From a reader:
“DCPL seeks citywide nominations for threatened buildings, landmarks, landscapes, etc.
If you want to know more about the Most Endangered Places program, feel free to visit our website at www.dcpreservation.org. There, you can download an application and look at lists from former years.”
Here is a list of most endangered places from 2008.
Seems like a great program. Anyone have any recommendations?
While the house itself is a little obscured by the bushes, you can tell it’s a pretty sweet spot. Note the old horse fence. I also find it’s unusual to find mini houses or any houses for that matter, set back from the curb like this. I’m a fan.
The 7th Street Savings Bank building located at 7th and N is a classic. Anyone know if it is still a functioning bank? Regarding the building itself – thumbs up or down?
I live in a house that was built in 1895. Sometimes when I putter around in my kitchen, I wonder about the people who first bought the house, or I think about how life changed through the course of its existence. As some of you may know, I make my living crawling around old houses, and particularly like working with the ones that contain as much of the original details as possible. I love hearing old house stories, like the one from a PoP reader, who discovered an outhouse in the back yard.
The only item I have ever bid for aggressively at a silent auction benefit party was a house history package from Kelsey and Associates. (Unfortunately, my strategy was not very successful and I lost it in the end to some guy who popped up out of nowhere after the two minute warning.) Kelsey and Associates is run by Paul Kelsey Williams, an architectural historian with bases in both DC and Baltimore.
If you have any interest in the history of Washington, DC neighborhoods, you’ve come across Paul’s work. He has written numerous articles and books, including more than a dozen of the Arcadia Press series. What interests me is that instead of focusing on generic monument views or writing about famous people, he goes back in time to showcase local neighborhoods through exhaustive research and collections of photographs.
I was very excited about meeting Paul Williams in person. I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but he told me to meet him at the former public comfort station in Dupont Circle. If you’ve ever needed a bathroom in the middle of Dupont Circle, or if you’ve ever taken the bus to New York from Dupont, you know the building of which I speak. As the current executive director of the Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets, Paul works out of the renovated historic building, which, fortunately, no longer looks at all like a public restroom on the interior. Continues after the jump. (more…)
“So you may know this but I thought this an odd little fact, I was getting some google directions and this is what came up for T Street NW:
Turn left at Duke Ellington Ave/T St NW
You are out and about the city all of the time, any idea when that happened?”
I had heard that Duke Ellington lived on T Street at one point (the residence pictured above is from 13th Street). But I hadn’t known they renamed part of T Street after him until I read your email. So I did a bit of searching around and the great Washington Post writer, Marc Fisher, found the answer back in Oct. 2007. He writes:
“D.C. Council member Jim Graham is proposing to rename two streets in Shaw for Duke Ellington and Chuck Brown, creating the possibility that you could one day, as a prelude to a kiss, or if you just need some money, head over to the corner of Ellington Avenue and Chuck Brown Way. That would be at the current intersection of Seventh and T streets NW.”
Super cool.
But honestly what I think is the coolest is the great old photos from the neighborhood that they have in the windows.
More old photos after the jump. (more…)
I’ve always loved this church on 18th Street. Religious or not, it is has a very peaceful courtyard. I didn’t know that the previous church burned down due to arson.
Kilimanjaro Nightclub DC
The area around California/Florida and 18th Street has been transformed over the past couple of years.
Where once there was once just a dilapidated building on an oddly shaped lot, there is now Mint Fitness, street-wear retailers Stussy and partner-stores Commonwealth & For the Greater Good, home furnishings from And Beige, confectioners Locolat, Urban Escape Salon and the ever popular Rita’s Iced Custard.
A store-front over the road was also recently refurbished and is now home to a neighborhood grocery. Meanwhile, barbershop par excellence, the classic “Eddie’s Hair Creations” is still going strong. They have original barber chairs that swing back to a horizontal position – almost like those at the dentist and a vacuum cleaner contraption to suck up stray hairs from your scalp and the back of your neck.
Kilimanjaro: As It Used to Be
Although the building sat empty for many years, this now-revived space used to be home what Kinuthia Macharia, a Sociology professor at American University described as the “most famous African club in North America in the 1980s until the early 90s,” – the Kilimanjaro Club. Story continues after the jump. (more…)
GLANCE JASON DOW GLANCE (Age 44) Beloved husband, son, brother, and friend to many died on Sunday, August 31, 2008, at Georgetown University Hospital from complications of colon cancer. Jason was born and spent his young life in Winston-Salem, NC. He received his undergraduate degree from New College in Sarasota, FL and his MFA in painting from George Washington University. Jason spent a year in Taiwan teaching English and then made his home in Washington DC for the past 21 years, working most recently as the graphic designer for the journals of the American Psychiatric Association. Jason was a gifted painter who also enjoyed playing the flute, saxophone, and the piano. He also amassed an impressive collection of jazz and classical recordings and his knowledge of jazz of the 20’s to the 50’s was extraordinary. Jason was cofounder of a neighborhood magazine, the Grant Circular, and was a loved member of the Petworth community. He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline Arendse; his mother and father, Bill and Bette Glance of Winston-Salem, NC; brothers and sisters-in-law, Jeff and Tricia Glance of Raleigh, NC and Jonathan and Cindy Glance, of Macon, GA; seven nieces and nephews, and in-laws, Basil and Coral Arendse of Easton, MD and Avril Arendse of Philadelphia, PA. A graveside funeral service will be held at Rock Creek Cemetery, Rock Creek Church Road and Webster Street, NW, Washington, DC 20011 (www.stpaulsrockcreek.org ) on Friday, September, 5, 2008 at 10 a.m. Friends and family are invited back to Jason’s home afterwards. All correspondence of condolence and friendship can be sent to 4206 New Hampshire Ave, NW, Washington, DC, 20011. A memorial service will also be held at the Home Moravian Church in Winston-Salem on September 13, 2008. In lieu of flowers, any memorials can be donated in Jason’s name to “3 Bles Nursing Staff” Georgetown University Hospital, 3 Bles, 3800 Resevoir Road, NW, Washington, DC 20007, for the nurses on 3 Bles, Georgetown University Hospital to use for the cancer patients they care for on that ward. These nurses are truly gifts to the sick and their families at the most difficult time of their lives. They made Jason’s last days joyful, comfortable, and peaceful and for that we will always be grateful.
The sign said this band was playing at the opening of a new liquor store back in the day. It really doesn’t get any better than that. “Music by Kentucky’s Famous Troubadors”.