History

Danny Harris is a DC-based photographer, DJ, and collector of stories. In September, he launched People’s District, a blog that tells a people’s history of DC by sharing the stories and images of its residents. Every day, People’s District presents a different Washingtonian sharing his or her insights on everything from Go Go music to homelessness to fashion to politics. You can read his previous columns here.

“I come from France. I’ve been a tailor since I was 14 years old. My family wanted me to be a lawyer, my father was a supreme court justice, but I wanted to be a tailor. My sister is a lawyer, though.

“I’ve been in DC for 50 years and opened this shop in 1982. A lady brought me here to DC. She was French-American, but it didn’t work out. After that, things were difficult. You know, I became homeless. I lived on the street at 14th and K St, NW, for a number of months. But things turned around.

“In my time here, I’ve seen a lot of people, a lot of personalities, come through this door: presidents, senators, some poor people and some rich people. First president I worked with was Lyndon Johnson. I was recommended to him when he was vice-president and I made some alterations for him. When he became president, I still did his suits. Presidents I go to see, but senators and Cabinet secretaries, they come to me. But the president, you have to go to the White House! Now, I do suits for President Obama and Vice President Biden. They’re all very nice people.

“The presidents all come to me because of my style, the presidential or ambassador style as I like to call it. The thing that is distinctive about my suits is the perfection. The details. Remember when people thought that President Bush was wearing a radio receiver  when he debated John Kerry? That was my suit the president was wearing! He was not wearing a receiver, but a bulletproof vest that no one told me about before when I was making alterations. Instead of telling people the truth, the secret service tried to blame me, the tailor. But, I tell you, my work is perfect.

“In my sixty years in the business, I don’t believe that a gentleman should change his style. He should change suits, but not the style. Some people ask me why I don’t update my style and be more for today? To them I say, look, you can wear whatever you want, you can wear blue jeans, but I prefer classic and conservative. I’ve always been like this. Even when I do my laundry, I wear slacks.

“To me, working with the presidents doesn’t feel like a big deal, but when I walk around people say, ‘Hey, that’s Georges de Paris, the tailor for the presidents!’ One time, I was trying to get a drink from a bartender and someone pointed me out as being the tailor to the president. The bartender looked at me and said, “Come on, man, go back to your country. You’re a liar.’ I said, ‘Ok, I’ll go back to my country, but let me get a drink first.'”

Read more about Georges de Paris in The New York Times and NPR.

It’s just so insanely random. This is located on Taylor Street, NE around 2nd or 3rd.

You’d never know it was a rifle trench if this sign wasn’t here. Here’s what the trench looks like now:

You can read Vaughn and Amelia’s first journey here.

According to legend, “[Benjamin] Banneker fixed the position of the first stone by lying on his back to find the exact starting point for the survey … and plotting six stars as they crossed his spot at a particular time of night.” Hard to imagine in this “there’s an app for that” world, but Banneker’s coordinates-by-stars approach cut an admirably straight path, with stones exactly one mile apart (verified by Google Maps!).  The East boundary stone was one of our most eagerly anticipated stones because it lies at the intersection of Eastern and Southern Avenues, where Eastern continues east no longer, and Southern goes no farther north.  From here on out, the SE stones are almost all right on Southern Ave., which made finding them pretty straightforward.  (www.boundarystones.org)

For this boundary stone installation, we flaunted our stone-location prowess for our guest trekker, Amelia’s girlfriend from Brooklyn.  All went smoothly until SE 4, which is not lost, but rather–according to boundary stone lore–in the garage of a Mr. David Doyle. Doyle was an employee of the National Geodetic survey, a member of Maryland Society of Surveyors and District of Columbia Association of Land Surveyors, and the geodetic survey liaison for the city of Washington.  The stone was recovered by surveyors, and he felt that he was best suited to reset it accurately.  Too bad that was in 1991!  Mr. Doyle, if you’re out there and reading- we would like to visit all the stones and would appreciate it if NE 4 were to stop collecting dust in your garage and be returned to its proper location!

Our saga ended on a bit of an “ehhhhh” note, as we could not find SE 8 and couldn’t even get within spitting distance of SE 9.  SE 8 is apparently buried at the bottom of a concrete pipe in the corner of an impound lot.  We couldn’t find the pipe, but we did find a well-populated impound lot, filled with cars, vans, and a vast array of construction equipment.  SE 9 is supposedly on a “sandy beach with many car tires” down by the Potomac.  Lack of car and/or military IDs to get us through the naval research center thwarted our efforts to reach our final stone of the day.  

Some takeaways and a question from SE:

• Although NE had delicious BBQ in a liquor store parking lot, we found the best named BBQ truck in SE: Fat Face BBQ
• SE felt very suburban, practically sylvan at times – we saw two deer (and too many species of bugs to count)!
• SE seems to be home to the nicest men over 40 years old.  Women, children, and teenagers were exactly as expected, but every single older man smiled and greeted us when we passed.
• How the hell does one get a backhoe impounded?      
• There’s a truly surreal intersection of properties in SE, including: the Police Science Institute, with K-9 training facility; DC Fire/EMS Training Academy, equipped with cars and even a building ready to be burned for practice and a veritable race course for fire engines; Potomac Job Corps Center; the U.S. Botanic Gardens production facility, with some monster greenhouses; and the Senate furniture warehouse.
• Worst name for a church ever: Master’s Touch Praise Ministries (with Children’s Touch next door)
• Best name for a church ever (mostly because of the utterly impractical acronym): T.B.P.G.C.O.G.: True Believer’s Pentecostal Glorious Church of God
• By the numbers:

• Miles walked = ~14

• Steps taken = ~30,800
• Stones found: 7

• Abandoned mattresses: 10

• Deer: 2




 Despite only observing 7/10 stones, we’re psyched to tackle the SW border.  Due to a busy work travel season, however, we won’t be able to complete the third leg of our adventure until November.  See you then!

“In 1791 and 1792, Andrew Ellicott and his surveying team placed 40 boundary stones around the perimeter of the District of Columbia, one at each mile of the original diamond shape…Ellicott’s team embarked on a 40-mile journey that took nearly two years.”

On August 16th, we set out to recreate Ellicott’s journey, one 10-mile side at a time, over the course of four (nonconsecutive) days. Why? Because we can. We started out with the NE boundary, which runs a conveniently straight path along Eastern Avenue (with a few notable exceptions). Not knowing what to expect, we decked ourselves out with excessive urban adventure provisions (CamelBack, beef jerky, camera, etc.).

www.boundarystones.org provides locations for all the stones. Those directions, combined with fences the DC chapter of DAR put around all the stones in 1915 to protect them, makes them relatively easy to find, though our iPhones proved invaluable for the trip.

Some high/lowlights:

* NE 1 was accidentally bulldozed in 1952 and is now marked by a plaque in the sidewalk in front of an Ethiopian restaurant called Tiramisu – good smoothies!
* In between NE 4 and 5, Eastern Ave dead-ends, with an “Emergency Exit” sign leading into a field…
* NE 5: white stone within white fence in front of white, vacant house – the most aesthetically pleasing stone on the NE side
* NE 6 and NE 9 are fully enclosed in private front yards; we tried to remain inconspicuous to the family sitting on the floor with the front door wide open trying to stay cool in the heat as we leaned over their fence to snap the photo (NE 6)
* NE 7 sits in the very back of the Fort Lincoln Cemetery; coincidence that the temperature reached near that of the fiery pits of Hell as we roamed the cemetery paths?
* Finding a faucet to douse your head in cool water. Invaluable.
* Emerging from the woods, leaping a fence onto the side of Route 50 to the confused stares of passing motorists (the mile between NE 7 and 8 includes the cemetery, an arboretum, a golf course, a state park, the Anacostia and two highways – just begging for trespassing and Frogger). Sense of adventure (stupidity?) necessary.
* Side of the road BBQ in the parking lot of Sammy’s Liquors. Who knew mac & cheese, pork and beans, and potato salad were vegetables?
* Approximately 20 Not In Service buses!
* Celebratory beer at Wonderland

Time elapsed from boarding S2 bus in search of first stone to disembarking at Columbia Heights metro after visiting last stone of the day: ~8.5 hours

Time between NE 7 and NE 8: ~3 hours

Total miles covered: ~15

Number steps taken: ~33,000

High temperature for the day: 93 degrees

Liters of water consumed: 4

Number boundary stones photographed (damn you, elusive NE 8!): 9

One quarter down, three to go!