BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Callboxes

DC -- Callboxes:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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[1] CALLBX_180124_05.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[2] CALLBX_180124_06.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[3] CALLBX_180124_10.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[4] CALLBX_180124_12.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[5] CALLBX_180405_01.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[6] CALLBX_180405_03.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[7] CALLBX_180405_05.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[8] CALLBX_180405_08.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
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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:
1. CALLBX_180124_12.JPG: Artwork featured on this callbox was created by Diane Corea for the 1998 National Cherry Blossom Festival. The original was digitally created using Adobe Illustrator software.
2. CALLBX_180405_05.JPG: Artwork featured on this callbox was created by Phyllis Saroff for the 2007 National Cherry Blossom Festival
3. CALLBX_180405_18.JPG: Artwork featured on this callbox was created by Sarah Roulston for the 2003 National Cherry Blossom Festival. The original was digitally created using Adobe Illustrator software.
4. CALLBX_180422_01.JPG: America's Oldest Catholic University Georgetown University, founded in 1789 by Reverend John Carroll as a school for students of "Every Religious Profession," is the oldest Catholic university in America, administered by the Jesuits since 1805. According to the 1831 University prospectus, students were to bring , "a silver tumbler and spoon, two knives and forks, a matrass [sic] and a pillow, two pair of sheets and two pillow-cases, three blankets and a counterpane of rug." Healy Hall, which faces the University's front gates, is named for Georgetown's 29th president, Rev. Patrick Healy, S.J., who served from 1873 to 1882. Father Healy, the son of an Irish father, and a mother who had been a slave, was the first African American president to head what has become a major research university. The south pavilion of Healy houses the Riggs Memorial Library, on of few remaining cast-iron libraries in the country. It is balanced in the north pavilion by Gaston Hall, the University's primary ceremonial space, named for Georgetown's first student, William Gaston, who later served in the U.S. Congress. Since 1879, Healy has made a striking Georgetown landmark with its 200-foot-high central clock spire visible up and down the Potomac River. Behind Healy Hall is the original quadrangle, where the Old North Building houses classrooms and faculty offices. Completing the original quadrangle are Dahlgren Memorial Chapel of 1893 and former residence halls -- Maquire, Gervaise, Mulledy, and Ryan -- named for earlier Jesuits and benefactors. President George Washington addressed students from the front porch of Old North in 1797 as did the Marquis de Lafayette in 1824. Among Georgetown's alumni are President William J. Clinton, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, National Basketball Association player and two-time Olympic Gold Medalist Patrick Ewing, Sr., actor John Barrymore and Senate Majority leader George Mitchell.
5. CALLBX_180422_05.JPG: Restoration of Georgetown's Call Boxes Georgetown's Call Box restoration project is part of a city-wide effort to rescue the District's abandoned fire and police call boxes. Known as Art on Call, the project has identified more that 800 boxes for restoration. Neighborhood by neighborhood, they are being put to new use as permanent displays of local art, history and culture. The Georgetown project highlights the anecdotal history of Georgetown and its unique heritage as a thriving colonial port town that predated the District of Columbia. Police alarm boxes such as this one (originally painted blue) were established for police use starting in the 1880s. An officer on foot - as most were in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - used the box to check in regularly with his precinct or to call for backup if needed. The police boxes were locked, opened by a big brass key that officers carried. Inside was a telephone that automatically dialed the precinct's number. Checking in regularly was a way to make sure the patrolman was doing his job, and also a way to make sure he was safe. Use of the call box system began to decline in the 1960s with the advent of two-way car radios and walkie talkies. The phones were finally disconnected in the 1970s and replaced with today's 911 emergency system. Art on Call is a program of Cultural Tourism DC with support from DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, DC Creates Public Art Program, District Department of Transportation, and Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Citizens Association of Georgetown, Georgetown University
6. CALLBX_180422_20.JPG: "Emergency" Police and fire call boxes were installed throughout Washington, D.C. neighborhoods to provide emergency communication links between neighborhood streets and local police and fire stations. With the introduction of the 911 emergency call system in the 1970s these call boxes became obsolete. By 1995 all electronic components had been removed but the boxes remained and, through the support of the D.C. government, became neighborhood art projects. The Glover Park Call Box renovations were completed in 2009. Glover Park Artist: Michael Hagan, 39th Place NW Art on Call is a program of Cultural Tourism DC, with support from: DC Commission of Arts and Humanities, DC Creates Public Art Program, District Department of Transportation, Office of Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. This box was restored by Friends of Glover Park in 2009. Local funding was provided by ANC 3B. www.gpcadc.org
7. CALLBX_180422_28.JPG: "Victory Gardens" The community gardens at 42nd Street and Tunlaw Road and in Whitehaven Park were established as part of the Federal National Victory Garden Program during World War II as a way for average Americans to contribute to the war effort. These gardens reduced demand on commercial food supplies thus making more supplies available to the Armed Forces and Lend-Lease programs. After the War, these gardens not only continued to provide healthy and economical vegetables to local gardeners but also became social centers for urban communities. Glover Park Artist: Michael Hagan, 39th Place NW Art on Call is a program of Cultural Tourism DC, with support from: DC Commission of Arts and Humanities, DC Creates Public Art Program, District Department of Transportation, Office of Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. This box was restored by Friends of Glover Park in 2009. Local funding was provided by ANC 3B. www.gpcadc.org
8. CALLBX_180512_09.JPG: Sheridan Kalorama Call Box Restoration Project George Washington Here is an elegant George Washington trotting on his handsome horse. Our first president never lived in the city that bears his name, but in the late 1700s you might have glimpsed Washington riding along the Post Road, a highway that connected important fledgling East Coast cities. A portion of that road is now Florida Avenue. Washington might have been on his way home to Mount Vernon from Philadelphia, then the nation's capital. The Capitol can be seen under construction in the distance. About the Artist: Peter Waddell, artist, specializes in images of 18th and 19th century Washington.
9. CALLBX_180513_06.JPG: Dupont Circle Diverse Visions | One Neighborhood Fire Fact | January 29, 1922 An alarm sounded for roofs collapsing on nearby dwellings at 18th and T Sts. Only one fire officer, George S. Watson, was able to respond and found no casualties. All other fire companies were at 18th St. and Columbia Rd., NW, removing the hundreds of injured and dead from the Knickerbocker Theater, whose roof had collapsed from the weight of a massive snowstorm. At 1740 New Hampshire Ave. (above) stands the Dove House (1898). The private home has been converted into a 12-unit condominium, including a single unit with a loft in the former high-ceilinged ballroom. The Art Deco Carlyle Suites at 1731 New Hampshire Ave., built as the St. Charles Hotel, was a campaign center for both major parties in 1940, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term. Along New Hampshire Ave. from this call box to Dupont Circle are nearly a dozen embassies and as many headquarters of national organizations - all in mansions built around 1900. A block east at 1720 16th St. is the Toutorsky House, built 1892-94 for Associate Justice Henry B. Brown. In the mid-1940s Golda Meir lived there while working for Israeli statehood. Later Basil Toutorsky operated a music academy from the house. Fire Alarm Boxes such as this one (originally painted red) were installed in the District after the Civil War. Telegraphs transmitted the box number (top) to a fire alarm center. This system was used until the 1970s when the boxes were converted to a telephone system. By the 1990s, the callbox system had been replaced by the 911 system and was abandoned. Artist | Cornelia Archley "My imagery comes from my life experiences, the colors, from my heart. I live in Dupont Circle for 15 years and I traded my photographic skills for dance classes at Joy of Motion. Many of those photos were of the fountain at the circle." Tour guide, map and artist information for all 22 boxes available at: www.DupontCircleCallBox.com
10. CALLBX_180513_14.JPG: Dupont Circle Art on Call The Dupont Circle Art on Call project explores neighborhood history and local fire and police events. It also celebrates our diverse political, artistic and intellectual community by presenting original artwork by 22 local artists featuring the hub of our neighborhood. Dupont Circle and the beautiful fountains designed by Daniel Chester French. Art on Call is a program of Cultural Tourism DC with support from DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development District Department of Transportation This call box is sponsored by: ... Dupont Circle Art on Call Corporate Sponsor PNC Bank This community project also supported by Dupont Circle Association and the Dupont Circle Conservancy, Inc. and generous donations from community residents and businesses. See all 22 Dupont Circle Call Boxes! Development Committee Members: Marilyn Newton, Chair Michael Beidler Phil Carney Elaine Faye Carol Galaty Bill Glew Gil Hill Steve Hoglund Maureen Lynch Gary McLeod Amanda McNally James H. Mears Gerald Allen Schwinn Tour guide, map and artist information available at: www.DupontCircleCallBox.com Graphic design courtesy of: e-lanestudio Fabrication: Gelberg Signs
11. CALLBX_180525_05.JPG: You are standing at the edge of Embassy Row, which proceeds along Massachusetts Ave. from 16th St. almost to Wisconsin Ave. at Observatory Circle. This boulevard of grand mansions, row houses, and embassies, represents the finest realizations of L'Enfant's Baroque vision of grand vistas and diagonal avenues for the new nation's capital. The majestic Beaux-Arts building nearby, now the Uzbekistan Embassy, (above) was built in the early 1900s as a residence for a wealthy sportsman, Clarence Moore. Legend has it that he sailed to England in 1912 to acquire foxhounds for the Chevy Chase Hunt Club (later Country Club) but died on his return aboard the Titanic. (The dogs made it safely on another boat.) The home was bought by Mabel Swift of the Chicago Swift family, owners of one of the nation's largest meat-packing companies of the early 1900s. The building later served as the Embassy of Canada. Johns Hopkins University's renowned School of Advanced International Studies stands next door. To your left across the avenue stands the Brookings Institution, built in the 1950s on the site of Henry Cabot Lodge's house. Fire alarm boxes such as this one (originally painted red) were installed in the District after the Civil War. Telegraphs transmitted the box number (top) to a fire alarm center. This system was used until the 1970s when the boxes were converted to a telephone system. By the 1990s, the callbox system had been replaced by the 911 system and was abandoned. Artist, Ann Marie Ferramosca A graduate of Virginia Tech in studio art and marketing, Ann Marie Ferramosca teaches and exhibits her paintings throughout DC. Tour guide, map and artist information for all 22 boxes available at: www.DupontCircleCallBox.com Fire Fact, 1871 The District of Columbia Fire Department was established on September 23, 1871 and included six fire companies. The "all-paid" fire department replaced the volunteer fire companies that had protected the Districts.
12. CALLBX_181119_13.JPG: Dupont Circle Diverse Visions | One Neighborhood Police Call Boxes such as this one (originally painted blue) were installed in the District after the Civil War. Officers on foot patrol used this secure telegraph system to contact the station, accessing the box with a now highly collectible "gold key." This system was used until the late 1970s when it was abandoned in favor of more modern communication methods. The mansion at 1801 Massachusetts Ave. was built in 1900 as a winter residence for the middle-aged Wadsworths, a childless couple from upstate New York. Martha helped design the block-sized mansion. During World War II it was used by the Red Cross. Empty for most of the 1920s, it became the private Sulgrave (women's) Club in 1932, with the help of Red Cross head Mabel Boardman, who lived in the Roman-brick house at 1801 P St. Boardman's house has been the Embassy of Iraq since 1942. To your right across 18th St. is the headquarters of the National Trust for Historic Preservation (above), built in 1917 as Washington's most opulent apartment building. Designed by J. H. de Sibour, five of its six residences had 24 rooms each. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon occupied the penthouse in the 1920s and housed his extensive collection of artwork there. Years later this collection was presented to the people of the Untied (sic, United) States as the central collection of the National Gallery of Art. Perle Mesta, American socialite and diplomat who served as the first U.S. minister to Luxembourg, later rented one of the two ground-floor suites. Artist | Colin Winterbottom This photo, one of the artist's first in black and white, changed Dupont Circle resident Colin Winterbottom's life. Its dramatic impact, capturing the cold winter night, prompted him to leave a career in health policy research to photograph Washington's urban landscapes.
13. CALLBX_181130_01.JPG: A Georgetown "Cathedral" Almost a miniature Gothic cathedral, Christ Church behind you was built in 1885. It is the third building to occupy the spot since a group of Georgetown Episcopalians founded the parish in 1817. Among the founders were Francis Scott Key, author of The Star-Spangled Banner, and old-moneyed, landowning families with Maryland and Virginia ties and a southern orientation. A total interior restoration of the sanctuary was finished in 2003, bringing the church close to its original appearance. During the Civil War, sentiment for the Confederacy was strong among many parishioners. The rector, a Virginian, refused to offer prayers for President Lincoln and a Union victory. After Lincoln's assassination, Christ Church tolled its bells and draped its fa�ade in black, as much in grief for the defeat of the Confederacy and the loss of so many of its young men as for the President. In the late 19th century, Christ Church continued to be the spiritual home for many of the old-line Southern Sympathizers, known as the Georgetown Assembly. Britannia Peter Kennon, Martha Washington's great-granddaughter recalled that after the Civil War she and her cousin Robert E. Lee attended Christ Church during his stay at Tudor Place, one of Washington's oldest and most historic houses. Britannia and her sisters Columbia and America grew up at the grand Tudor Place, just up 31st Street. They were daughters of Martha Custis and Thomas Peter, and granddaughters of the first mayor of Georgetown, Robert Peter. Christ Church Parish Hall, the old Linthicum Institute at 3116 O Street, was built in 1887 as a boys' school; the second floor auditorium was for decades the setting for the Georgetown Assembly's dances. The building two doors west of the hall housed the Lancaster School, founded in 1810 to offer free education to boys and girls, marking the advent of public education for girls in the District of Columbia.
14. CALLBX_181130_08.JPG: Restoration of Georgetown's Call Boxes Georgetown's Call Box restoration project is part of a city-wide effort to rescue the District's abandoned fire and police call boxes. Known as Art on Call, the project has identified more than 800 boxes for restoration. Neighborhood by neighborhood, they are being put to new use as permanent displays of local art, history and culture. The Georgetown project highlights the anecdotal history of Georgetown and its unique heritage as a thriving colonial port town that predated the District of Columbia. Police alarm boxes such as this one (originally painted blue) were established for police use starting in the 1880s. An officer on foot - as most were in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - used the box to check in regularly with his precinct or to call for backup if needed. The police boxes were locked, opened by a big brass key that officers carried. Inside was a telephone that automatically dialed the precinct's number. Checking in regularly was a way to make sure the patrolman was doing his job, and also a way to make sure he was safe. Use of the call box system began to decline in the 1960s with the advent of two-way car radios and walkie-talkies. The phones were finally disconnected in the 1970s and replaced with today's 911 emergency system. Art on Call is a program of Cultural Tourism DC with support from DC Commission on the Arts and humanities, DC Creates Public Art Program District Department of Transportation Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Citizens Association of Georgetown Christ Church, Georgetown
15. CALLBX_181130_09.JPG: Volunteerism and Valor Before there was a DC Fire Department, companies from two then-separate towns -- Georgetown and Washington -- provided local fire protection. In 1789, Georgetown citizens purchased a hand-pumped engine and fire buckets with funds raised during a lively mass meeting. The Georgetown volunteers comprised every male inhabitant old enough to vote. The Washington volunteers began operations in 1804 in a frame shed with an old hand engine. The two groups, valiant volunteers for most of their history, merged into the District of Columbia Fire Department Engine Company 5 in 1871. This company is now housed on Dent Place in Georgetown. This fire department call box (read more history on the opposite side) is a reminder of past tragedies and triumphs. An 1899 newspaper reported that Policeman Charles Henry Steinbraker, a Georgetown resident, was walking along 31st Street when he saw smoke coming from the Gay Street Baptist Church at 31st and N. He ran to this call box and pulled down a lever to send an alarm. Although the response was speedy, high winds fanned the flames too rapidly to save the church, but firemen were able to save adjacent properties. Five blocks southwest of here at 1066 Wisconsin Avenue is the Vigilant Firehouse, the oldest remaining firehouse structure in the city. A plaque near the entry memorializes Bush, the Old Fire Dog, who died in 1869. Above the inscription on the gable is a "V" for Vigilant, which history has proven can equally stand for volunteerism and valor.
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2018 photos: Overnight trips this year: (February) Greenville, NC for a Civil War Trust conference,, (May/June) Newport News, VA for another CWT conference, (July) my 13th consecutive trip to San Diego Comic-Con (including sites in Reno, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles), (August twice, October) three trips to New York City (including New York Comic-Con), and (September) Chicago, IL for my CWT swansong event. Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Number of photos taken this year: about 535,000.
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