Alley Life
, laid out in the s, were among hundreds of intersecting alleys that were hidden behind DC houses,especially in Shaw. Stables,workshops,sheds,and cheaply built two- story houses filled these alleys.While many of Naylor Court’s original dwellings are gone,a few remain.Naylor Court’s alleys form half of today’s Blagden Alley-Naylor Court Historic District. Starting with the Civil War housing crisis, builders crammed scores of dwellings into tight spaces such as these.Most dwellings lacked running water, plumbing,or electricity,and they quickly became dilapidated.Yet the need for shelter was desperate. In more than people filled Blagden Alley dwellings,averaging seven per household and paying $ a month in rent. In Nochen Kafitz,a Lithuanian immigrant, opened a grocery in his house a few blocks away on Glick Alley. (The alley, now gone, once lay between Sixth,Seventh,and S streets and Rhode Island Avenue.) His son, Morris ( - ), changed his name to Cafritz and became a key DC real estate developer and philanthropist. New alley dwelling construction was outlawed in ,and many alleys were cleared of housing.But some hidden alleys lingered,attracting prostitutes, gamblers,drug dealers,and speakeasies.Others, though,were tightly knit communities,where people who just happened to be poor looked out for one another. Since the s,the alley’s small dwellings,former carriage barns,and horse stalls have housed artists’ studios and residences as well as working garages. In the city moved its archives to the former Tally Ho Stables,built in .
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