BGuthrie Photos: DC Heritage Trails: Roads to Diversity: Adams Morgan Heritage Trail

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:
1. TRR2D_190906_001.JPG: A Beaux-Arts Beauty Adams Morgan Heritage Trail Embassy of the Republic of Poland You are now standing in front of the longest-serving embassy building among Washington DC's more than 180 diplomatic missions: the Embassy of the Republic of Poland. Renowned architect George Oakley Totten designed the building for Mary Foote Henderson, who invested a considerable portion of her husband Senator John Henderson's fortune to make this part of 16th Street the most magnificent avenue in the Nation's Capital -- and an embassy enclave. The building remains a superb example of early 20th-century Beaux-Arts design. Completed in 1910, the white limestone structure features double-hung windows interspersed among balconies and porches in a fine blend of 17th and 18-century French and English styles. The Hendersons built a two-story addition housing the Great Ballroom in 1912. Soon after the United States and Poland established diplomatic relations on April 16, 1919, the government of Poland purchased the building. The Polish Legation officially opened in 1920. Since then, little has changed structurally except for modifications to the southwestern corner porches. In the 1960s a fence was added, and the open-air balconies were sealed. Much of the English Renaissance style interior looks as it did a century ago, evoking an Old World ambiance. The second-floor conference and reception rooms showcase veined marble fireplaces, glazed columns, semi-circular Tuscan arches, and mirrored panels. The embassy is open to the public during special events. (For more information please visit the embassy's website.) A life-sized bronze statue of world-renowned pianist and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski stands to the building's left. This historic marker was erected in 2011 to commemorate the centennial of the embassy building and the 90th anniversary of the establishment of Polish-U.S. diplomatic relations.
2. TRR2D_190906_004.JPG: An old photograph from 1926 shows open balconies at right. They were sealed off in the 1960s.
3. TRR2D_190906_006.JPG: The exquisite interiors have changed little since they were photographed in 1911.
4. TRR2D_190906_009.JPG: The Small Salon's fountain, visible above through the Main Salon.
5. TRR2D_190906_014.JPG: Bird's eye view of the embassy staircase from the top floor.
6. TRR2D_190906_017.JPG: The intricate details and elaborate crown molding of the salons.
7. TRR2D_190906_021.JPG: Paintings by Polish artists Jacek Malczewski, far left corner, and Julian Fałat, right, enliven the Blue Salon.
8. TRR2D_190906_028.JPG: History Lives Adams Morgan Heritage Trail Polish-U.S. Diplomatic Relations When Poland declared its independence in 1918 after 123 years or foreign partition, the first prime minister of independent Poland -- Ignacy Jan Paderewski -- sent Prince Kazimierz Lubomirski to Washington as the country's first diplomatic envoy. Prince Lubomirski purchased this building from Senator John B. and Mary Foote Henderson on behalf of the Polish government. Poland and the United States agreed to elevate their respective diplomatic missions from legations to embassies in 1930. Tytus Filipowicz, Poland's first ambassador to the United States, transformed the embassy into a thriving center of political and cultural life. During World War II, Washington continued to recognize Poland as a sovereign nation, with Ambassador Jan Ciechanowski as Poland's representative. Ciechanowski guided the embassy through the horrors of war that claimed the live so six million Polish citizens, half of them Jews. After the war, he was forced to surrender the embassy to representatives of Poland's newly established communist government. Over the course of 45 years of Cold War, the 10-million-strong Polish American community boycotted the embassy, protested here against the communist dictatorship, and supported the Solidarity movement in Poland. Solidarity's sweeping parliamentary victory in 1989 re-established a free and democratic Poland and re-opened a new chapter in Polish-U.S. diplomatic relations. When Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, a new chapter opened in Polish-U.S. diplomatic relations with the promise of exciting but far less dramatic times ahead for the two nations' always friendly relationship. This historic marker was erected in 2011 to commemorate the centennial of the embassy building and the 90th anniversary of the establishment of Polish-U.S. diplomatic relations.
9. TRR2D_190906_037.JPG: Prince Kazimierz Lubomirski, independent Poland's first envoy to Washington, speaks to reporters from the embassy's side steps, around 1920.
10. TRR2D_190906_040.JPG: Ambassador Jerzy Potocki (in official diplomatic uniform with white-plumed hat) and visiting Polish diplomats and politicians, around 1938.
11. TRR2D_190906_045.JPG: Celebrated Polish-French scientist and Nobel laureate Maria Sklodowka-Curie, who discovered radium and polonium, was photographed on the White House steps with President Warren G. Harding, 1921.
12. TRR2D_190906_048.JPG: Ambassador Jan Ciechanowski and family posed on the embassy's front steps in 1925. The same steps appear in this dramatic 1939 photo announcing the invasion of Poland and beginning of World War II in Europe.
13. TRR2D_190906_052.JPG: Lech Walesa, Solidarity leader and Republic of Poland's first democratically elected president after the fall of communism, signs a Solidarity poster at the embassy, 2000.
14. TRR2D_190906_055.JPG: As the portrait of Prince Lubomirski, Poland's first envoy to Washington, gazed down, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Robert Kupiecki meet the press, 2010.
15. TRR2D_190906_059.JPG: In 1943 Jan Karski, an emissary of Poland's government-in-exile, was among the first to deliver eye-witness accounts of the Holocaust to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Few believed the news at the time.
16. TRR2D_190906_063.JPG: Ambassador Jerzy Kazminski stands to President Bill Clinton's right n May 21, 1998, in the White House Rose Garden during the signing of the instruments of ratification for NATO's enlargement. Poland joined NATO in 1999.
17. TRR2D_190906_073.JPG: Keeping a Nation Alive Adams Morgan Heritage Trail Lithuania's March to Freedom Since 1924 this mansion has housed representatives of the Republic of Lithuania, even during the 50 years when the country was occupied by the Soviet Union. In the late 1700s, the Russian Empire annexed Lithuania's territory, ending the 500-year-old state known as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1918, at the close of World War I, Lithuania re-emerged as an independent nation. But once World War II broke out in 1939, Lithuania endured invasions by the Soviet Union, then Nazi Germany, and again the Soviet Union. For the next 50 years, Lithuania disappeared into the Soviet orbit. Or did it? Lithuania did not disappear. When the Soviet Union annexed Lithuania in 1940, Minister Plenipotentiary Povila Žadeikis refused to surrender this building. Žadeikis and his successors ensured that official Washington (and, thanks to Washington, other governments around the world) not only refused to recognize the Soviet annexation of Lithuania, but also continued to consider Lithuania an independent nation, aiding immensely in the campaign to throw off Soviet domination. The U.S. government also gave Lithuania's stranded diplomats access to Lithuanian gold deposited with the U.S. Federal Reserve. These funds helped keep the legation open while diplomats and Lithuanian immigrants promoted Lithuania's culture and independence. Finally in 1990, as the Soviet Union was crumbling, Lithuania was the first republic to declare its independence. After citizens elected a new government, Soviet forces attempted to remove it by force, spurring tens of thousands of Lithuanians to occupy the streets of their capital Vilnius on January 13, 1991, and protect their elected officials. Moscow relented and the last Soviet troops left in August 1993.
18. TRR2D_190906_076.JPG: Keeping the Nation alive: Chargé d'Affairs and Mrs. Juozas Kajectas celebrate Lithuanian Independence Day with Washington's Lithuanian American Society at St. Mathews Cathedral, February 1959.
19. TRR2D_190906_077.JPG: President Ronald Reagan expresses solidarity by signing the Week of Occupied Nations Proclamation, 1982.
20. TRR2D_190906_081.JPG: Chargé d'Affairs Stasys Lozoraitis who succeeded his father as diplomat-in-exile working for Lithuanian freedom, manned the embassy balcony the day after independence was declared on March 11, 1990.
21. TRR2D_190906_084.JPG: Ambassador Zygimantas Pavilionis and family pose with president Barack Obama after Pavilionis presented his credentials as Lithuanian envoy, 2010.
22. TRR2D_190906_087.JPG: In 1991 Lithuanians found their new freedom everywhere, it seemed. One very meaningful moment came when Lithuanian athletes competed in the 1992 Olympics under their own flag, not the Soviet Union's. Basketball fans still remember how, when Lithuanian players couldn't afford the travel, members of the Grateful Dead paid their way to Barcelona where they defeated the ex-USSR team to win the Bronze Medal. Players wore tie-dyed t-shirts combining the band's imagery with Lithuania's national colors.
23. TRR2D_190906_091.JPG: Lithuanian Head of State Vytautas Landsbergis shakes hands with President George H.W. Bush at a White House meeting where Bush reconfirmed U.S. support for a free and independent Lithuania, May 8, 1991.
24. TRR2D_190906_095.JPG: Two million citizens of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia formed a 370-mile human chain to peacefully protest Soviet domination in 1989. These Lithuanians lined the highway to Vilnius.
25. TRR2D_190906_101.JPG: Mrs. Henderson's Favorite Embassy Adams Morgan Heritage Trail Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania You are standing in front of the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania. The Spanish Baroque style mansion is all that remains of what was once a duplex, or double, embassy building designed by George Oakley Totten for Mary Foote Henderson's exclusive embassy enclave here. The mansion was constructed in 1907-08. The left-hand portion was demolished and replaced in 1965 by a nine-story apartment house. Fortunately the original two pieces were constructed to be independent, so the removal of the left side did not imperil the right. The building surfaces are carved limestone. As he did in the dozen other buildings he designed as embassies for Henderson, architect Totten looked to Europe for design ideas. The tower, carvings, and upper stories supported by arcades take after the Palacio de Monterrey, built in the 1500s in Salamanca, Spain. Totten and Henderson were responsible for 12 grand mansions designed for foreign legations on or near Meridian Hill. The Embassy of Lithuania is one of nine that remain. In 1908 the Danish ambassador rented the building from Henderson, shortly after the Swedish embassy took up residence next door. The ambassador stayed until 1912. Until Lithuanian Envoy Kazys Bizaukas purchased the house from Henderson in 1924, a series of foreign and domestic diplomats rented the elegant structure, giving parties that defined Washington's early 20th-century diplomatic scene. Upon Henderson's death in 1931, her heirs discovered that after receiving $5,000, Henderson had refused any further payments from the Lithuanian government. The delegation occupied the residence for free until her heirs completed the delayed sales transaction.
26. TRR2D_190906_113.JPG: George Oakley Totten's double embassy in 1939. Only the right hand portion remains.
27. TRR2D_190906_115.JPG: Totten's inspiration: Spain's Palacio de Monterrey
28. TRR2D_190906_117.JPG: Embassy promoter Mary Foote Henderson was photographed at a horse show in 1915 with Colonel Robert M. Thompson, president of the American Olympic Association.
29. TRR2D_190906_120.JPG: In 1924, Lithuania opened a consulate in Chicago.
30. TRR2D_190906_124.JPG: Ambassador Audrius Brüzga and Lithuania's delegates to the U.S. Cherry Blossom Festival host American and International princesses, 2009.
31. TRR2D_190906_127.JPG: President Valdas Adamkus prepares a time capsule to be placed in the embassy's new addition, 2007.
32. TRR2D_190906_131.JPG: The elegant arches and moldings of the Totten-designed embassy's second-floor dining room frame a table of refreshments.
33. TRR2D_190906_142.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)
34. TRR2D_190906_146.JPG: Carver Barracks on Meridian Hill, during the Civil War. In the foreground is 14th St.
35. TRR2D_190906_151.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.
36. TRR2D_190906_154.JPG: Houses later razed for Meridian Hill Park, around 1910.
37. TRR2D_190906_157.JPG: Among the designs George Oakley Totten created for Mrs. Henderson was the Louis XIV-style house Embassy of France at 2460 16th Street.
38. TRR2D_190906_159.JPG: George Oakley Totten
39. TRR2D_190906_161.JPG: Weyland Seminary, 15th and Euclid Sts., which operated here until it merged into Virginia Union University in Richmond in 1899.
40. TRR2D_190906_163.JPG: The Pink Palace stood out on sparsely built Meridian Hill, 1907.
41. TRR2D_190906_166.JPG: Two war workers enjoyed modest quarters at Meridian Hill Apartments.
42. TRR2D_190906_168.JPG: Laborers finish Meridian Hill Apartments, 1942.
43. TRR2D_190906_171.JPG: John F. Kennedy and his sister Kathleen visiting London in 1941, the year they lived in Dorchester House.
44. TRR2D_190906_176.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)
45. TRR2D_190906_179.JPG: National (later Citadel) Arena roller rink, 1949
46. TRR2D_190906_183.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).
47. TRR2D_190906_187.JPG: Reed-Cooke in 1949: Kalorama west of Ontario
48. TRR2D_190906_189.JPG: Reed-Cooke in 1949: Champlain St. car dealer
49. TRR2D_190906_191.JPG: Reed-Cooke in 1949: Champlain and Kalorama
50. TRR2D_190906_194.JPG: The first tenant board of Jubilee Housing's Mozart building (1630 Fuller St.) meets to discuss cooperative management in 1978.
51. TRR2D_190906_196.JPG: Skaters enjoy the National Arena, 1979.
52. TRR2D_190906_198.JPG: Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts in The Pelican Brief, filmed at Citadel Studio.
53. TRR2D_190906_201.JPG: Demonstration by the Thunderbirds, professional roller derby team, at the arena, 1983.
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