PoPville » History of the U.S.S.Co. Building

History of the U.S.S.Co. Building

On Tuesday we admired the U.S.S.Co. Building located at 10th and Pennsylvania Ave, NW.

Thanks to a reader for sending in some great background info. He writes:

“It was, believe it or not, a storage warehouse built for the United States Storage Company in 1909, when making utilitarian buildings look perfunctory and ugly wasn’t in style yet.”

Some background info from LOC:

Significance: The tallest structure on Square 348, the U.S. Storage Building is an excellent example of early 20th Century design solutions for multistory commercial buildings. The powerful scale and rich articulation of this Late Romanesque Revival building is derivative of the designs of Louis Sullivan, who helped pioneer multistory design at the turn of the 20th Century. The building’s intrinsic design merit, combined with its use of similar materials, relates it to the surrounding streetscape.

USSCo History

From November 10, 1984 issue of Washington Post

Category: Buildings, Downtown, History

By: Prince Of Petworth | 10 May 2012 4:00 PM | 6 Comments

ustreetguy

For more information on this property you can read the historic summary from the Department of the Interior at: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/dc/dc0200/dc0217/data/dc0217data.pdf
The architect of the building (listed on page 4) is B. Stanley Simmons of Washington, D.C., who also designed the National Metropolitan Bank on 15th Street, and many other buildings in the city. He designed my very modest house in Bloomingdale in 1901.

May 10, 2012 at 5:58 pm
- bfinpetworht
  
  That is very cool. I love the history of these old buildings as they relate to the history of this city.
  
  May 10, 2012 at 8:44 pm
ah

Nice work, reader!

At first I thought the last picture was from like 1930 before anything else had been built–stunning to realize that block looked like that less than 30 years ago.

May 11, 2012 at 9:07 am
- Brian Kraft
  
  The image is made even more stark by the removal of the majority of the USSCo., which was originally 98′ deep. So the scene is not much different than the facade-omies we’ve been seeing around the city for decades now. Great find and great bit of local history by ustreetguy, who I assume sent this to PoP.
  
  May 11, 2012 at 1:51 pm
weird

My office used to be just under the left arch. Very cool office and window. View of FBI building? eh, not so much – it kind of blocked all the light.

May 11, 2012 at 9:47 am
classic_six

Thank you to whoever did the research and sent the additional information on this building – interesting.

May 11, 2012 at 11:07 am