I love walking past Duke Ellington’s old house on 13th St, NW. I especially love how modest it is.
History
|
Then and Now by the House History Man is a series by Paul K. Williams. Paul has been researching house histories in DC since 1995, having completed more than 1,500 to date. Read Paul’s previous post here.
The large house at 420 Constitution Avenue, NE on Capitol Hill was the longtime home to Samuel Hamilton Walker and his family. And by long time, I mean long time: from the time they moved into the newly completed house shortly after their wedding in 1872, Mrs. Susan Walker at least, would live there for the next 70 years, until her death in 1942. Samuel Walker would live there until his death in 1938.
Walker is one of those individuals who doesn’t get much press today, but during his life he was well known in Washington. Why? He built hundreds of houses, especially on NE Capitol Hill, including most of those found on his own block. He had his own real estate development company, located in the Walker Building at 458 Louisiana Avenue (since razed). He was a DC native, having been born here in 1844, and after obtaining a degree from Columbian College, began working in the city’s land record’s office. His national Capital Investment Company eventually built the District Building, which he wisely rented to the city.
Walker had volunteered to defend Washington for four days during the Civil War without enlistment, and that led to him being named the Major and Superintendent of the Police Department in 1886. The Walker house remains at the corner of Constitution and B Streets, NE, partly obscured by trees. The ornate railing atop the corner turret has unfortunately disappeared, however.
Vintage Photographs from The Book of Washington, 1903.
Click photo to enlarge
“Dear PoPville,
Check out the “old bones” that lie under the drywall, linoleum, indoor/outdoor carpet, and drop ceiling at the former Payless Shoes site on Columbia Road. More importantly, it’s the former Avignone Freres historic bakery, which furnished the White House with cakes and pastries.
If you walk by the site today, you can still see the same square pillars. Hopefully, the original marble (or faux marble) columns can still be unearthed beneath the drywall that’s there now…”
Payless Shoes closed at 1777 Columbia Rd, NW in Nov. 2011.
As I was walking down 14th Street yesterday afternoon I heard no less than six cars blasting Chuck Brown’s music. It was beautiful.
The Mayor’s Office issued a press release:
Mayor Vincent C. Gray today expressed his profound sadness upon hearing the news that D.C. native Chuck Brown, the singer and musician who came to be affectionately known as the “Godfather of Go-go,” has died.
“Go-go is D.C.’s very own unique contribution to the world of pop music, and Chuck Brown was regarded as Go-go’s creator and, arguably, its most legendary artist,” Mayor Gray said. “Today is a very sad day for music lovers the world over, but especially in the District of Columbia. Without Chuck Brown, the world – and our city – will be a different place. What a loss!
I am thankful that I had so many opportunities to witness Chuck’s singular talent in person, and I enjoyed each performance immensely. My heart, my thoughts and my prayers go out to his family.”
Chuck Brown was born in Washington. His musical career began in the 1960s as he played guitar with multiple bands, including Jerry Butler and the Earls of Rhythm and Los Latinos. His solo career took off in the 1970s as Go-go, a subgenre of funk music that originated with performers and clubs in and around the District, began to gain national popularity. His early work included hits like “Bustin’ Loose,” and pop-music historians generally consider Mr. Brown one of the main driving forces behind Go-go’s creation. He continued to play in the Washington area and elsewhere until recently, when he canceled an appearance at the newly refurbished Howard Theatre due to illness.
Last night The Howard Theatre hosted candlelight vigil for Chuck Brown. “Mr. Brown was slated to play The Howard Theatre on June 29, and had played the theatre often.”
Photo by LaVan Anderson for The Howard Theatre
|
Then and Now by the House History Man is a new series by Paul K. Williams. Paul has been researching house histories in DC since 1995, having completed more than 1,500 to date. Read Paul’s previous post here.
Every house has a history, but to those living on Capitol Hill in the 1300 block of A Street, NE today might not realize that their house history would include a tornado. The residents living there on November 27, 1927, however, would certainly have the shock of their lives. That day, a rare tornado ripped through the block, severely damaging several houses on the south side of the block, seen here. The resulting mess didn’t seem mind Miss Berry Wilson, however, seen in her overalls and high heels, who did not leave all the labor to the men of the family.
The tornado was larger than it appeared in these pictures, damaging a 17 mile tract through metro Washington. It began at 2:15 that day, and was gone less than 25 minutes later. It damaged 372 structures, and created an even more rare 300 foot tall waterspout in the Potomac River in its aftermath. Hundreds were injured by flying debris, but only one woman died of a lightning strike. Property damage was estimated at $690,000 in 1927.
The house at the far left of today’s picture is 1371 A Street, NE – the third house from left the 1927 image (looking west). If you look closely, you can notice brick repair at the cornice line for several houses necessitated from the tornado damage. (Photographs from Capitol Hill by Gregory J. Alexander and Paul K. Williams, Arcadia, 2004).
What an awesome sculpture/tribute from up in Silver Spring. The dedication says:
The unofficial “Mayor” of Silver Spring was a homeless man who collected hand-outs of money and food. Norman Lane walked the streets of Silver Spring for almost 25 years, doing odd jobs around the neighborhoods and handing out flowers to women on the street picked out of the Bell Flowers dumpster. Norman Lane was a mainstay in the community, and his enjoyment of life has been immortalized in a bronze bust created by artist and friend, Fred Folsom. The plaque beneath Norman Lane’s likeness reads, “Remembering the Caring Kindhearted Forbearance of the People of Silver Spring.” This is a tribute, not only to this local legend, but to the citizens of Silver Spring like Robert Phillips, owner of the Silver Spring Auto Body Shop, who kept a cot and a hot plate in the garage as a permanent home for Lane.
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.
From November 10, 1984 issue of Washington Post
“I just finished a short documentary (12min) about displacement, loss and change (good and bad) on U Street. Included are the voices of poet E. Ethelbert Miller, the scholar Maurice Jackson, Ben’s Nizam Ali, Tamrat Medhin who created the Little Ethiopia petition and a few others.”
|
Then and Now by the House History Man is a new series by Paul K. Williams. Paul has been researching house histories in DC since 1995, having completed more than 1,500 to date. Read Paul’s previous post here.
The Yenching Palace was once located at 3524 Connecticut Avenue, NW and had been a fixture in the neighborhood since the 1950s. Its backward “Y” on the popular neon sign confused many a passerby.
It was the covert meeting place between ABC newsman John Scali and Aleksander Fomin of the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban missile crises, emissaries representing President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
The restaurant was built as two separate buildings in 1925 and 1928, which merged in 1945 to form the Seafare Restaurant, seen here on a 1950s era postcard (author).
Yenching Palace was opened in 1955 by Van Lung, the son of Chinese warlord Lung Yun. Lung died in 1991, and the restaurant was purchased by his nephew, Larry Lung. Over the years, celebrities, musicians, and politicians dined at the popular eatery. Just a few names included Mick Jagger, Henry Kissinger, Ann Landers, Jason Robards, Art Garfunkel, Alexander Haig, Lesley Stahl, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
The restaurant was also the site of a press conference in the 1970s, when the arrival of the two giant pandas marked a new relationship with China. Lung closed the restaurant – to the dismay of many regulars – in 2007 when he leased the building to a Walgreens –the first Walgreens to locate in Washington, in fact. The company recreated the façade to its 1945 appearance.
Yenching Palace pictures by the author.
