Posts tagged History
-
New Deal planned community celebrates 75 years
Greenbelt, Maryland is a product of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. His administration planned and built the town hoping that it would become a prototype for countless similar garden suburbs across the nation. This year, the city celebrates its 75th birthday. On April 27 and 28, Greenbelt is holding a symposium to examine its past and look toward its future. Faced… Keep reading…
-
Breakfast links: Emancipation
A competitive general?; Many reasons; Conflicts go online; Bike bits; Taxes broken less often; Along the Purple Line; Before the Old Post Office was old; Bikeshare goes Hollywood; Did sidewalks add to Trayvon tragedy?. Keep reading…
-
Longtime resident talks Barry Farm’s changes over 50 years
Talk to anyone returning to DC who’s been away for a few years, and you’ll get an earful about how much the city has changed. Even to residents, DC has been rendered unrecognizable by the changes, setbacks, blunders, and improvements of the past 50 years. But there are those who have been around long enough to recall another time entirely. Leon Dews, 62, has been… Keep reading…
-
Then & Now: Anacostia’s Saint Teresa
As songs of praise emanate from numerous houses of worship in Anacostia each Sunday morning, one church stands out as a part of living history. It has experienced reorganization, schisms, and change, but it still faithfully anchors the same corner as it did more than 130 years ago. Keep reading…
-
Then & Now: Anacostia’s neon sign
At the corner of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, Historic Anacostia’s gateway, is a landmark older than the famed Big Chair. Keep reading…
-
Breakfast links: Back to normal
Nats Park neighborhood on the upswing; Chaos to blame?; Showdown at the border; Urban renewal now old; Privatization a mistake?; Fast becomes slow; Density good for revenue. Keep reading…
-
Breakfast links: Help wanted
Help wanted at Metro; Help wanted on ethics board; A blanket of traffic cameras; Henderson is chancellor, not Kwame Brown; No Bethesda vs. Wheaton; Cars over veggies; Affordable housing needed; Garvey wins; And…. Keep reading…
-
Look inside a historic Columbia Heights “abandominium”
Anacostia isn’t the only place in DC with “abandominiums.” Canvassing 13th Street NW in Columbia Heights for information on a forgotten murder, I found an unlocked front door to the Warner Apartments, one of DC’s most historic abandominiums. Keep reading…
-
Meet me down in Pipetown: DC’s neighborhoods in 1877
By now, most Washingtonians have heard of Swampoodle, the historic Irish neighborhood that was destroyed by the construction of Union Station. But what about The Island? Pipetown? Bloody Hill and Bloodfield (“the ancient feudal ground of the southwest”)? These were all names of Washington, DC neighborhoods during the decades of the 1800s following the end of… Keep reading…
-
1958 zoning code authors saw the future, often wrongly
DC still operates under a zoning code adopted in 1958, though with some changes over the years. Harold Lewis, the New York engineer and planner who led the code rewrite, also published a report in 1956 explaining his reasoning behind the code. The Office of Planning has posted it online, and it’s a fascinating look into the thinking of the day. More detailed analysis will… Keep reading…