River Farms to Urban Towers
SOUTHWEST HERITAGE TRAIL
From until the s, Southwest
Washington was the city’s largest work-
ing-class,waterfront neighborhood.
Then it was almost entirely leveled by
urban renewal.Follow this trail to
the places that recall Southwest’s first
settlement, its gritty maturity,and
its rebirth as a “new town in the city.”
Welcome.
Visitors to Washington,DC flock to the National Mall,where grand monuments symbolizethe nati on’s highest ideals. This self-guided walking tour is one of a series that invites you to discover what is beyond the monuments:Washington’s historic neighborhoods. Until the s,the neighborhood known as Southwest was Washington’s largest working-class,waterfront neighborhood. Then nearly all of Southwest was razed to create an entirely new city in the nation’s first experiment in urban renewal. Experience both the old and the new Southwest in the company of the first colonial settlers; m i grants and immigrants; fishmongers,domestic workers,laborers, government clerks and congressmen: a ll passen gers on the journ ey from river farms to urban towers.
The Southwest Heritage Trail River Farms to Urban Towers is composed of illustrated historical markers. You can begin your journey at any point along the route.The walk should take about minutes. Each marker is capped with an . ★ H
Sign is found atop the Waterfront/ SE U station on Metro’s Green line. Sign is at the corner of Seventh and E streets near the L’Enfant Plaza station on the Blue, Orange,Yellow,and Green lines.
© 2023 by Events DC All rights reserved.
Distributed by Events DC 801 Mount Vernon Place, NW Washington, DC 20001 www.EventsDC.com
Design by side view/Hannah Smotrich
As you walk this trail, please keep safety in mind, just as you would while visiting any unfamiliar place.
River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail
Jane Freundel Levey Lead Historian and Writer
Richard T.Busch and J.Brendan Meyer Project Directors
Lisa Bentley and Anne W.Rollins Researchers
A proj ect of Cu l tu ralTourism DC, Kathryn S. Smith, Executive Director, in collaboration with Southwest Neighborhood Assembly History Task Force,Margaret Feldman, Chair . Funding provided byWashington,DC Department of Housing and Community Development, District Department of Transportation, Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, and U.S.Department of Transportation.
Introduction
one of Washington, DC’s oldest—and newest—neigh- borhoods. For years Southwest Washington was a working waterf ront community. Then urban ren ewal changed the landscape forever. Today Southwest is a virtual library of Modernist architectu re of the s with a few historic structures, some of which go all the way back to the section’s beginnings. In nearly all of today’s Southwest was own ed by NotleyYoung, a Maryland planter whose slaves cultiva ted his numerous farms. That year the federal government included this area in its plan for the new seat of government. The area was ripe for development: a level, low-lying triangle of land defined by the Po tomac River, Anacostia River,and Tiber Creek.The waterways were key to its growth in the days before railroads and modern transportation.
Oystermen tie up at the Southwest fish wharf,1915.
Notley and Eleanor Young
In the s a group of investors led by James Greenleaf began to build sturdy brick houses for congressmen and government workers.Their money ran out before they could finish, but a few of their projects can still be seen today on Fourth and N streets. Af ter the s bu i l ders constructed individual cottages or simple row houses of wood or brick. The city’s first military post (now Fort McNair) was establ i s h ed here in on stra tegic Green l e a f ’s Point, where the Anacostia and Potomac rivers meet. In the first ferries to Alexandria City across the Potomac encouraged settlement. Soon, however, the affluent moved on to the more fash- i on a bleNorthwest andCapitol Hill, and Southwest became home mostly to dock workers,laborers, tradesmen,and domestic workers.The waterfront became industrial,with warehouses,coal yards, armories, i ce houses, and shipyards. Eventually wholesale markets and Washington’s auto inspec- tion station and morgue were found here.In the s the wharves operated hours a day,and Washingtonians in search of a late-night meal— or more disreputable pastimes—could find them in Southwest. Sout hwest was called “the island” because the Tiber and James creeks separated it from the rest of the city. Beginning in the City Canal ran from the Potomac River near today’s Lincoln Memorial to the foot of Capitol Hill,then took a sharp right turn to end at the Anacostia River,
The Isaac Levy family of Levy’s Busy Corner,young Gene Cherrico with his grandmother Filomina,and Lewis Jefferson, Southwest’s millionaire.
further isolating Southwest.The canal was paved over in the s,but by then the Baltimore and Po tomac Railroad tracks along Virginia and Maryland avenues impo s eda new barri er, aswould the Southeast-Southwest Freeway of the s. Even before the Civil War ( ‒ ), migrants from rural Virginia and West Virginia, European immigrants — especially Italians and German and then Eastern Eu ropean Jews — and both enslaved and free African Americans predominat- ed in Southwest. The waterfront community was a natural for the Underground Railroad,and the infamous Pearl escape attempt of began here. During and after the war,thousands of newly f reed African Americans settled in Southwest, attracted to its affordable housing and unskilled employment. By Southwest was fully built but deteriorating. Talk of rehabilitati on surfaced in the s . But by the s architects and planners had new ideas. Rather than renova ting indivi dual stru ctures, influential planner Harland Bartholomew a nd ar c h i tec ts Lou i s Ju s t em e nt a nd C h l o et h i e l Woodard Smith called for razing entire blocks.
They wanted to close streets and put up sleek newbuildings, creating commercial, cultural, and employment centers close to residences.They considered Southwest an ideal laboratory.So did the D.C. Redevelopment Land Agency,empow- ered to tear down Southwest in order to fix it. In the s New York developers Webb and Knapp put these ideas into a formal plan for a new Southwest, the nation’s first full-scale urban renewal project.Architects Harry Weese and I.M.Pei envisioned a Tenth Street Mall linking the National Mall to a rebuilt waterfront and a residential area serving , families of varying incomes. Offices,hotels, restaurants and shops would line the new mall.A major cultural and entertainment cen ter would complete the picture. While most of the residential buildings material- ized, Webb and Kn a pp never com p l eted the Ten t h Street Ma ll, and the cultural cen ter was built inste ad in Foggy Bottom (today’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts). Nevertheless, the brand-new residential areas, so convenient to
Published images of rundown Southwest “in the shadow of the Capitol,” top, h e l p ed instig ate urban renewal projects including Capitol Park, bottom .
Library of Congress
Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library
the federal core, attracted middle-class government workers as well as members of congress and their staffers.“We thought we were urban pioneers,” recalled journalist Neal Peirce.“We were moving back to the center city and we were quite idealis- tic....We wanted to make Southwest a model....” The new Southwest housed Hubert H.Humphrey and Sandra Day O’Connor, among others.Some low-income former residents were able to return, but most were displaced,casting a shadow on the urban renewal ideal. In , ye a rs later, re s i dents of So ut hwe s t enjoy new community traditions as Arena Stage, Southeastern University,churches and schools anchor daily life. At the same time plans to rehabilitate the s era shopping mall/office complex and the waterfront promenade are well underway.
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Fish and softshell crabs were sold fresh off the boat at the Maine Avenue wharf in 1945.
WashingtonianaDivision, DC Public Library
Change on theWaterfront
, Southwest became its main working, waterfront community. Its wharves received travelers,food and building materials, slaves and migrants,and weapons for the new City of Washington. Ships were built and repaired here.The port was particularly busy dur- ing the Civil War, when Washington served as the UnionArmy’s headquarters and supply center. By this bustling neighborhood was densely built,with a working-class community of some , .They were modest people of all back- grounds: European immigrants, urban African Americans,and migrants from nearby rural areas. The waterfront was a major marketplace,where Chesapeake Bay watermen tied up and sold fresh seafood and farmers delivered fresh produce. Waterfront warehouses held these commodities for distribution throughout the city. With its small town atmosphere, and modest bri ck and woodenbuildings and shops, Southwest was homey and self-sufficient. As real estate developers opened other areas of the city, Southwest quiet ly aged. Its modest row- houses, elegant older homes, and cramped alley dwellings became run down and overcrowded. By the s,reformers called Southwest obsolete. News stories declared it was located“shamefully ... in the shadow of the Capitol.” The Washington Post led a campaign to tear down Southwest and start over.The press published photographs of urban blight,”ironically situated next to the near- by U.S. Capitol.Consequently nearly all of Old Southwest — acres of buildings and trees— was ra zed between and . In its place a much-admired“new town in the city”was built. But the forced dispersal of , people continues to raise important questions about the benefits of urban renewal.
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In this 1962 view, Marina View Towers and Arena Stage occupy this corner where brick rowhouses once stood.
Washingtoniana Division, D.C. Public Library
New Town in the City
all resulted from the nation’s first urban renewal proj- ect. On the northwest corner of Sixth and M streets is Arena Stage,a leader in the resident com- pany theater movement.Arena Stage was founded as an innovative theater-in-the-round in an old downtown movie theater in .It moved to its Harry Weese-designed building in . At the cor- ner of Sixth and I streets is the Modernist high-rise residential complex of Waterside Towers designed by ChloethielWoodard Smith.Stretching south from M to N Street is Ti ber Island, a pri ze-winning developm ent by Keyes, Lethbridge & Con don. These designs make So ut hwest a showcase of m i d - th-century architecture and planning. St. Augustine Episcopal Church,completed in , was one of s even chu rches built after urban renewal demolished of houses of worship. In the s congressional and city officials nation- wide were stru ggling with the problem of a ged, deteriorating cities. Could they be fixed and beautified, or should they be torn down and built anew? Would better buildings improve the lives of residents if their communities were lost?Could governments re-make cities alone,or did they need help from private devel opers? And would the displaced ever be able to come home again? Southwest offered Congress a test lab.Most South- westers were low-income people who valued their neighborhood but lacked political clout.Nearly half of the housing lacked plumbing.Disease rates were high. Criminal activity inclu ded gambling and prostitution. So beginning in , despite thou- sands of protests, the Redevelopment Land Agency moved , people and cleared the land so that private developers could build a “new town in the city.”Neither urban or suburban, innovative clus- ters of townhouses and high-rise apartments with green spaces and parking made up the new town.
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In 1939 this portion of Fourth St. was the commercial heart of old Southwest.
Photograph by Joseph Owen Curtis
The Heyday of Four-and-A-Half Street
w as on ce Wa s h i n g t on’s answer to New York’s Lower East Side. Fourth Street,known until as ½ Street,and nearby Seventh Street were Southwest’s shopping centers. Around , ½ Street was the dividing line between a mostly African American community living to the east and mostly Irish, Italian, and Jewish communities to the west.Yet blacks and whites came together over life’s necessities in the small shops along ½ Street. Grocers, butchers, cobbl ers, and merchants supplied flour and sugar, fresh meat, clothing, and dry goods. German Jewish immigrants moved in during the Civil War, living above their small businesses alongside Irish shopkeepers. A larger wave of Eastern European Jews began arriving after . This street was the cen ter of Jewish life in Southwest,but it was never exclusive.The Jewell Theater,showing movies to African American audiences,once sat on this block across from today’sAmidon Elementary School.Children of all backgrounds played together in the alleys and schoolyards,and roamed to the National Mall to visit the Smithsonian museums or play ball on the open fields. Southwest’s Jewish community produced a civic leader for the entire city. Attorney Harry S. Wender worked to make DC streets safer and to create playgrounds. In he brought black and white citizens together to persuade the city to tear up the worn-out cobblestones of ½ Street, modern- ize it,and re-name it Fourth Street to symbolize its rebirth.The entire neighborhood celebrated the new street with the first integrated parade in the city’s history.
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Rabbi Arthur Rosen,second from left,provided kosher chickens to Paul Clarke’s Jewish customers, around 1938.
Collection of Larry Rosen
A Mixing Bowl
, “ ” , The Jazz Singer, grew up as Asa Yoelson at ½ Street (once across the street from this sign). The Yoelsons arrived from Lithuania in . Asa’s father Rabbi Moses Yoelson served as cantor and shochet (ritual slaughterer) for Talmud Torah Congregation nearby at Fourth and E.Here young Asa soaked up the African American speech and music that contributed to his later stardom as an entertainer. After The Jazz Singer took the world by storm, Jolson moved his family uptown to today’sAdams Morgan.Meanwhile the family of RabbiArthur Rosen moved into . On the southwest corner of Third and I streets, John T. Rhines founded a successful funeral home that served the African American community from until his death in .A civic leader, Rhines presided over the Southwest Civic Association. Though childless,Rhines led the nearby Anthony Bowen School PTA and was popularly known as Genial John” as well as the “Mayor of Southwest.” He worked to bring recreation programs to area black children and received the Evening Star ’s Civic Award in . On the west side of Fourth Street was Schneider’s Hardware,owned in by Goldie Schneider.She was one of many Southwesters who fought the planned demolition when Congress passed urban renewal legislation in . Southwesters argued that few of the displaced black residents would be able to afford to rent the new units.Businessmen saw their livelihoods vanishing.So Schneider and fellow store own er Max R. Morris sued all the way to the Supreme Court.In they lost when the Court unanimously ruled in Berman v. Parker that the Redevelopment Land Agency could take (and de s troy) private businesses in order to improve an overall neighborhood. Demolition was allowed to proceed.
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Chloethiel WoodardSmith, designer of Capitol Park and much of Southwest, rests her blueprints on a Capitol Park garden barbecue pit,1959.
Washingtoniana Division, D.C. Public Library
Renewal and Loss
- on Fourth Street was the first new structu re to open in the redeveloped Southwest. Originally called Capitol Park, the complex of high-rise and townhouse residences was designed by Chloethiel Woodard Smith of Satterlee and Smith.Smith was one of the visionary architects and planners who campaigned to start over again with a blank canvas in Southwest. Critics hailed Capitol Park as a “beautiful building, inside and out,”noting its inspiring views of the Capitol and the Washington Monument. Smith won awards for her creative design (efficiencies had a “folding wall” to create a separate bedroom) and materials.Soon she was the leading choice for designing other new Southwest buildings. Capitol Park replaced Dixon Court,a set of alleys inside the block bordered by Third,Fourth,H,and I streets.For years the press and social reformers presented Dixon Court as a blighted environment that incubated crime and disease.Its tiny houses, lacking plumbing and green spaces,were chroni- cally overcrowded and in need of repair.Yet when the court was the first to be demolished in , a close-knit urban community whose neighbors had worked together and watched out for one another was also destroyed. The relocati on of , Southwesters was an enormous job. Ma ny who were financially able left Southwest when urban renewal plans became public. Workers with the Redevelopment Land Agency helped others find affordable housing.In the Washington Housing Associationreported that percent of those displaced had moved to Southeast, percent to Northeast, and percent to Northwest.Only percent returned to South- west,with its higher prices.
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Windows depicting the Virgin Mary, the Sacred Heart of Jesus,and St.Joseph oversee the ordination of Dominican priests at St.Dominic Church in 1938. St. DominicChurch
St.Dominic’s: Community Anchor
. , established , anchors the city’s only Dominican parish. It is the city’s sixth-oldest Catholic chu rch. St. Dominic’s survived two disasters—a fire in and,thanks to friends in Congress,the threat of urban renewal in the s — to prevail as a spiritual and community center.In the s it ministered to farmers, slaves, free blacks,and Irish,German,and Italian immi- grants as well as native-born government workers and members of Congress.Since urban renewal,it has served its newest neighbors.This Gothic style structure was dedicated in . Nearly everyone from the humble to the famous has sought spiritual comfort at St.Dominic’s,from newly freed slaves during the Civil War to former Speaker of the House Thomas P.“Tip”O’Neill. President Lyndon B.Johnson often came for late- night private prayers during escalations of the Vietnam War.Actress Helen Hayes,born and raised in Southwest,sang in the church choir.And Washington Senators star pitcherWalter Johnson headlined the church’s annual parade in . Neighbors of all faiths have appreciated St. Dominic’s.“The whole neighborhood would go to [its] carnival with its bright lights,”recalled Larry Rosen who grew up on ½ Street.The priests and nuns of St.Dominic’s school taught hundreds of area children from u n til , wh en the rectory, convent,and school were all demolished for the Southeast-Sout hwest Freeway. The bl ock of Seventh Street was designated for a new school, but because the new Southwest had fewer children, the parish asked to use the site instead for low- income housing. After years of litigation, developers completed Capital Squ a re townhouses, which sold at market rates in .
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Students at one of Southwest’s elementary schools for white children perform posture exercises, around 1899. Photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston, Li b ra ry of Co n g re s s
Equality in Public Education
, Seventh Street,was built in after area residents per- suaded the city to abandon its original dilapidated building onVirginia Avenue. They hoped the new structure, which included a branch library,would be the beginning of section-wide improvements. In September , for the first time, African American students took their seats next to whites in Wa s h i n g t on’s p ubl i c sc h o o l s . Th e Su pre m e Court had just ruled that “separate-but-equal” facilities were unconstitutional, so black students f rom nearby Randall Junior High all came to Jefferson.Integration was surprisingly peaceful. Form er Jefferson student Ca rl Cole recen t ly recalled that integration“had no concerns for me. I had played with wh i te children all of my early life here.” Washington’s system of separate sch ools required many buildings, but they didn’t alw ays meet com m u n i t y n eed s . In Southwest had five overcrowded“colored”elementary schools,four under-enrolled white elementaries, and a junior h i ghfor each group. On the eve of integration, the school-age population had already declined con- siderably because Southwesters were leaving in response to urbanrenewal. Planners ex pected that n ew Southwesters would be older and/orchildless, given the high er costs for most new housing. So s even elementary schoolsweredem o l i s h ed , leaving just three:William Syphax,Anthony Bowen,and a new MargaretAmidon.By there were two, with Syphax being adapted for residential use. Because Seventh Street ends at the waterfront,in the s businesses began locating here and into far Nort hwest Washington. Omnibuses (horse- drawn wagons) carried passengers along Seventh u n til , wh en Con gress chartered a horse-drawn street railway on Seventh from Boundary Street, NW (now Florida Avenue) to the river.
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Benjamin Banneker,astronomer and mathematician.
Maryland Historical Society
Banneker Circle: Vista to the Past to Benjamin Banneker,the free African American who charted the stars for the first survey of Washington,DC. Banneker was years old when he assisted surveyor Andrew Ellicott.A tobacco planter from Baltimore County, Maryland,the brilliant Banneker had taught himself mathematics and astronomy.Each night he observed the stars’ movements.Ellicott then used Banneker’s calcula- tions to determine the District’s boundaries.In addition Banneker published a series of almanacs predicting the movements of the sun, moon,and stars to guide farmers in the best timing for plant- ing and harvesting.He also was a champion of black rights,writing to Thomas Jefferson on the enormous injustice of slavery in a nation founded on Jefferson’s own declarations of freedom. This vista on ce belonged to Notley Young, a Maryland planter.He owned nearly all of today’s Southwest when President GeorgeWashington chose this area for the new nation’s capital in . Young’s bri ck mansion stood close to today’s Banneker Circle.Young owned numerous farms, and in he reported to Census takers that he owned slaves. Before the American Revolution, Maryland’s Catholics were prohibited from wor- shipping in public chu rches, so Young gathered his Catholic neighbors for Mass in his home. In Young’s grandson, Father Nicholas Young Jr., helped establish St.Dominic Church. Leading into Banneker Circle, the L’Enfant Promenade now covers the site of Young’s house. The promenade was designed by I.M. Pei and oth- ers for NewYork developerWilliam Zeckendorf. They envisioned a dramatic expanse lined with office and cultural buildings to link the National Mall and Southwest’s waterfront.Today’s Forrestal Building blocks what was intended to be a view from Banneker Circle to the Smithsonian castle.
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Like Cliff Evans of the Virginia Estelle,Chesapeake Bay watermen once sold their catch from boats tied to the wharf. Li b ra ry of Co n g re s s
TheWorking Waterfront
, the Southwest waterfront was a bustling,noisy, smelly place.Wharves, piers, and warehouses lined the river,and local industry thrived.Schooners brought ice from New England for delivery to family iceboxes. Lumber came and went by boat. Maryland coal, shipped via the C&O Canal, piled up in nearby coal yards.A large municipal warehouse was the distribution point for fresh produce.Laborers,shopkeepers,domestic servants, and government clerks lived alongside bootleggers and gamblers. The city morgue was nearby, as were small ship-building facilities. Waterfront taverns,restaurants,and hotels served workers,travelers,and neighbors.Some families lived on houseboats.And colorful watermen tied up at the docks daily to sell the harvest of “the great protein factory”—the Chesapeake Bay. Gene Cherrico, who grew up at Sixth Street in the s,once delivered the Daily News along the waterfront.“The pay wasn’t much,”he said,“but the tips weregreat. At the Flagship [restaurant], the kitchen help gave me a bag of their famous rum buns. I would sit behind the re s t a u rant eating buns and shaved ice while watching hucksters selling crabs and fish from dockside boats.” Today’s large restaurants along the waterfront are the heirs to yesterday’s humble oyster shacks.The Fish Wharf between th and th streets has suc- ceeded the large municipal fish wharf once found along Maine Avenue.The daily catch now arrives by refrigerated truck.During urban renewal,plan- ners tried to change the waterfront from a work- p l a ce f or t h e b roa d - s h o u l d ered to a c en ter of entertainment and rec reation. In plannersare hoping to further this idea, creating a walkable waterfront more like the old days and adding more residential buildings.
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Emily and Mary Edmonson,wearing plaid shawls,appeared at a New York abolitionist convention with Frederick Douglass two years after their failed attempt to escape slavery in Washington.
Madison County [New York] Historical Society
Escape From Slavery
, Washington was a slave- holding city.But many of its citizens—especially free blacks and white abolitionists — assisted freedom see kers at locations known as stops on the Underground Railroad. The largest attempted slave escape began on the evening of April , . In the gathering dark, men and women slipped aboard the schooner Pe a rl , waiting near this sign. Captain Daniel Drayton had agreed to sail them south on the Potomac and then north to freedom via the Ch e s a pe a ke Bay. But bad we a t h er forced the Pe a rl to anchor just short of the Chesapeake Bay. Meanwhile someone—many later said a jilted suitor of escapee Emily Edmonson—tipped off the slave owners. The Pe a rl was apprehended and its passengers and crew were brought back to the Seventh Street wharf. They were marched in chains to jail near Judiciary Square as mobs jeered.Drayton later wrote,“it seemed as if the time for the lynching had come.”Enraged whites rioted for three days, attacking offices of the National Era, an abolition- ist newspaper they associated with the escape attempt. Unharmed, the enslaved were all sold South. Edmonson’s father raised the money to buy the freedom of Emily and her sister Mary, and the sisters went on to campaign for abolition. Emilyeventually retu rn ed to the DC area, wh ere her descendants still live. Also nearby were the home and chu rch of Anthony Bowen, a free black minister and Pa tent Office clerk. Oral tradition says he met escaping slaves here and helped them on their way north. In Bowen foundedthe nati on’s first YMCA for African Americans in his home on E Street between Ninth and Tenth.
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Passengers sprint off the River Queen for Marshall Hall Amusement Park,around 1920.
Washingtoniana Division, D.C. Public Library
All Aboard
, ferry boats took people and goods across the river. You could sail to Al exandria from Greenleaf’s Point (now Fort McNair),or between the points where today’s th Street Bridge touches ground. Sailing vessels, and later steamships, came here f rom Norfolk, Virginia (and points south) and Baltimore,Maryland (and points north).Washing- tonians wanted international trade, but unfortu- nately,Baltimore and Norfolk had deeper harbors for larger vessels.Baltimore and Norfolk became thriving ports as the s u nf o l ded . Wa s h i n g t on fell behind,focusing more on regional trade. Regular steamboat service began on the Potomac in between Washingtonand Aquia Creek, where the Po tomac bends near Fredericksburg, Virginia.There passengers disembarked and rode overland to Richmond and points south.Railroads were built throughout the area in the s, but political wrangling blocked the construction of a rail line to the south from Washington.Voyagers continued to travel by steamboat to Aquia Creek and then to the new southern railroads.Finally, a round , a railroad was built connecting Washingtonto Richmond. Yet passengers contin- ued to book the overnight steamers.The last one sailed in , nearly a century after it was no longer essential for southern travel. Washingtonians have long enjoyed cruises to amuse- ment parks along the Potomac. Lewis Jefferson, Sr. ( ‒ ),Washington’s first African American millionaire, ran the Independent Steam Boat and Ba r geCompany around . Jefferson’s vessels s a i l e d te n m iles sou t h to Wa s h i n g t on Pa r k , h i s amusem ent park for Af rican Americans. The busi- nessman, banker, contractor, ship builder, and real estate developer inve s ted heavi ly in Southwest. An admired community leader,he lived in a gra- cious brick mansion at First Street.
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Civil War activity on the Sixth Street Wharf,1863.The Law House, then the MountVernon Hotel,flies the American flag. Library ofCongress
The Enduring Law House
, built in ,include an important historic building as their community center: the Thomas Law House. The Federal style house was design ed by William Lovering in for businessman Th omas Law and his bride Eliza Parke Custis,granddaughterof Martha Washington. Early on it was known as Hon eymoon House.”Originally the house stood at the foot of Sixth Street overlooking the Potomac. Since then, time and engineers have changed the shoreline, so the house now sits farther from the water. It is one of very few to survive the s urban renewal. After the Laws’time,the area around the house grew commercial. During the Civil War the house became the Mt.Vernon Hotel,where guests saw Union troops embarking for the South from the busy Sixth Street wharf. They also witnessed the arrival of stunning numbers of wounded soldiers. Quite often,”recorded poet Walt Whitman,“they arrive[d] at the rate of , a day.”Here President Lincoln greeted Union reinforcements arriving to defend the city’s Fort Stevens from Confederate attack in .At the war’s end,Washington’s own regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops march ed triumphantly up Seventh Street to the cheers of well-wishers. Around the Law House became the Washington Sanitarium’s Mission Hospital,ministering to the area’s working class and poor,black and white. In Dr. Henry G. Hadley purchasedthe house to opera te as a clinic. According to So ut hwester Phyllis Martin, he “was a family doctor to all of the people of Southwest,”who frequently neglected to take payment for his services. In Hadl ey built Hadley Memorial Hospital in far Southwest, named to honor his mother.The Hadley Clinic closed in during urban renewal.
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Two Civil War guns guard the waterfront where the Anacostia meets the Potomac atWashington Arsenal,now Fort McNair,1862.
Li b ra ry of Co n g re s s
Military Education at Fort McNair
. honors the memory of the commander of Army Ground Forces during World War II who died in battle.The fort is the U.S. Army’s third oldest installation, after West Point and Carlisle Barracks. Fort McNair dates back to , when Washington City planner Pierre L’Enfant saw that the point where the Potomac and Anacostia rivers meet was ideal for a military installation,and he so noted it on his map.At first the installation was known as the Arsenal at Greenleaf’s Point, where the Army stored and distri buted weapons. During the War of , according to a con tem porary newspaper report,a dozen British Redcoats were killed when they accidentally set off gun powder hidden down a dry well by a retreating American commander. In a U.S.penitentiary was added to the instal- lation, and ye a rs later four of the ei ght prisoners charged with conspiracy in President Lincoln’s assassination were hanged in its courtyard. Af ter the Civil War, the fort’s importance in the defense of Washington declined. In the arsenal was closed, and the fort was used to store Army uniforms and supplies. The small post hospital became a re s e a rch cen ter, and from u n til his death in ,yellow fever pioneer researcher Dr. Walter Reed studied infectious diseases here.Then in the Army War College was founded, open- ing the era of higher education for senior military personnel. In the ei ght divisions of the Nati onal Defen s e Un iversity include the Nati onal War College, which opened in the aftermath of the Spanish- American War ( ).Fort McNair also is home to the In ter-American DefenseCo ll ege, established at the height of the Cold War to safeguard the Western Hemisphere.
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Alvin Ford poses beside his home at 1206 Carrollsburg Place,one of the So u t h west houses built by Ste rn be rg and Kober’s philanthropic investors.
Photograph by Joseph Owen Curtis
Public Housing and the Syphax School
had a common problem.The working poor lived in deteriorating houses and even wooden shacks.InWashington this housing of ten lined the city’s hidden alleys. People needed healthier and safer places to live. Should government build them? Private enterprise? In twoWashington public health officials, George Sternberg and George Kober,decided that private investors should build solid, affordable housing,even though there would be little profit. Between and ,they persuaded charitable Washington investors to clear slums and build , units (houses and apartments) around the city. The new housing was very popular. By ,however,the investors could no longer afford this enterprise.Fortunately five years earlier the federal government had established the Alley Dwelling Authority.With government funding,the work of creating affordable housing continued. The low-rise buildings of St.James Mutual Homes along Third and P streets were built by Sternberg and Kober’s investors in the s as Sternberg Courts and KoberApartments.The James Creek Dwellings(First and O streets) and Syphax Gardens (P Street at Half Street) were built by the All ey Dwelling Authority and its successors.Soul music su perstar Marvin Gaye ( ‒ ) spent part of his childhood at Syphax Gardens. The Syphax School, at Half Street, honors William Syphax, a descendant of Martha Washing- ton’s grandson George Washington Parke Custis and Ai ryCa rter, an enslaved woman. Syphax served as the first president of the board of the Colored Pu b li c Sch ool s of Wa s h i n g ton ( ‒ ) and was openly opposed to school segregation.Syphax School opera ted from u n til . In Manna,Inc.,was preserving the school’s exterior as part of an affordable housing development.
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Metropolitan Railroad electric streetcar at the car barn,1895.
Washingtoniana Division, D.C. Public Library
Linking the “Island” to the City
, Metropolitan Street Railway car barn once commanded the northeast corner of Fourth and P streets.Trolley repair shops sat across Fourth Street.These build- ings dated from the s,and were part of Washington’s first street railway (later trolley) sys- tem.Streetcars were a lifeline for this neighbor- hood, long known as “the island” because it was cut off from the rest of Washington by creeks,a canal,the Mall, and eventually railroads and free- ways.“We had our own community here,”recalled Southwester Clarence“Chick”Jackson,“but we could also go anywhere off the island on the streetcar. It was our... connection to the city.” In the early s,Washingtonians walked where they needed to go, rode in carriages and wagons, or traveled by horseback.Later they traveled in horse-drawn wagons known as public omnibuses. By the Civil War,however,the city was booming, overwhelmed with soldiers, civilians,and supplies that needed efficient transportation. In Con gress chartered the first street railway — cars pulled by horses on steel tracks laid atop Washington’s unpaved and often muddy streets. Given the strate- gic importance of Southwest’s wharves, one of the first three rail lines ran along here, looping from Boundary Street (now Florida Avenue, NW) to Seventh Street,then back via Fourth Street. The electric trolleys of the late s came next, and the system grew to serve the entire city.In modern buses replaced the trolleys.That year most car barns became unnecessary. O.Roy Chalk, who owned D.C.Transit (which became publicly owned Metrobus in ),tore down his car barns here to build the apartment houses that now occupy these sites: Rivers i deCondom i n iumandChannel Square.
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Courtyard scene,River Park promo- tional brochure,1962
Collection of River Park MutualHomes
Recreation and River Park ,
’ were legally segrega ted from u n til . But that didn’t stop kids of all backgrounds from playing together.“We didn’t understand racial disharmony,” said Southwester Gene Cherri co of his childhood on Sixth Street in the s . Everybody was equal. Everybody was poor.” Yet playground monitors were instructed to keep the races apart.On the block bounded by Delaware Avenue and Canal Street is today’s King-Greenleaf Playground, formerly the white-only Hoover Playground that sat amid a largely black neighbor- hood. Randall Playground,some five blocks north off Delaware Avenue and H Street,was operated for black children.The children often ignored the rules to play together. For adults, though, social time was more segrega ted. When public housing first opened here,residents met in social and self-improvement groups such as the Syphax Homemakers Club. Long past the court-ordered end to segregation in public accommodations, the adults of Sout hwest found entertainment on their own sides of the Fourth Street dividing line. African Am ericans enjoyed Bruce Wahl’s restaurant and summertime beer garden at Fourth and C streets. Whites gathered at waterf ront watering holes such as Hall’s Restaurant,at Seventh and K. Founded in , Hall’s had been a favorite of General U.S. Grant. The townhouses and highrises of River Park were designed by architect Charles M. Goodman, who worked with Reynolds Metals to feature aluminum in its unique concept for urban residential archi- tecture.When River Park opened as a cooperative in ,its tenants worked to ensure an integrated population. From the beginning, the residents together have made decisions governing the use and care of the River Park facilities.
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In 1963 artist Garnet Jex pho- tographed the Duncanson-Cranch House as construction was under- way for Harbour Square.
TheHistorical Society of Washington, D.C.
Blending Old and New
threatened to destroy three of Washington’s oldest stru ctures, their tenants organized to stop the bulldozers.Consequently when architect Chloethiel Woodard Smith designed the mid- th century Harbour Square at Fourth and N streets,she included Wheat Row ( ),Duncanson-Cranch House (circa ), and Edward Simon Lewis House ( ). Wheat Row,the elegant set of four Federal style houses on Fourth Street, was created by James Greenleaf,Washington’s first real estate speculator. Greenleaf and his partners hoped to get rich build- ing housing for the new city.Instead Greenleaf went bankrupt,but left behind a few well-made houses.This group was named for John Wheat,an early owner who worked as a Senate messenger.At N Street is Lewis House,built for a Navy clerk. A few houses down at ‒ is Duncanson- Cranch House.William Mayne Duncanson was a wealthy trader who lost his fortune investing with Greenleaf.William Cranch,Greenleaf’s brother-in- law,had a distinguished career as chief justice of the DC Circuit Court.World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle once lived in Lewis House. In Charles Weller opened Neighborhood House in Lewis House as Washington’s first social settlement. Th ere he provided education and recreation for poor white children and adults,with the city’s first organized playground.The branch library — the city’s firs t — wel com ed bl acks as well as whites in keeping with library policies.In artist and socialite Alice Pike Barney bought Duncanson-Cranch House for Neighborhood House,and the institution became Barney Neigh- borhood House. It continued to grow, occupying three of Wheat Row’s four houses, before moving to th Street , NW, in . Well er also hel ped found the “Colored Social Center” in at M S treet , forerunner of today’s Southwest CommunityHouse.
Sources
a Neighborhood Heritage Trail begins with the community,extends through story-sharing and oral history ga t h eri n g, and ends in formal scholarly research. For more information on this neighborhood, please consult the resources in the library of City Museum/The Historical Society of Washington, D.C.,and the Washingtoniana Division,DC Public Library. In addition, please see the following selected works: Sterling Brown,“The Negro in Washington,”in Federal Writers’Project, Washington: City and Capital (Washington: Government Printing Office, ). Steven J.Diner and HelenYoung, eds., Housing Washington’s People: Public Policy in Retrospect (Washington: University of the District of Columbia, ). Sandra Fitzpatrick and Maria R.Goodwin, The Guide to BlackWashington, rev. ed. (New York: Hippocrene Books, ). Constance McLaughlin Green, The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ). Howard Gillette,Jr., Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, . Keith Mel der,“Southwest: Where History Stopped ,” in Kathryn S.Smith,ed., Washington at Home: An Illustrated History of Neighborhoods in the Nation’s Capital (Northridge,CA: Windsor Press, ⁾ . Daniel Thursz, Where Are They Now? (Washington: Health and Welfare Council of the National Capital Area, ).
Acknowledgments
of a unique group of historians and history makers, all of whom were generous with their time, their knowledge, and their talents. Special thanks to Southwesters Margaret Feldman, Jo s eph Owen Curtis, Cavaliers Men’s Club, G ene Cherri co, Carl Cole, Carolyn Crouch, Dorothy Kornhauser, Phyllis Martin, Larry Rosen, Gottleib Simon, Arthuryne Taylor, Moral Trent, Elaine Wender, Sheila Witkowski, and Gary Young. Historians, a rchivists, and libra r- ians made essential contributions: Lisa Bentley, Irene Alexander, Peggy Appleman, Judy Capurso, Howard Gillette,Faye Haskins, DonA.Hawkins, Kim Holien, Herbert Holmes,Lucinda P.Janke, Carole Kolker,Susan Lemke,Keith Melder, Mimi Minarik, Mary Moran, Gail Redmann, Christine Ro u rke , Vanessa Ru f fi n , Ryan Shep a rd , Wen dy Turman, and Keith Washington.
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On this self-guided walking tour of Southwest, historic markers lead you to:
– Some of Washington’s oldest houses.
– The docks where the U.S. Colored Troops returned in triumph at the end of the Civil War.
– The lovely St. Dominic Church, which fended off urban renewal.
– A spectacular vista that memorializes Benjamin Banneker.
– Fort McNair, Washington’s first military installation.
– A cooperative residential complex trimmed in aluminum.
– The site of Washington’s answer to the Lower East Side.
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