Posts by John DeFerrari — Guest Contributor
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Lost Washington: The Gayety Theater
Ninth Street NW, the blocks just north of Pennsylvania Avenue: Today they’re lined with rows of the same nondescript office buildings you see everywhere else downtown. And then there’s that hulking FBI building on the west side. But it wasn’t always like this. A hundred years ago this was where the action was. “Ninth Street was the Broadway of Washington,”… Keep reading…
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Lost Washington: Church of the Covenant
Churches are one of the biggest challenges for historic preservation. They are such unique structures and so poorly suited to be anything but what they are. What happens when a congregation outgrows its building and wants to move on? In some cases, old churches downtown have been preserved because they were taken over by other religious groups. Several downtown landmarks have… Keep reading…
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Triumph and tragedy at Decatur House
Decatur House, located at the northwest corner of Lafayette Square, became a focal point for Washington society as soon as it was constructed for naval hero Stephen Decatur (1779-1820) in 1819. Designed for entertainment, the house has had a long career as the backdrop for both social triumph and personal tragedy. Keep reading…
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Then and Now: General Post Office to Hotel Monaco
She’s a grand old lady, an exquisite neoclassical landmark, and Washington’s first all-marble building. But the old General Post Office between 7th, 8th, E, and F Streets NW, nevertheless is not well-known and hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. It is now leased out as a boutique hotel because the government couldn’t summon the wherewithal in the… Keep reading…
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Lost Washington: Childs fast food restaurants
On Massachusetts Avenue at North Capitol Street NW, close to Union Station, stands a rather striking SunTrust bank building. How did this stately little building with its big windows and rough, pumice-like walls land on this corner, and why is it put to such nondescript use? It’s lived a number of lives through the years. Designed as a restaurant, cheery and inviting, it… Keep reading…
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“Woodies,” the sentimental favorite
For many longtime Washington residents, The Woodward & Lothrop department store, or Woodies as everybody knew it, is a touchstone for memories of easier days and simpler pleasures when Washington was much younger. The looming 9-story building at 11th and F Streets, NW, taking up virtually an entire block in the heart of old downtown, served as the stage for many happy moments… Keep reading…
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Historic almost-losses: Dolley Madison’s house
On the northeast corner of Lafayette Square sits a distinctive yellow house with an ornamental wrought iron porch. Quaint and domestic as it is, it seems transported from a bygone era, a time when Lafayette Square was where the rich and famous lived and this house on the corner was the epicenter of Washington social life. Dolley Madison (1768-1849) owned the house at one time and… Keep reading…
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Doctors’ Hospital, a “hotel for the sick”
It seems that as long as hospitals have been around, they’ve seemed dreary and depressing, or at times even unhealthful. The first DC hospital, for example, was a decidedly morbid place, opened at the Washington Asylum for indigents during a cholera epidemic in 1832. Medical practitioners have been trying for a long time to do better than that. One major step forward occurred… Keep reading…
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Washington’s first convention center
It wasn’t that ugly concrete behemoth on H Street, completed in 1980, that was mercifully imploded in 2004. No, the first convention center was to the northwest of that, in what is now Mount Vernon Triangle, on the east side of 5th Street NW between K and L Streets. The City Vista apartment and condominium complex now rises there. It was built as a market house in 1875, a grand… Keep reading…
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Lost Washington: The “Notorious” Sterling Hotel
The Sterling Hotel, originally the Hotel Johnson, once stood on the southeast corner of 13th and E Streets, NW, a corner that now fronts on Freedom Plaza and is just north of Pennsylvania Avenue. This was never one of Washington’s great hostelries, but it was listed as one of the 30 “principal hotels” of Washington in Rand McNally’s Pictorial Guide to… Keep reading…