by Carol M. Highsmith (Source: Library of Congress).

Once the building was safe from destruction, a gargantuan task lay ahead to restore it to its former glory. Not only had it been thoroughly stripped of interior fixtures, it had also suffered extensive damage from more than a decade of complete neglect and needed extensive modernization to function as a luxury hotel. Florida developer Stuart S. Golding in partnership with the Fairmont hotel chain was originally selected to lead redevelopment of the property in 1978 but ran into financial problems. After Fairmont dropped out, Golding paired with the Oliver T. Carr Company in 1981, proposing a modified redevelopment plan that included adding new adjacent office space to make the project more financially viable. Ironically, the Carr Company began its first-class restoration job on the Willard in 1984, the same year that it demolished the historic Rhodes Tavern just a block away. Carr, though committed to a sensitive restoration of the Willard (under the strict guidance of the PADC and the National Park Service), had stubbornly resisted years of effort by preservationists to save Rhodes Tavern, a modest building that was arguably the more important landmark of the two.

The refurbished Willard photographed by Carol M. Highsmith (Source: Library of Congress).

The Willard reopened in 1986 to much critical acclaim as the Willard Intercontinental, once again one of Washington's most glamourous hostelries. Writing in the Washington Post, Benjamin Forgey likened the stepped modern office pavilions on the west side of the historic building to "baby elephants following the star performer into the ring." Perhaps more importantly, he thought the restoration of the historic parts of the hotel had struck a judicious balance between strict preservation and the necessities of a modern hotel. For two and a half decades since that time, the restored Willard has proven enduringly successful in a revived and transformed downtown.

* * * * *

Sources for this article included: Richard Wallace Carr and Marie Pinak Carr, The Willard Hotel: An Illustrated History (2005); Dean R. Montgomery, "The Willard Hotels of Washington, D. C., 1847-1968" in Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Vol. 66/68 (1968); National Capital Planning Commission, Downtown Urban Renewal Area Landmarks (1970); The Report of the President's Council on Pennsylvania Avenue (1964); documentation for the National Register and Historic American Buildings Survey; and numerous newspaper and magazine articles.

The statue in the center of Lafayette Square

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 11:09:00 +0000

Today's stereoview, published in 1869 by the Washington firm of Bell & Bros., depicts the famous statue in Lafayette Square of a general doffing his hat to the White House as his gallant steed rears up defiantly. Everybody knows this statue, and everybody knows who it depicts...

Bell & Bros. provides a rather lengthy narrative on the back of the card. Under the title "Mills' Bronze Equestrian Statue of Gen. Washington," the text explains:

The incident selected for the representation of this statue occurred at the battle of Princeton, a description of which may be found in Upham's Life of Washington, page 213, when Washington, after several ineffectual attempts to rally his troops, put spurs to his horse and dashed up to the cannon's mouth. His terror-stricken horse stops and recoils, while the balls tear up the earth beneath his feet; but Washington, cool, calm, collected, and dignified, believing himself simply an instrument in the hand of Providence to work out the great problem of liberty, remains firmly seated, like a hero upon his throne. He, at this moment of imminent peril to his life, contrasts admirably with the fearful agitation manifested by his noble but unreasoning steed, who is sustained by none of the considerations which impart courage to the hero and the Christian.

Of course, there is more wrong with this description than just the fact that horses have hooves rather than feet. The entire pious concoction is completely off base, as the statue depicts Andrew Jackson, not George Washington. The only thing that is accurate is that the statue was sculpted by Clark Mills (1810-1883).

This stereoview, from the 1870s, was labelled correctly (Author's collection).

As James Goode explains in his 2010 White House History essay, the sculpture is especially notable because it was the first bronze statue cast in the U.S. and the first equestrian statue to be balanced entirely on the horse's hind legs. Completed in 1853, it shows Andrew Jackson atop his horse Duke, reviewing his troops at the Battle of New Orleans.

The statue's admirers (Author's collection).

Jackson was a revered war hero at the time of his death in 1845. Within months, a committee was formed to raise money for an equestrian statue of Old Hickory, with the express intent that it celebrate his military prowess rather than his role as President.

Postcard views of the statue, circa 1907 and 1910 (Author's collection).

Mills, a little-known sculptor with modest experience, was awarded $12,000 in 1848 to complete the statue. He built a makeshift studio on the Treasury Department grounds and set to work, training his horse Olympus to rear on its hind legs and serve as a model. The job took several years and suffered various setbacks but eventually the 15-ton sculpture, cast in ten different parts, was completed. It was dedicated with much fanfare on the 38th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans in 1853.

The statue as it appears today (photo by the author).

Not looking like George Washington.

The old Windsor Park Hotel comes down

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:13:00 +0000

Located at 2300 Connecticut Avenue, NW, in Kalorama Heights, the original Windsor Park Hotel was always a bit ungainly, even when it was new. It was far too massive and ordinary for its distinctive residential location, cheek by jowl with such distinctive neighbors as the embassies of France and the Netherlands, the impressive Woodward apartments, and Harry Wardman's magnificent Dresden building. Now the old hotel building is finally being torn down. Plans are to replace it with an equally large but hopefully more distinctive structure.

Postcard rendering of the Windsor Park (author's collection).

The Windsor Park was constructed in 1950 as a semi-residential hotel; about half of the residents were permanent, and it had the feel more of an apartment house than a hotel. Part of the space was leased to the British government for use by its embassy. In the late 1950s, new owners tried to emphasize the hotel aspects more. They expanded by acquiring a 5-story building across the street at 2116 Kalorama Road that had been constructed in 1926. It became an extension of the hotel. They also reclaimed the space previously leased out to the British. Altogether, the Windsor Park grew to 300 rooms.

The hotel lounge in the 1960s.

The dining room in the 1960s (postcards from author's collection).

The sixties passed uneventfully, at least as far as the Windsor Park is concerned, and then President Nixon visited China in 1972. Suddenly Chinese diplomats were arriving in Washington in need of both offices and living spaces. An early contingent stayed at the Mayflower Hotel, as officials searched for a place that was large enough and offered space for both residences and offices. The Windsor Park fit the bill, and the Chinese government purchased the 1950 hotel building in late 1973. Having sold its original building, the hotel downsized to just the 1926 building on Kalorama Road, where it continues in business to this day.

The building in May 2012, waiting to be torn down (photo by the author).

The Chinese stayed at the old hotel for more than three decades. A new embassy complex was finished on Van Ness Street NW in 2009 and new residential units on Porter Street NW in 2010. The Chinese government has retained ownership of the property, and once demolition of the old hotel building is complete, a new residential complex, designed by Esocoff & Associates, is to replace it.

Briefly noted: Lincoln Hall

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 00:18:00 +0000

This post is the first in a new series of short pieces designed to show off unusual stereographs, postcards, and other photographs of old Washington, DC. Today's subject is Lincoln Hall, which was located on the northeast corner of 9th and D Streets NW from 1867 to 1886.

Lincoln Hall, circa 1880. From the author's collection.

According to James Goode, Lincoln Hall was "one of the finest auditoriums in the Nation's Capital during the nineteenth century," a pre-cursor to the Kennedy Center. The ornate building was put up by a group of organizations including the YMCA in 1867. The Grand Army of the Republic, a Union Army veterans group, used the third floor of the building before they built their own meeting hall on Pennsylvania Avenue opposite the Willard Hotel.

Lincoln Hall was destroyed by a devastating fire at 2 in the morning on a snowy December night in 1886. The fire began in a dressing room under the stage, which was filled with opera scenery. "The canvas scenery covered with oily paint and stretched on light frames of the driest vine ignited like tinder at the first stray spark," the Washington Post recounted, waxing poetic as it often did in such situations. "The ground was covered with a pure white sheet of snow, which reflected back the flames with dazzling brilliancy. The white flakes falling through the air were tinged with red, and by their side there floated downward in a great shower the red-hot cinders from the burning building...."

The Evening Star was more sanguine: "Now that Lincoln Hall has finally burned down the people of Washington will take a breath of relief," it editorialized. "It was doubtless the worst planned building for exhibition purposes that ever was constructed, and had a fire or panic occurred while an entertainment was in progress it would have been almost, if not wholly, impossible for a dozen persons to escape from it alive.... If there is any authority to prevent it, no such structure ought to be allowed in the city again."

After the fire, the ruins were cleared away, and in 1890 another auditorium, the Academy of Music, was constructed and remained there until the 1950s. Whether it met the Star's safety standards is unknown.

As seen in the stereoview, Lincoln Hall was extravagantly ornamented, perhaps surpassing even the Old Executive Office Building in its excess. Goode notes that the ornamentation may have been "in questionable architectural taste," but at least it provided whimsical delight to passersby. As Goode concludes, "Present-day Washington pedestrians are allowed few such pleasures to the eye on K Street, where the recent architecture is of little more interest than a row of over-scaled filing cabinets."

Sources: James M. Goode, Capital Losses (2003), p. 403, and newspaper articles.

The Willard Hotel in the 19th Century

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Of Washington's great hotels, the Willard is one of the most celebrated and easily recognized. Many people know that President Lincoln stayed at Willard's before he was inaugurated in 1861. Others believe (incorrectly) that the word "lobbyist" was coined to refer to promoters of various causes who hung around the Willard's lobby, hoping to buttonhole President Ulysses S. Grant for favors. But fewer realize how many incarnations the old hotel has had, that it began life as a rather mediocre hostelry, or that many of the famous events in its history occurred in a very different, earlier building.

Early view of Pennsylvania Avenue with the City Hotel on the right (Source: Library of Congress).

There has been a hotel on the northwest corner of 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, since 1818, almost three decades before the Willard brothers showed up to take over its operations. The prominent early Washington landowner, John Tayloe (1770-1828), whose elegant Octagon House is one of Washington's great mansions, acquired this property and built a row of six townhouses here as an investment in 1816, renting out the corner building to be used as a hotel two years later.

After a succession of early hoteliers, Azariah Fuller (1789-1848) took over in 1833, eventually calling his establishment the City Hotel, although most everybody knew it as Fuller's. In those days it was not particularly distinguished, although it had grown in size by taking over adjoining townhouses, just as the nearby National and Brown's Indian Queen had done. One of the earliest celebrities to stay at the hotel was Charles Dickens, who visited Washington during his American tour in 1842. Dickens was singularly unimpressed with Fuller's (and pretty much everything else about Washington) and penned these memorable words about his stay:

The hotel in which we live is a long row of small houses fronting on the street and opening at the back upon a common yard, in which hangs a great triangle. Whenever a servant is wanted, somebody beats on this triangle from one stroke up to seven, according to the number of the house in which his presence is required: and as all the servants are always being wanted, and none of them ever come, this enlivening engine is in full performance the whole day through. Clothes are drying in this same yard; female slaves, with cotton handkerchiefs twisted round their heads, are running to and fro on the hotel business; black waiters cross and recross with dishes in their hands; two great dogs are playing upon a mound of loose bricks in the center of the square; a pig is turning up his stomach in the sun, and grunting ‘that’s comfortable’; and neither the men, nor the women, nor the dogs, nor the pigs, nor any exalted creature takes the smallest notice of the triangle, which is tingling madly all the time.

By 1847, Benjamin Ogle Tayloe (1796-1868), John Tayloe's son and heir, had apparently grown dissatisfied with the condition of the hotel and was looking for a new manager. Hence Fuller was soon gone (he opened up the Irving Hotel down the avenue at 12th Street), and in his place Tayloe installed Henry A. Willard (1822-1909), a shrewd and energetic young entrepreneur whom Tayloe's fiancée, Phoebe Warren, had recommended. A native of Vermont, Willard had learned the hospitality trade as a steward on a Hudson River steamboat, where he had impressed Miss Warren. He was eager for a new and challenging venture.

As part of the arrangement to bring Willard on, extensive improvements were made to the hotel, the first of its many rebirths. It was expanded to 150 rooms from 40 and had elegant gentlemen's and ladies' dining rooms, parlors, and three large halls in front, connected to the rooms above by two broad oak staircases. The building was thoroughly renovated again three years later with a new, continuous brick facade curving smoothly around the corner and up 14th Street. By this time Henry had turned to his brothers for help in running the burgeoning business. First to join him was older brother Edwin (1818-1863), who soon left to manage the National Hotel for several years before joining the army as a paymaster during the Civil War. After Edwin moved on, Henry brought in Joseph (1820-1897), who thrived as the hotel's business manager and would eventually take complete control of the enterprise.

President-Elect Pierce, in carriage, leaving the Willard, 1853 (Source: Library of Congress).

In those days Henry was gunning for as much publicity and prestige as possible, and one thing he needed was a presidential stay. With the election of Franklin Pierce in 1852 he saw his chance. "I think I shall get General Pierce all right," Willard wrote that October. "He has stopped with me before, and I am a Democrat and the National Hotel fellows are Whigs. I stand the best chance." Pierce did indeed stay at Willard's on the eve of his inauguration, fueling the hotel's growing pre-eminence.

As the 1850s wore on, the brothers looked to gain ownership of their building and expand their operations. Apparently the hotel's early success was more than Benjamin Ogle Tayloe had imagined, and he balked when the Willards wanted to make good on the purchase option of their lease. The brothers filed suit and finally succeeded in acquiring the valuable property when the Supreme Court ruled in their favor. They also acquired the large adjoining tract along 14th Street that extended north to F Street. With additions to the original buildings that filled the length of the block, Willard's was soon the most important hotel in the city.

Of course, being in the spotlight can bring notoriety as well as prestige. Such was the case in May 1856 when Philemon T. Herbert (1825-1864), a member of the House of Representatives from California, was staying at Willard's. Herbert, a native of Alabama, apparently had a very combative personality. It seems he wanted breakfast served to him at 11:30 one morning and was told by a young servant that a special order would be needed because it was so late. According to the Evening Star, Herbert told the boy to "Clear out, you Irish son of a bitch," and then "turned to another waiter, Thomas Keating, who was standing near by, and exclaimed 'And you, you damned Irish son of a bitch, clear out, too.'" Soon Herbert and Keating were in an all-out fight, Herbert striking Keating on the neck, Keating throwing a plate at him, and Herbert retaliating with a thrown chair. Other waiters quickly joined the fray. "The struggle now became intensely exciting," the National Intelligencer reported, "and as it proceeded crockery and chairs were broken profusely by the parties to the contest." It was only when the combatants were finally pulled apart that Herbert suddenly drew his pistol and shot Keating in the chest, killing him instantly.

The subsequent trials (there were two) of Rep. Herbert for the murder of Keating were closely watched by the local Irish community, which feared that justice would not be served. The victim was an Irish immigrant, the accused a powerful California politician. Their concern was justified; Herbert was indeed acquitted, despite conceding that he had killed Keating. District Attorney Philip Barton Key (1818-1859), son of Francis Scott Key, was no match for Herbert's powerful and well-paid attorneys. Nevertheless, Herbert gave up his political career after the publicity died down and moved to Texas. During the Civil War he would join the Confederate army and die of wounds sustained in battle in 1864.

Lord Napier, photographed by Matthew Brady (Source: Library of Congress).

Three years after the Keating affair, the Willard hosted one of the most elegant and celebrated social events in the city's history, the farewell ball for Lord Francis Napier (1819-1898) of Great Britain, and his wife, Lady Anne Napier. Lord Napier, a well-liked minister, had reportedly been called home at President Buchanan's request. Senator William Seward (1801-1872), who would later serve as Abraham Lincoln's secretary of state, was miffed at the rebuke to the Napiers by his political rival Buchanan and was said to have organized the ball in retaliation. Whatever its impetus, the ball was a sensational event, one of the largest ever given in Washington City, with some 1,800 guests paying a steep ten dollars each to get in. The Intelligencer was pleased to note (a bit naively) that the ball was “perfectly free from all sectional, political, or local bias. There was no North, no South, no Republicanism, no Democracy in it.”

The Napier Ball, as depicted by Harper's Magazine (Source: Library of Congress).

The 150-foot ballroom, draped in British and American flags and adorned with portraits of George Washington and Queen Victoria, was barely big enough to contain all the revelers. In fact, it was “so densely crowded that it required great exertions on the part of the floor committee to arrange for the dancing to commence,” however, commence it did around 11 pm. “The array of female youth and beauty combined was perfectly bewildering to hundreds of the opposite sex,” the Star observed, with obvious relish. At midnight a curtain was raised on the adjoining dining room, which seated three to four hundred. “The supper and wines were upon a scale of magnificence such as is rarely seen at such an entertainment on this side of the Atlantic,” marveled the Star. “Immediately in front of Lady Napier stood a pyramid of confectionary six feet high...and ornamented at the top with the figure of Brittania; and another similar ornament, at a different part of the table, emblematical of the United States.” Dining went on for three full hours, until 3 am, and dancing continued virtually unabated until 4. President Buchanan (privately fuming, no doubt) stayed away. For weeks afterward, the magnificent ball was the talk of the town, at least outside of the White House.

The Napier Ball was one of the last big events to take place in the hotel itself, and the crowded conditions made it imperative for the Willards find additional meeting space. That same year (1859), the Willards bought the former 2nd Presbyterian Church that adjoined the northern end of their property on F Street and converted it to a conference center, known as Willard Hall. Most public events after 1859 were held in Willard Hall, including the last-ditch peace conference convened there in February 1861, on the eve of the Civil War. As Adam Goodheart has eloquently described, the peace conference was doomed from the start. It was led by elder statesman John Tyler, a slaveholding southerner whose only claim to impartiality was that he was from a border state (Virginia) and was a former president. Many northern states refused to send delegates to the conference, which droned on for days with endless, inconsequential speeches. Perhaps the most dramatic event to occur at the Willard during the conference was not at Willard Hall at all. It was the furtive, unannounced arrival of president-elect Abraham Lincoln late in the night of February 22, 1861. Lincoln would later regret slinking into town (his advisers were convinced a plot was brewing against him), but he never regretted staying at Willard's. In his haste he had forgotten to bring slippers, and Henry Willard went out of his way to borrow a pair for him from his wife's grandfather. Lincoln returned the borrowed pair with his thanks, and the slippers became a prized Willard family memento. They are now in the Library of Congress.

The Willard in 1860 (Source: Library of Congress).

Lincoln soon moved into the White House, and Washington City was overrun with enthusiastic young military recruits, all eagerly awaiting a quick and glorious victory over the Southern rebels. Fortunately for the Willards, among the many regiments of volunteers that swarmed into the city early in 1861 were Col. Elmer Ellsworth's "Fire Zouaves," a troop of experienced New York City firemen. On May 9, 1861, a fire broke out in Samuel Owen's tailor shop adjoining Willard's, and it soon engulfed that building, threatening the hotel. Washington City firemen were nowhere to be found, but the Fire Zouaves appeared "in a twinkling," according to the Star, and clearly enjoyed the opportunity to show off their skills in the heart of the Nation's Capital. Borrowing equipment from nearby (and profoundly unresponsive) firehouses, they quickly gained control of the fire, impressing observers with their strength and dexterity. The Star noted one especially dramatic moment:

When the fire was at its height a small national flag fell from the rear of the building, attracting the attention of a squad of secessionists in the vicinity, who nudged each other, remarking, "There, there, that's the way they'll all go before long." The Zouaves immediately caught up the flag and waved it, amid considerable cheering, while Mr. Willard ran up from his hotel two large flags, which the immense crowd greeted with a perfect roar of cheers, the Zouaves shouting, "They shall never be burnt; they shan't come down."

A grateful Henry Willard, whose hotel was saved from all but some water damage, gave Col. Ellsworth a handsome reward of $500 for the services of the Zouaves. Sadly, that money was soon spent to pay the expenses of the young officer's funeral. He became the first official casualty of the war later in May when he was shot in Alexandria by an innkeeper after he took down a Confederate flag from the innkeeper's house. It was one of the first indications that the war was real.

Hailing from Vermont, the Willard brothers were both staunchly Unionist. Joseph Willard decided to take a break from the hotel business to join the Union Army. Commissioned a captain, Joe Willard served on the staff of General Irvin McDowell. In April 1862 McDowell decided to set up temporary headquarters in Fairfax City, a staunchly Confederate town, and he sent young Captain Willard to the house of prosperous Edward R. Ford to inform the occupants they would be having unexpected company for several weeks. Willard soon met Ford's flirtatious 23-year-old daughter, Antonia, an arresting beauty who was sophisticated beyond her years. The affable Vermonter proved no match for the wiles of this classic Southern belle. At 41 years old, he was soon madly in love with young Antonia and spent whatever time he could with her, despite the fact that he was a married man.

Joseph Willard, photographed by Matthew Brady (Source: Library of Congress).

Trouble is, Antonia was a spy, and a good one at that. She had been instrumental in alerting the Confederates to Union movements before the first Battle of Manassas. She was adept at getting Union soldiers to tell her details of their activities, which she dutifully relayed to rebel authorities. Dashing Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart had even named her his "honorary aide-de-camp."

Antonia's spying was uncovered in 1863, and she was arrested and thrown in the old Capitol Prison, where "Wild Rose" Greenhow was also held. Joe Willard pulled every string he could to get Antonia released, and he finally succeeded after seven months. Antonia agreed to renounce her spying and pledge an oath of allegiance to the United States, although Willard was the only person to witness it. Willard, in turn, under intense pressure from Antonia, resigned from the Army. After Willard obtained a divorce from his first wife, the former Caroline Moore, the two were married in 1864. However, the once-sprightly Antonia was frail and in poor health after her prison stay, and she died in 1871.

Union Army parade in May 1865. Willard's is at left center (Source: Library of Congress).

The prosperity of the sprawling Willard complex continued well into the post Civil War years. These were the days when Mark Twain stayed at the Willard, writing satirically about the excesses of the Gilded Age. Ulysses S. Grant was president and a new optimism was in the air, despite the rife corruption. Grant liked to slip out of the White House in the evening and drop in on Willard's for a drink or a smoke. He apparently liked being alone and supposedly complained about being hassled by "those damned lobbyists." He didn't make up the term "lobbyist," however. It had been around for decades and was first used in London to refer to petitioners of members of Parliament.

The Willard brothers by this time were very wealthy and began to remove themselves from the everyday operations of the hotel, contracting out its management while still trying to ensure that their standards of quality didn't deteriorate. There were actually four Willard brothers in the hotel business at one time or another in Washington. In addition to older brother Edwin, younger brother Caleb (1834-1905) was briefly involved in running the Willard Hotel in the 1850s. He also fought in the Civil War before acquiring the Ebbitt House hotel a block east of the Willard in 1864. All three surviving brothers built impressive homes on 14th Street in the blocks north of these two hotels after the Civil War.

Prosperous as they were, the brothers famously fell to disputing who owned exactly what. A complex network of real estate transactions involved each to varying degrees resulting in protracted quarrels and lawsuits. At one point the Willard Hotel itself was officially put up for auction so that Joseph could purchase it and claim full title to it. Henry Willard, still an entrepreneur at heart, then built the Occidental Hotel next door to the Willard on land that he owned. The Occidental became well known, especially for its elegant restaurant. Meanwhile, younger brother Caleb tried to expand his holdings on 14th Street next to his Ebbitt House hotel. Joseph owned a small lot just to the east of the Ebbitt. The story goes that Caleb offered to cover the lot with silver dollars as payment. Joe agreed, as long as the silver dollars were standing on edge. The deal never went through.

Joe, in fact, had for a long time been turning into a classic wealthy, reclusive eccentric. Ever since the death of Antonia in 1871, he was inconsolable, and he removed himself from everyday business affairs even as he grew fabulously wealthy. The rambling labyrinth of his hotel, once the height of fashion and prestige, grew outdated by the 1880s. Newer hotels, such as the posh Arlington and the magnificent Raleigh, began to easily outclass the old Willard. Nevertheless Joe was unwilling to make any changes. It was only with his death in 1897 that his heirs were finally free to undertake the radical move of tearing down the ramshackle old hotel and replacing it with a modern skyscraper.

The Willard today. This building didn't exist until the 20th century (photo by the author).

The huge Beaux-Arts building we know as the Willard Hotel was the result. We'll look next time at the prosperous life, near-death, and rebirth of that famous building.

* * * * *

Sources for this article included: Richard Wallace Carr and Marie Pinak Carr, The Willard Hotel: An Illustrated History (2005); Garnett Laidlaw Eskew, Willard's of Washington (1954); Ernest B. Furgurson, Freedom Rising (2004); Dean R. Montgomery, "The Willard Hotels of Washington, D. C., 1847-1968" in Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Vol. 66/68 (1968); National Capital Planning Commission, Downtown Urban Renewal Area Landmarks (1970); John Clagett Proctor, Proctor's Washington and Environs (1949); Henry Kellogg Willard, "Henry Augustus Willard: His Life and Times" in Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Vol. 20 (1917); and numerous newspaper and magazine articles.

Book Review: Snow-Storm in August by Jefferson Morley

noreply@blogger.com (John DeFerrari) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 09:25:00 +0000

The 1830s, the setting for Jefferson Morley's absorbing new book Snow-Storm in August, are one of those lost "in-between" periods in the history of both Washington and the nation at large. Too late for the Revolution or even the War of 1812 and too early for the Civil War, the 1830s are a mystery to many people. Morley brings this era to life, vividly portraying the tinderbox of racial tensions that would ultimately lead to civil war.

The book's title derives from the so-called "Snow Riot" of August 1835, when a mob of angry young white laborers vandalized a restaurant at 6th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW operated by Beverly Snow, a free black. Compared to other great civil disturbances such as the race riots of 1919 or 1968, the mayhem and destruction in 1835 were almost negligible. Nevertheless, it was a shocking event for many Washington residents, and the underlying tensions were as strong as at any time in the city's history.

It all began when Arthur Bowen, a slave belonging to Mrs. Anna Maria Thornton, got drunk one night and seemed to be contemplating murder. He came home late that evening and entered the widowed Mrs. Thornton's bedroom carrying an ax. Maria Bowen, Arthur's mother, had also been asleep in the room, and she awoke and quickly restrained her son, pushing him out of the house through a back door. Mrs. Thornton awoke as well and needless to say was terrified. She ran to get help from neighbors who returned to the house with her and heard, through the locked back door, the rantings of the inebriated young slave. "I'll have my freedom," Arther shouted. "I'll have my freedom, you hear me? I have as much right to freedom as you do." These were dangerous words for a slave to utter in Washington City in the 1830s.

Anxiety was running high in those days among slaveholders and white society in general. Just four years earlier the infamous Nat Turner slave rebellion had taken place in nearby Southampton, Virginia. Under Nat Turner's mesmerizing leadership, slaves rose up and killed some 50 or 60 whites before their insurrection was brutally repressed by the authorities. Even more troubling for many whites was the seeming flood of anti-slavery literature arriving in Southern cities on a daily basis from the staunchly abolitionist North. William Lloyd Garrison's influential weekly anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, had begun publication in 1831 and was soon being sent south to win over hearts and minds.

It was against this backdrop that the young ax-wielding slave, Arthur Bowen, had threatened Anna Maria Thornton—the well-known and highly-respected widow of William Thornton, architect of the U.S. Capitol. It was plain to see, or at least so The National Intelligencer thought, that "incendiary publications" from the North were responsible for the "most ferocious threats" and "tissue of jargon" that Bowen had uttered. Bowen had initially fled in the night, but he soon was arrested, and crowds of angry young laborers (known in those days as "mechanics") gathered at the city jail demanding vengeance. It was these young ruffians who attacked Beverly Snow's restaurant, smashing dishes and furniture, and later burned a black boardinghouse and several schoolhouses.

Morley's book evokes not just the tragedy of the riots themselves but the complex stories of the Snow Riot's key players, including Arthur and Maria Bowen, Anna Maria Thornton, and Reuben Crandall, a Georgetown resident with links to Northern abolitionists who was swept up in the hysteria and accused of inciting insurrection. Also brought to life in a way rarely seen is Francis Scott Key, whom we usually remember only for his authorship of the national anthem. Key was district attorney for Washington in 1835; it was he who responded to the mayhem by arresting both Crandall and Bowen. The prosperous scion of a wealthy slave-holding Maryland family, Key seems to have been torn between conflicting values. Though temperamentally disposed to ending slavery, he vigorously prosecuted both Crandall and Bowen. It would be up to the juries and ultimately the president of the United States to determine the fate of the two men.

Perhaps the most entertaining character in this entire drama is Beverly Snow himself, the namesake of the Snow Riot. Morley begins his book with a vivid and remarkably detailed portrait of the young black entrepreneur who opened one of Washington's first true restaurants in the early 1830s. Snow had been born a slave in Lynchburg, Virginia and was granted his freedom when he came of age. He had learned the culinary arts at an early age but clearly had more extraordinary skills—social dexterity, entrepreneurial drive, and ambition. He came to Washington to go into business for himself, and his Epicurean Eating House on Pennsylvania Avenue was highly successful.

Snow, of course, had no idea he'd be caught up in the fear-mongering that ensued from the Bowen incident. He fled the city after his restaurant was trashed and soon moved to Canada, where he started all over again in Toronto with another restaurant that was apparently as popular as his Washington eatery. His story seems at once tragic and hopeful—a shame that he should be treated so badly in Washington but inspiring in that he didn't let the experience ruin his ambitions. The vividly portrayed struggles of Snow, Bowen, Crandall, Mrs. Thornton (who never believed Bowen really wanted to kill her and fought to have him released from jail), and Key all make for a powerful portrait of a lost era in Washington history.

Snow-Storm in August is scheduled to be released July 3, 2012.