BGuthrie Photos: DC Heritage Trails: River Farms to Urban Towers: Southwest Heritage Trail

DC Heritage Trails: River Farms to Urban Towers: Southwest Heritage Trail:

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[1] TRSW_190528_001.JPG	[2] TRSW_190528_005.JPG	[3] TRSW_190528_009.JPG
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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. TRSW_190528_001.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail From 1800 until 1950, Southwest was Washington's largest working-class, waterfront neighborhood. The beginning in 1954, nearly all of Southwest was razed to create an entirely new city in the nation's first experiment in urban renewal. The 17 signs of River Farms to Urban Towers: Southwest Heritage Trail lead you through the Modernist buildings erected in the 1960s while marking the sites and stories - and the few remaining structures - of the neighborhood that was. Follow this trail to discover the area's first colonial settlers and the waves of immigrants drawn to jobs on the waterfront or in nearby federal government offices. Here Chesapeake Bay watermen sold oysters and fish off their boats. The once-gritty streets were childhood homes to singer Marvin Gaye and movie star Al Jolson. Later residents included Senator Hubert H. Humphrey and other legislators. River Farms to Urban Towers: Southwest Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
2. TRSW_190528_005.JPG: A fish peddler did business with a resident in a Dixon Court backyard.
3. TRSW_190528_009.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 5 Renewal and Loss Directly across Fourth Street from this sign is the Capitol Park complex of high-rise and townhouse residences. Designed by Chloethiel Woodard Smith of Satterlee and Smith, the high-rise (now Potomac Place) opened in 1959 as the first new structure in the redeveloping Southwest. Critics hailed it as a "beautiful building, inside and out" with inspiring views of the Capitol and the Washington Monument. Smith won awards for her creative design (efficiencies had a "folding wall" to create a separate bedroom) and materials. Soon she was the leading choice for designing other new Southwest buildings. Capitol Park replaced Dixon Court, a set of alleys inside the block bordered by Third, Fourth, H, and I streets. For years the press and social reformers presented Dixon Court as a blighted environment that incubated crime and disease. Its 43 tiny houses, lacking plumbing and green spaces, were chronically overcrowded and in need of repairs. Yet when the court was the first to be demolished in 1954, a close-knit community was also destroyed. Neighbors had worked together and watched out for one another. The relocation of 23,500 Southwesters was an enormous job. Many who were financially able left Southwest when urban renewal plans became public. Workers with the Redevelopment Land Agency helped others find affordable housing. In 1960 the Washington Housing Association reported that 46 percent had moved to Southeast, 27 percent to Northeast, and 15 percent to Northwest. Only 12 percent returned to Southwest.
4. TRSW_190528_016.JPG: The Capitol Park complex on Fourth Street as planned by architects Satterlee and Smith.
5. TRSW_190528_023.JPG: Shannon & Luchs advertised Capitol Park's two-bedroom apartments for $220/month in 1959.
6. TRSW_190528_025.JPG: Chloethiel Woodard Smith, designer of Capitol Park and much of Southwest, rests her blueprints on a garden barbecue pit, 1959.
7. TRSW_190528_028.JPG: An alley "in the shadow of the Capitol," Dixon Court, below, was the first demolished for urban renewal in 1954. Rundown alley houses, right, in Clark's Court between L and M streets were razed later.
8. TRSW_190528_032.JPG: The flyer was distributed in 1959.
9. TRSW_190528_035.JPG: A Redevelopment Land Agency relocation worker interviews a Southwest family.
10. TRSW_190528_048.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 4 A Mixing Bowl Al Jolson, star of the first "talking" movie, The Jazz Singer, grew up as Asa Yoelson at 713 4� Street (once near this sign). The Yoelsons arrived from Lithuania in 1880. Asa's father Rabbi Moses Yoelson served as cantor and schochet (ritual butcher) for Talmud Torah Congregation nearby at Fourth and E. Here young Asa soaked up the African American speech and music that contributed to his later stardom. After The Jazz Singer thrilled the world as the first "talking" picture, Jolson moved his family uptown to Adams Morgan. Meanwhile the family of Rabbi Arthur Rosen moved into 713. One block to your right, John T. Rhines ran a successful funeral home serving the African American community from 1906 until his death in 1946. A civic leader, Rhines presided over the Southwest Civic Association. Though childless, Rhines led the nearby Anthony Bowen School PTA and was popularly known as the "Mayor of Southwest." Across Fourth Street was Schneider's Hardware, owned in 1949 by Goldie Schneider. She was one of many Southwesters who fought the planned demolition when Congress passed urban renewal in 1945. Southwesters argued that few of the displaced black residents would be able to afford future rents. Businessmen saw their livelihoods vanishing. So Schneider and fellow store owner Max R. Morris sued all the way to the Supreme Court. IN 1954 they lost when the Court unanimously ruled that the Redevelopment Land Agency could take (and destroy) private buildings and businesses in order to improve an overall neighborhood. Demolition was allowed to proceed.
11. TRSW_190528_052.JPG: A 1910 New Year's greeting from civic leader and funeral home founder, John T. Rhines.
12. TRSW_190528_055.JPG: In 1929 Al Jolson's stepmother poses with a portrait of the world-famous entertainer, known for his hit song, the minstrel-styled "Mammy."
13. TRSW_190528_058.JPG: Al Jolson's father Rabbi Moses Yoelson and Rabbi Arthur Rosen both served nearby Talmud Torah synagogue. In 1959 the synagogue was demolished, below right.
14. TRSW_190528_062.JPG: Al Jolson's father Rabbi Moses Yoelson and Rabbi Arthur Rosen both served nearby Talmud Torah synagogue. In 1959 the synagogue was demolished, below right.
15. TRSW_190528_065.JPG: Harry Chidakel's Seventh Street barber shop, around 1918.
16. TRSW_190528_068.JPG: The losing Supreme Court battle against the destruction of Southwest's commercial area began at Schneider's Hardware, formerly on the block to your right.
17. TRSW_190528_072.JPG: Today's Amidon Elementary School to your left, originally was housed in this building at Sixth and F streets and was named for Margaret Amidon, a local educator. The first Amidon School was leveled for the Southeast-Southwest Freeway.
18. TRSW_190528_078.JPG: Rabbi Arthur Rosen, second from left, provided kosher chickens to Paul Clarke's Jewish customers, around 1938.
19. TRSW_190528_083.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail From 1800 until 1950, Southwest was Washington's largest working-class, waterfront neighborhood. The beginning in 1954, nearly all of Southwest was razed to create an entirely new city in the nation's first experiment in urban renewal. The 17 signs of River Farms to Urban Towers: Southwest Heritage Trail lead you through the Modernist buildings erected in the 1960s while marking the sites and stories - and the few remaining structures - of the neighborhood that was. Follow this trail to discover the area's first colonial settlers and the waves of immigrants drawn to jobs on the waterfront or in nearby federal government offices. Here Chesapeake Bay watermen sold oysters and fish off their boats. The once-gritty streets were childhood homes to singer Marvin Gaye and movie star Al Jolson. Later residents included Senator Hubert H. Humphrey and other legislators. River Farms to Urban Towers: Southwest Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
20. TRSW_190528_087.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 3 The Heyday of Four-and-a-Half Street This quiet street was once Washington's answer to New York's Lower East Side. Fourth Street, known until 1934 as a 4� Street, and nearly Seventh Street were Southwest's shopping centers. Around 1900 this street was the dividing line between a mostly African American community living to the east and mostly Irish, Italian, and Jewish communities to the west. Yet black and white adults came together over life's necessities in the small shops along 4� Street. Grocers, butchers, cobblers, and merchants supplied flour and sugar, fresh meat, clothing, and dry goods. German Jewish immigrants moved in during the Civil War, living above their small businesses. A larger wave of Eastern European Jews began arriving after 1880. This street was the center of Jewish life in Southwest, but it was never exclusive. The Jewell Theater, showing movies to African American audiences, once sat here across from today's Amidon Elementary School. Children played together in alleys and schoolyards, and roamed to the Mall to visit the Smithsonian museums or play on the open fields. Southwest's Jewish community produced a civic leader for the entire city, Attorney Harry S. Wender worked to make DC streets safer and to create playgrounds. In 1934, he helped bring black and white citizens together to persuade the city to tear up the worn-out cobblestones of 4� Street, modernize it, and re-name it Fourth Street to symbolize its shiny new image. The whole neighborhood celebrated its rehabilitation with the first integrated parade in the city's history.
21. TRSW_190528_091.JPG: Isaac Levy, photographed with his family, opened Levy's Busy Corner on 4-1/2 Street in 1888.
22. TRSW_190528_094.JPG: Vegetable huckster and sometime bootlegger James "Catman" Willis, seen on Fourth Street around 1955, was a generous friend to those in need.
23. TRSW_190528_097.JPG: In 1963 ground was yet to be broken for today's Westminster United Presbyterian Church, seen to your right.
24. TRSW_190528_100.JPG: Southwesters visit in front of a barber shop located on Fourth Street in 1949.
25. TRSW_190528_103.JPG: Sidney Hechinger, whose Hechinger hardware business began near the railroad tracks in Southwest, poses in his company's truck, 1919.
26. TRSW_190528_109.JPG: Johnny Marshall's print shop once sat along the 900 block of Fourth Street, across the street and to your left.
27. TRSW_190528_112.JPG: This cartoon summarized Harry Wender's contributions to Southwest and the city when he received an award in 1940.
28. TRSW_190528_120.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail From 1800 until 1950, Southwest was Washington's largest working-class, waterfront neighborhood. The beginning in 1954, nearly all of Southwest was razed to create an entirely new city in the nation's first experiment in urban renewal. The 17 signs of River Farms to Urban Towers: Southwest Heritage Trail lead you through the Modernist buildings erected in the 1960s while marking the sites and stories - and the few remaining structures - of the neighborhood that was. Follow this trail to discover the area's first colonial settlers and the waves of immigrants drawn to jobs on the waterfront or in nearby federal government offices. Here Chesapeake Bay watermen sold oysters and fish off their boats. The once-gritty streets were childhood homes to singer Marvin Gaye and movie star Al Jolson. Later residents included Senator Hubert H. Humphrey and other legislators. River Farms to Urban Towers: Southwest Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
29. TRSW_190528_123.JPG: In 1939 this portion of Fourth Street was the commercial heart of Old Southwest. The Jewell Theater stood across the street and to your left along Fourth Street.
30. TRSW_191121_01.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 7 Equality in Public Education Jefferson Junior High School was built in 1940 after area residents persuaded the city to abandon the original dilapidated building. They hoped the new structure, which included a branch library, would be the beginning of section-wide improvements. In September 1954, Jefferson was the site of a scene repeated across the city. For the first time, African American students took their seats next to white students in Washington's public schools. The Supreme Court had just ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were unconstitutional, so black students from nearby Randall Junior High all came to Jefferson. Washington's school integration was surprisingly peaceful. Former Jefferson student Carl Cole recalled that integration "had no concerns for me. I had played with white children all of my early life here." Washington's system of separate schools had required many buildings, but they didn't always meet the needs. In 1954 Southwest had five overcrowded "colored" elementary schools, four under-enrolled white elementaries, and a junior high for each group. When integration began, the school-age population had already declined because urban renewal had been announced. Planners expected that residents of the new Southwest would be older and/or childless. So seven elementaries were demolished. The new Southwest had just three: William Syphax, Anthony Bowen, and a new Margaret Amidon. By 2003, there were two, with Syphax being adapted for residential use. Because this street ends at the waterfront, in the 1800s Seventh Street became a commercial thoroughfare. Businesses located themselves here and along Seventh into far Northwest Washington. Omnibuses (wagons pulled by horses) carried passengers up and down Seventh until 1862, when Congress chartered a horse-drawn street railway with a line along Seventh to the wharves.
31. TRSW_191121_06.JPG: Schoolmates walk home from Jefferson Junior High School, left, 1966.
32. TRSW_191121_10.JPG: Employees of the Washington and Georgetown Railroad stand beside a cable car that ran on Seventh Street from the wharves to Boundary Street (Florida Avenue), NW, from 1890 to 1897.
33. TRSW_191121_13.JPG: In 1960, right, a shopper passes the Safeway on Seventh Street at D Street.
34. TRSW_191121_17.JPG: Virginia Johnson, below, poses with books she will read in ninth grade at Jefferson Junior High, 1965.
35. TRSW_191121_20.JPG: The first Thomas Jefferson School, built in 1872, sat on Virginia Avenue next to the railroad tracks.
36. TRSW_191121_25.JPG: Randall Junior High School at 65 I Street was the neighborhood's black junior high school -- and community center -- during segregation. It was named for Eliza Randall, who came from Vermont during the Civil War to educate formerly enslaved children.
37. TRSW_191121_29.JPG: This detail from a 1948 National Geographic map shows schools and other public buildings in Southwest.
38. TRSW_191121_43.JPG: Students at one of Southwest's elementary schools for white children perform posture exercises around 1899.
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