Beyond the Basics 700 block euclid street nw
During the Civil War, thousands of once- enslaved people crowded into DC, desperate for shelter, work, and protection. In 1863 the National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children opened a shelter in Georgetown. The National Home, managed by prominent African American women, was the city’s only foster facility for black children. It taught them basic skills and placed them for adop- tion. Eventually the home moved to 733 Euclid Street. Its successor donated its building to the Emergence Community Arts Collective, which opened in 2006. Miner Normal School (later Teachers College), founded in 1851 to train African American teach- ers, once occupied 2565 Georgia Avenue. At 800 Euclid Street is Banneker High School, DC’s model academic high school since 1981. The school borders Banneker Recreation Center, with one of the few public pools open to black swimmers before desegregation in the 1950s. Dolores Tucker, who grew up at 1000 Euclid, remembered a neighborhood filled with teachers. After Tucker’s mother Gladys Williams left teach- ing to raise her family, “teachers on their way to school used to stop at our home to have coffee with my mother,” she said. “It was Grand Central Station.” On the southeast corner of Georgia and Fairmont, Italian immigrants Frank and Mary Guerra opened the original Howard Delicatessen in 1923. In 1988 Kenny Gilmore took over the business. Gilmore, godson to the Guerras’ daughter, had grown up two doors away and worked in the deli as a young boy.
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting