Trash day, schools, parking and what’s happening on your block
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How Capitol Hill was built, from DC's historic building permits, and what the newspaper said about it a hundred years ago this week.
| Decade | Buildings |
|---|---|
| 1870s | 177 |
| 1880s | 865 |
| 1890s | 845 |
| 1900s | 623 |
| 1910s | 398 |
| 1920s | 133 |
| 1930s | 69 |
| 1940s | 18 |
| 1950s | 24 |
| 1970s | 1 |
| 1980s | 1 |
Each record is one building listed on a historic DC building permit; a single permit can cover many buildings. The busiest decade is highlighted in the chart.
In 1912, Harry A. Kite built 36 buildings on the 1200 block of Walter Street SE under 4 permits, designed by A. E. Landvoigt. The largest permit covered 10 buildings at an estimated $17,000 in total.
Mentions of Capitol Hill in the Evening Star, October 31 – November 6, 1926. Searched for "Lincoln Park", "Stanton Park", "East Capitol street", "Capitol Hill".
“Wood and Dr. Havenner. Lincoln Park Is Ac*’* e The Lincoln Park Citizens Asso ciation has appointed committees and outlined plans for its membership drive, which will be given impetus at a meeting the night of November 9, …”See page 7 at loc.gov ↗
Clips are machine-read text (OCR) from scanned Evening Star pages on the Library of Congress's Chronicling America, lightly cleaned (line-break hyphens rejoined, stray symbols removed); misspellings are the scanner's. Newspapers this old are public domain. Each clip links to its page at loc.gov. Clips that mention race, covenants, deed restrictions or slurs are skipped automatically (keyword list: race, races, racial, colored, coloured, negro, negroes, white only, whites only, for whites, white people, white persons, white residents, caucasian, segregation, segregated, covenant, covenants, restricted, restriction, restrictions, plus a list of slurs), because they need an editor's context; legal notices and lists of private individuals are skipped too.
![[Washington, D.C. Eastern Market], [1943 summer]](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/fsa/8d00000/8d00600/8d00613r.jpg)
![[Grant's Row, East Capitol Street, Washington, D.C.], [between 1874 and 1876]](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/ds/13000/13090r.jpg)
![Daniel Carroll of Duddington's family on porch of house, F and 2nd Streets, S.E., Washington, D.C., [1865]](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/cph/3b40000/3b41000/3b41500/3b41559r.jpg)
Photographs from the Library of Congress (Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information photograph collection; Prints & Photographs Division; Historic American Buildings Survey), each with no known restrictions on publication or in the public domain, per the Library. Titles are the Library's, written when the photos were catalogued; some use the language of their time. Each links to its record.
Washington chronicler James Croggon told the Oldest Inhabitants in 1905 that '11th or Bridge Street' had been a busy business street, its stores catching country trade from Prince George's County. Robert Pohl notes the nickname was less used than Garrison Street and clashed with Georgetown's Bridge Street; it had faded by about 1900.
Earlier: Bridge Street (informal)Source: Lost Capitol Hill: Bridge and Garrison Streets (The Hill is Home, 2015)The commercial strip on 8th Street SE takes its name from the Marine Barracks, established in 1801, and counts as the city's oldest commercial district thanks to the Navy Yard. In the 19th century locals called 8th Street 'Garrison Street' after the barracks, a name used in ads but never on official maps.
Earlier: Garrison Street (informal)Sources: Barracks Row - Wikipedia · Lost Capitol Hill: Bridge and Garrison Streets (The Hill is Home, 2015)L'Enfant called the rise chosen for the Congress House 'Jenkins Hill' or 'Jenkins Heights,' though Carroll family records called the tract 'Rome.' Capitol Hill Historical Society research in 2004 placed Thomas Jenkins's land seven blocks east. Jefferson, as secretary of state in 1793, named it Capitol Hill after Rome's Capitoline Hill.
Earlier: Jenkins Hill, Jenkins HeightsSource: Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. - WikipediaOriginally B Street. It received its current name on February 26, 1931, after nearly being named Jefferson Avenue for Thomas Jefferson. Its western half became the northern edge of the National Mall; the narrower eastern half runs through Capitol Hill's Northeast blocks.
Earlier: B Street NorthSource: Constitution Avenue - WikipediaCarroll's mansion filled the square bounded by 1st, 2nd, E and F Streets SE until his heirs sold it in 1886 and it was torn down. The new street through the rowhouse subdivision was Heckman Street; CHRS says speculator Archimedes Heckman named it for himself, while Robert Pohl found no clear namesake. It was renamed Duddington Place in 1960.
Earlier: Heckman StreetSources: Lost Capitol Hill: Heckman Street (The Hill is Home, 2013) · Duddington Place Walking Tour (Capitol Hill Restoration Society)The dividing line between the Northeast and Southeast quadrants, running due east from the Capitol to the Maryland line. It is uninterrupted to Lincoln Park, then continues past the former RFK Stadium and over the Anacostia on the Whitney Young Memorial Bridge. The Folger Shakespeare Library stands on it.
Source: East Capitol Street - WikipediaNamed as one of three public markets in L'Enfant's plan, alongside Center and Western Markets. Jefferson's 1805 proclamation set the first Eastern Market at 7th and L Streets SE near the Navy Yard. The present Adolf Cluss building opened in 1873 and ran as a public market until a 2007 fire; it reopened in 2009.
Source: Eastern Market, Washington, D.C. - WikipediaA seven-acre neighborhood park at 2nd and G Streets SE, bounded by 3rd Street, New Jersey Avenue, South Carolina Avenue and F Street, with the Southeast Freeway along its southern edge. It is named for President Garfield.
Sources: Garfield Park (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia · Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. - WikipediaOriginally South B Street. Congress renamed the street in 1934, and the District renamed the Southeast stretch west of the Anacostia in 1950. Robert Pohl notes the usual explanation, confusion between two B Streets so close together, though he found no direct evidence for it.
Earlier: B Street SouthSources: Independence Avenue (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia · Lost Capitol Hill: B Street, South (pt. 1) (The Hill is Home, 2009)A public reservation in L'Enfant's 1791 plan, once meant as the zero milepost for distances in North America but long used as a dump. It held the Union Army's Lincoln Hospital during the Civil War. In 1867 Congress named it Lincoln Square, the first public site to bear Lincoln's name; the Emancipation Memorial followed in 1876.
Earlier: Lincoln SquareSource: Lincoln Park (Washington, D.C.) - WikipediaOpen ground in L'Enfant's 1791 plan at 4th, 6th and E Streets SE, used continuously as a park since its first improvements in 1885. Neighbors call it Turtle Park for the large concrete turtle in its playground. In 1764 the tract was known as Houp's Addition.
Source: Marion Park - WikipediaFirst documented as Pennsylvania Avenue in a 1791 Jefferson letter; one theory holds the name consoled Pennsylvania for losing the capital from Philadelphia. In early Capitol Hill it was by far the most important street. It runs from the Capitol through the neighborhood and crosses the Anacostia on the John Philip Sousa Bridge.
Sources: Pennsylvania Avenue - Wikipedia · Lost Capitol Hill: Bridge and Garrison Streets (The Hill is Home, 2015)Pennsylvania and North Carolina Avenues cross in the middle of the square, cutting it into four triangular parks between 4th and 6th Streets SE. It honors Seward, remembered for the 1867 purchase of Alaska, mocked at the time as 'Seward's Folly.' There is no statue of Seward here.
Source: Seward Square - WikipediaFormerly Stanton Square, this park in L'Enfant's original plan sits where Maryland and Massachusetts Avenues meet between 4th and 6th Streets NE. It is named for Lincoln's war secretary, whose attempted removal set off Andrew Johnson's impeachment. The statue at its center is of Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene.
Earlier: Stanton SquareSources: Stanton Park - Wikipedia · Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. - WikipediaStill looking for a reliable source on Canal Street SE, Ivy Street SE, Walter Street SE, Navy Place SE. We don't publish a name's story until we can cite one. Know it? Tell us.
Hutchinson grew up around Stanton Park and lived there until just after World War II. He recalls serving as a Supreme Court page in knickers, its tunnels, night school across town, and later work in the Court's library and Marshal's Office, along with neighborhood schools, movies, ice cream parlors, trolleys, Lindbergh's return and the Bonus Marchers.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Stanton Park, Supreme Court, schools, trolleysBorn in 1911, Ambrosi grew up in Schott's Place, an Italian enclave inside the block now occupied by the Dirksen and Hart Senate buildings, where children played ball on the Belgian-block courtyard. Interviewed by his grandson, he recalls playing inside the Capitol dome, meeting the Army the day the Bonus Marchers were routed, and finishing cement on the Federal Triangle.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Italian immigrants, Schott's Place, Bonus March, construction tradesBorn on Capitol Hill, Au lived nearly all of her 105 years there; her German immigrant grandfather settled on the Hill in 1873 to play in the Marine Band. She describes early 20th-century life: an inventor uncle working from the family carriage house, corner stores, movie theaters, games, schools, World War I, and driving early cars.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · German immigrants, Marine Band, corner stores, World War I, early automobilesBorn on the Hill in 1930 into a Greek immigrant household, Mamakos describes relatives who ran Club Kavakos, a candy store, Richfield Dairy and Sherrill's Bakery. She remembers checking coats at Club Kavakos, Friendship House, and the Marion Park police precinct where boys played ping pong and children got Christmas stockings. Includes family and Wallach School photos.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Greek immigrants, family businesses, Club Kavakos, Marion Park police precinctThe houses where Woodfolk grew up were demolished for the Southeast-Southwest Freeway, but she remembers her Depression-era neighborhood well: programs at the Southeast Settlement House, her hard-working father, the Southeast library, and everyday scenes of the Black community in the 1930s and 1940s.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · African American life, Southeast Settlement House, freeway displacement, librariesThompson's family came to the 1300 block of East Capitol Street in the mid-1950s after being displaced by what he calls 'urban removal' in Southwest. He recalls families on his block, local businesses, churches, theaters, old streetcar lines, buses and the arrival of Metro, plus his later work as a cowboy out West.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Southwest urban renewal, East Capitol Street, churches, streetcars and busesKreinheder and her husband bought a house on Kentucky Avenue just off Lincoln Park in 1963. In 1974 she and Ruth Ann Overbeck interviewed longtime residents for the historic district application, recordings she later gave to the project. Her 2015-16 interviews cover Hill life, local businesses, neighbors and events, especially around her own block.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Lincoln Park, Kentucky Avenue, historic district, Capitol Hill Restoration SocietyMonaco spent his early childhood on the Hill, as his parents had, before his family moved to Prince George's County in the late 1940s. He returned in 1967 and twice led the Capitol Hill Restoration Society. He recalls corner stores, snow cones, barbershops, shoe repair shops and an Italian uncle's businesses on New Jersey Avenue SE.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · childhood, Capitol Hill Restoration Society, corner stores, Italian American familyMcLaurin moved from a North Carolina farm in 1956, trained as a practical nurse, and spent over 30 years as a nanny for Capitol Hill families, which made her an expert on local shops, libraries, Eastern Market and the parks. She discusses daily Hill life and events from the 1968 riots to the 2018 Arthur Capper senior housing fire.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · African American life, Eastern Market, 1968 riots, neighborhood parksBowers's family has run Bowers Fancy Dairy Products in Eastern Market since his grandfather bought it from the Sweeney family in 1964. He talks about changes in the market and the dairy trade, cheeses and customers, and family stories reaching back through the Civil War, the B&O Railroad, Union Station and the White House.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Eastern Market, family business, dairySearch the archives yourself: The People's Archive, DC Public Library · Historic Chevy Chase DC Oral History Archive · Humanities Truck Community Archive, American University · Tenleytown Historical Society · Boundary Stones (WETA) · Glover Park History: Oral History and Reminiscences · Cleveland Park Historical Society Oral Histories · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · hometown DC (DC History Center) · Hola Cultura: Adams Morgan History · Citizens Association of Georgetown · Peabody Room, Georgetown Neighborhood Library (DC Public Library) · Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Archives: A Right to the City Exhibition Records · Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Mosaic Theater H Street Oral History Project · Library of Congress, Manuscript Division · Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Naval History and Heritage Command, Navy Department Library · The Catholic University of America Archives · Bygone Brookland · Dig DC, DC Public Library · hometown DC (HumanitiesDC / Historical Society of Washington, D.C.) · Dig DC, DC Public Library's digital repository · A Right to the City exhibition records, Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · Palisades Community Association · Forest Hills Connection (neighborhood history series) · Foggy Bottom Association History Project: Oral Histories · George Washington University Special Collections Research Center · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past · Empower DC: Ivy City · Power of Preserving the Black Deaf Experience (Dig DC) · Gallaudet University Archives. Summaries are ours; the recordings and their rights stay with each archive.