DC Heritage Trails: Roads to Diversity: Adams Morgan Heritage Trail:
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- TRR2D_140131_06.JPG: Public school students sketch Henderson Castle, around 1899.
- TRR2D_140131_09.JPG: Roads to Diversity
Adams Morgan Heritage Trail
1 Mrs. Henderson's Legacy
As you look up the hill, you can see Peter C. L'Enfant's 1791 plan for Washington ended up here in front of you at Boundary Avenue, now Florida Avenue. Back then, when people walked or rode in horse-drawn vehicles, it was hard to climb this steep ridge. Once electric streetcars appeared in the 1880s, climbing hills was easier, so city dwellers began moving up this hill.
Beginning in 1887, Mary Foote Henderson, wife of Missouri Senator John B. Henderson, created a new community here for the wealthy and powerful. She purchased much of this area and built herself a castle-like mansion on this side of 16th Street. After she failed to persuade the U.S. Government to move the White House here, she did persuade it to set aside land for Meridian Hill Park (also known as Malcolm X Park). She hired noted architects to design a series of elaborate mansions. The French, Spanish, Mexican, Cuban and Polish embassies moved in, and a number of embassies remain today.
After Mrs. Henderson's death in 1931, her castle became apartments and later a noisy after-hours club. A sleepless neighbor, Washington Post publisher Eugene Meyer, bought the castle and eventually razed it, but left a memento: the brownstone walls of Beekman Place, ahead on the left.
Across the street is the Roosevelt, constructed in 1919 as a fine apartment-hotel. Its name honors President Theodore Roosevelt. Mrs. Henderson successfully fought to limit the building's height, so it wouldn't block views of the city from the park.
- TRR2D_140131_14.JPG: Mrs. Henderson's Favorite Legation
Adams Morgan Heritage Trail
Lithuania's March to Freedom
- TRR2D_140131_17.JPG: Henderson Castle, flanked by the Meyer house, left, and Meridian Mansions (now the Envoy), right, around 1920
- TRR2D_140131_19.JPG: Roads to Diversity
Adams Morgan Heritage Trail
The Adams Morgan story begins with its breezy hilltop location, prized by Native Americans, colonial settlers, freedom seekers, powerful Washingtonians, working people, and immigrants alike. Unlike most close-in neighborhoods, Adams Morgan has never been dominated by any of these groups. Today's rich diversity is the legacy of each group that has passed through.
Follow the 18 signs of the Roads to Diversity: Adams Morgan Heritage Trail to discover the personalities and forces that shaped a community once known as "18th and Columbia." Along the way, you'll learn how school desegregation led to the name Adams Morgan, and you'll meet presidents and paupers, natives and immigrants, artists, activists and authors.
Roads to Diversity: Adam Morgan Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available at local businesses. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, check out City Within a City: Greater U Street Heritage Trail, beginning at 16th and U streets, and visit: www.CulturalTourismDC.org
Roads to Diversity is dedicated to the memory of Carolyn Llorente (1937-2003)
- TRR2D_140131_25.JPG: Roads to Diversity
Adams Morgan Heritage Trail
4 Life on the Park
During the Civil War (1861-1865), the Union Army Carver Hospital and barracks occupied Meridian Hill. The facilities attracted African American freedom seekers looking for protection and employment. By war's end, a Black community had put down rooks. Soon Weyland Seminary opened to train African American clergy and teachers. In the late 1880s, Mary Foote Henderson purchased most of this land and evicted its residents. Many settled in today's Reed-Cooke neighborhood to your left.
The building across Euclid Street once was painted pink and called the Pink Palace. Mrs. Henderson commissioned it as she began creating her elite enclave. It was designed by her favorite architect, George O. Totten, Jr. (you can see the Pink Palace in the cartoon on this sign). An early owner, Delia Field, widow of Chicago department store mogul Marshall Field, entertained the Prince of Wales here in 1919. Architect Totten lived at 2336 16th Street, later home of the Antioch Law School. Totten would design 11 grand houses, including the elegant 2460 16th, first occupied by the French Embassy. Mrs Henderson originally offered Totten's 2801 16th Street to the U.S. government for a vice president's residence. The government declined, so Spain took it for its embassy.
At left is Dorchester House, briefly the residence of John F. Kennedy and his sister Kathleen in 1941. Across 16th Street is Meridian Hill Hall, Howard University's first co-ed dormitory. It opened in 1942 as apartments for women war workers at a time of severe housing shortages.
- TRR2D_140503_01.JPG: Roads to Diversity
Adams Morgan Heritage Trail
3 The Roots of Reed-Cooke
In 1947, the building on your left opened as the National Arena, a public roller rink and bowling alley. It also hosted professional wrestling, roller derbies, and rock concerts. In 1986 it became the Citadel Motion Picture Center, where portions of Peggy Sue Got Married, Gardens of Stone, and other movies were filmed. In 1994 MTV recorded its town hall meeting with President Bill Clinton in the studio here in Reed-Cooke.
Reed-Cooke's earliest African American settlers moved here from what is now Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park. The came in the late 1880s after Mary Foote Henderson evicted them from her property. Reed-Cooke became industrial as well as residential, with warehouses and car dealerships. The Church of the Savior's missions and King Emmanuel Baptist Church (originally Meridian Hill Church), behind you on Kalorama Road, supported the community's spiritual and social needs.
Like much of this area, Reed-Cooke experienced decline in the 1950s and 1960s. The Adams Morgan Planning Committee called its small industrial section a "deteriorating influence," and wanted to demolish or adapt it along with nearby houses. But residents worked to fend off urban renewal and the Adams Morgan Organization, Jubilee Housing, Adams Morgan Community Development Corporation, King Emmanuel Baptist Church, and many others mustered funding to preserve buildings and create affordable apartments.
In 1981 ANC Commissioner Edward G. Jackson, Sr., coined "Reed-Cooke" for the area between 16th and 18th Streets, and led a community effort to make it official. The name, like Adams Morgan's, recognizes two schools: the Marie H. Reed Community Learning Center (Champlain Street), and the H.D. Cooke Elementary School (17th and Euclid).
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