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.
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