Washingtonians welcome aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh to the Navy Yard,1927.
During the Civil War (1861-1865),Washington, DC grew dramatically.As the first Union strong- hold north of the Confederacy,Washington was the first and best destination for wounded Union soldiers and seamen.Makeshift hospitals sprang up all over the city.Churches and other public buildings were pressed into service,and tent hos- pitals operated in open fields as the government struggled to meet the demand.Plans were made to build a Naval Hospital on undeveloped land on Pennsylvania Avenue at Ninth Street, SE, but the hospital wasn’t completed until the war was over.Capitol Hill,with its modest stock of hous- ing,was hard pressed to shelter the new workers attracted to the Navy Yard during the Civil War. As they did elsewhere across the city,builders here added tiny brick houses to the deep alleys that ran through the city blocks.People of little means occupied this affordable housing,but the conditions were crowded and less than sanitary. One set of alleys along Navy Place,in the block bounded by Sixth,Seventh,G and I streets, became particularly troublesome.But it wasn’t until 1941 that public housing officials finally replaced Navy Place with modern public hous- ing known as the Ellen Wilson Dwellings. The Civil War and the post-war expansion brought more businesses to Eighth Street and persuaded the city to build a new Eastern Market (at its current site) in 1872.By 1900 the military and musicians drawn to the Navy Yard and Marine Barracks,home of the U.S.Marine Band,were outnumbered by men in the build-
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