Posts tagged History
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GGWash Picks of 2023: Is Prince George’s County losing its status as the region’s Black promised land?
For years, Prince George’s County was known as a mecca for Black homeownership and middle to upper class growth. However, its status as such is not so guaranteed. Keep reading…
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GGWash Picks of 2023: Greenbelt and Langston Terrace planners promised quality housing — and to improve residents’ morality
The unique New Deal planned communities were designed to address DC’s acute housing shortage in the 1930s and uplift the virtue of residents, but ultimately failed to live up to their full promise. Keep reading…
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GGWash Picks of 2023: Tastee Diner is not Silver Spring’s soul
I wondered why I can’t just give in and enjoy Tastee Diner the same way. One reason is that, for a few reasons, I didn’t go to Tastee Diner much. The other is that to say one diner marks the decline of an entire community is short-sighted. Keep reading…
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Massive monument to falsified Confederate history soon to leave Arlington
Following a vigorous advocacy campaign by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a historically-inaccurate Confederate monument to soldiers who fought against the United States has sat in Arlington Cemetery for over a century. Despite opposition, a 2021 law mandates its removal by January. Keep reading…
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Historic districts may be preserving racial segregation in DC
Unpacking the “historic preservation”…of segregation: Historic districts in DC are 62 percent white and 15 percent Black. Outside of historic districts, the District’s population is 49 percent black and 31 percent white. Keep reading…
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A Chevy Chase group wants a historic district. What’s a historic district?
Historic districts sound charming, but what do they mean for neighborhoods’ ability to grow and evolve with changing needs over time? We’ve got an explainer for that. Keep reading…
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The lessons of DC’s circles and squares
From the 1870s up to the present day, competing interests — erecting monuments and memorials, preserving space for civic recreation, and catering to vehicular traffic — have led to drastic changes in our shared public spaces. Keep reading…
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The lost history of the DC arena that grew a wrestling institution
A humble venue a few blocks off the U Street corridor hosted colorful wrestling and jazz legends and a wide variety of other events from the ‘30s through the ‘60s. Keep reading…
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Metro was almost built without elevators. Here’s how we avoided that mistake.
Accommodations for passengers in wheelchairs were not the norm when Metrorail was first planned, but the system has — and always has had— elevators in all of its stations. This is the story of how that came to be. Keep reading…
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Amid conservative backlash, a turn away from bold public housing experiments of the ‘30s
Greenbelt, Maryland, and Langston Terrace, DC, were supposed to be models for other federal housing, but ended up being unique experiments after the federal government shifted away from directly building public housing for all but the very poor Keep reading…