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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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. TRSW_200419_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_200419_009.JPG: In December 1958 much of Old Southwest's tree-lined, low-scale neighborhood remained as Capitol Park, designed by Chloethiel Woodard Smith, was rising from its center. This sign would have been located at the arrow. Photograph by Del Ankers
3. TRSW_200419_015.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 2 New Town in the City All that surrounds this sign resulted from the nation's first urban renewal project. To your left is Arena Stage, a leader in the resident company theater movement. Founded as an innovative theater-in-the-round in an old downtown movie theater in 1950, Arena Stage moved to this Harry Weese-designed building in 1961. Just beyond Arena Stage is the Modernist high-rise residential complex of Waterside Towers, designed by Chloethiel Woodard Smith. Behind you across M Street stands Tiber Island, a prize-winning development by Keyes, Lethbridge & Condon. These designs explain Southwest's reputation as a showcase of 20th-century architecture and planning. St. Augustine Episcopal Church, completed in 1965, was one of seven built after renewal demolished 28 of Old Southwest's 34 houses of worship. In the 1930s congressional and city officials nationwide were struggling with the problem of aged, deteriorating cities. Could they be fixed and beautified or should they be torn down and built anew? Would better buildings improve the lives of residents if their communities were lost? Could governments re-make cities or did they need help from private developers? And would the displaced ever be able to come home again? Southwest offered Congress a test lab. Most Southwesters were low-income people who valued their neighborhood but had no political clout. Nearly half of Southwest's housing lacked plumbing, and disease rates were high. Criminal activity included gambling and prostitution. Beginning in 1954, despite thousands of protests, the Redevelopment Land Agency moved 23,500 people and began razing almost everything so that private developers could build a "new town in the city."
4. TRSW_200419_019.JPG: By 1962 the Town Center Plaza apartments, left, (now Marina View Towers) and Arena Stage occupied this site.
5. TRSW_200419_021.JPG: In 1951 this block of Sixth Street, below, consisted of brick rowhouses built around 1900 and a typical corner grocery.
6. TRSW_200419_025.JPG: Church of God at 569 Maine Avenue, left, and Gorsuch Baptist Church at Fourth and L streets, below, were among dozens torn down during urban renewal.
7. TRSW_200419_031.JPG: Arena Stage's first production in its new theater, The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht, 1961.
8. TRSW_200419_034.JPG: Southeastern University, specializing in business courses for adult students, became a cornerstone of the new Southwest when it moved here and opened its doors in 1972.
9. TRSW_200419_038.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 18 Rooms With a View: An Idealistic Vision More than 50 years after it opened in 1964, Tiber Island stands as a tribute to the idealism that marked the new Southwest. Planners hoped the neighborhood's mid-20th-century modern architecture, mix of high- and low-rise structures, balance of intimacy and communal areas, lush landscaping, and magnificent views would draw middle-class families back to the city. For Tiber Island, the DC Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) tried something different: a design competition. The local firm Keyes, Lethbridge & Condon's winning entry featured structurally expressive modern architecture: a pre-stressed-concrete "frame" with brick infill. Each apartment building appears to float over the all-glass lobby separating the exterior public space from the private central courtyard. Rowhouses stand at each corner of the property. RLA's policy for the new Southwest was racial inclusivity. Thus protest arose at the news that one of the members of the original Tiber Island development team had a long history of discrimination against minorities. The firm consequently withdrew from the project. Given the Southwest urban renewal project's national visibility, the incident received significant attention. In November 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order prohibiting discrimination in federally supported housing -- such as here in the Southwest Urban Renewal Area. Tiber Island's four highrise co-ops started as rental building, but the rowhouses were marketed as condominiums, an ownership concept until then unknown in DC. Considered one of the finest examples of mid-century modern architecture in the city, Tiber Island was added to the National Register of Historic Landmarks in 2012.
10. TRSW_200419_069.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.
11. TRSW_200419_073.JPG: Tiber Island and its surroundings as they looked in 1965. M Street, being widened at the time, runs vertically (east-west), and Maine Avenue angles across the bottom of the picture.
12. TRSW_200419_083.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 13 Military Education at Fort McNair Fort Leslie J. McNair, to your right, honors the commander, Army Ground Forces during World War II who died in battle. It is the U.S. Army's third oldest installation (after West Point and Carlisle Barracks). The fort dates back to 1791. Washington City planner Pierre L'Enfant selected this site, where the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers meet, as ideal for a military installation. At first it was known as the Arsenal at Greenleaf's Point, where the Army stored and distributed weapons. During the War of 1812, according to a contemporary newspaper report, a dozen British redcoats were killed when they accidentally set off gunpowder hidden down a dry well by a retreating American commander. In 1826 a U.S. penitentiary was added. In 1865, four of eight prisoners charged with conspiracy in President Lincoln's assassination were hanged in its courtyard. After the Civil War, the fort's importance in the capital's defenses declined. In 1881, the arsenal was closed and the fort stored Army uniforms and supplies. From 1893 until his death in 1902, yellow fever pioneer researcher, Dr. Walter Reed studied infectious diseases here in a small post hospital. In 1904 the Army War College was founded, opening the era of higher education for senior military personnel. In 2004 the eight divisions of the National Defense University include the National War College which opened in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Fort McNair also is home to the Inter-American Defense College, established at the height of the Cold War to safeguard the Western Hemisphere.
13. TRSW_200419_085.JPG: Cannon and rolling equipment of several batteries of the Excelsior Brigade of New York assembled inside the Arsenal Grounds, 1862.
14. TRSW_200419_090.JPG: Dr. Walter Reed was a professor and researcher at the Army Medical School here.
15. TRSW_200419_095.JPG: During the Civil War, 21 women who made rifle cartridges lost their lives during an accidental explosion at the Arsenal. The event is memorialize in the Arsenal Monument at Congressional Cemetery on Capitol Hill.
16. TRSW_200419_096.JPG: On July 7, 1865, a crowd gathers in front of the gallows where four Lincoln assassination conspirators would soon be executed.
17. TRSW_200419_099.JPG: Officers housing known as General's Row lines the Ft. McNair parade ground as seen here around 1941.
18. TRSW_200419_102.JPG: The Neoclassical style Theodore Roosevelt Hall, designed by McKim, Mead, and White, is home to the National War College.
19. TRSW_200419_105.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_200419_109.JPG: Two Civil War guns guard the waterfront where the Anacostia meets the Potomac at Washington Arsenal, now Fort McNair, 1862.
21. TRSW_200419_118.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 15 Linking the "Island" to the City A massive, Romanesque style Metropolitan Street Railway car barn once commanded the corner behind you across O Street, with repair shops across Fourth Street. They dated from the 1880s, and were part of Washington's first street railway system. Streetcars were a lifeline for this neighborhood, long known as "the island" because it was cut off from the rest of Washington by creeks, a canal, the Mall, and eventually railroads and freeways. "We had our own community here," recalled Southwester Clarence "Chick" Jackson, "but we could also go anywhere off the island on the streetcar. It was our ... connection to the city." In the early 1800s, Washingtonians walked or rode in carriages and wagons or astride horses. Later they traveled in horse-drawn wagons known as public omnibuses. By the Civil War, however, the city was booming, overwhelmed with soldiers, civilians, and supplies that needed to be moved around. In 1862 Congress chartered the first street railway - rail cars pulled by horses on steel tracks. Given the strategic importance of Southwest's wharves, one of the first three lines ran from Boundary Street (now Florida Avenue,NW) to Seventh Street, then back. The electric trolleys of the late 1880s came next, but they were replaced with buses in 1962. That year most car barns became unnecessary. O. Roy Chalk, who owned D.C. Transit (which became Metrobus in 1973), tore down his car barns to build the apartment houses Riverside Condominium and Channel Square.
22. TRSW_200419_124.JPG: On a quiet Sunday in 1951, tidy townhouses stretched ahead of you on a tree-lined Fourth Street.
23. TRSW_200419_127.JPG: Cars of the Metropolitan Street Railway spent the night at this Romanesque style car barn that once stood behind your right.
24. TRSW_200419_130.JPG: When this photo was taken on Maryland Avenue in 1890, horse-drawn streetcars were rapidly disappearing.
25. TRSW_200419_133.JPG: The Downtowner minibus cars ran from F Street, NW to Southwest's Waterside Mall, 1976.
26. TRSW_200419_135.JPG: The Chalk House apartments (now Riverside Condominium) are near completion in the foreground of this 1965 view.
27. TRSW_200419_139.JPG: D.C. Transit streetcars parked next to the car barn, 1961.
28. TRSW_200419_142.JPG: This 1880 map shows the city's horse-drawn street railways, including the line that ran through Southwest on Seventh and Fourth Streets passing this spot.
29. TRSW_200419_149.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.
30. TRSW_200419_152.JPG: Metropolitan Railroad electric streetcar at the car barn, 1895.
31. TRSW_200419_158.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 17 Blending Old and New When urban renewal threatened to destroy three of Washington's oldest structures, dating from the late 1700's, history-minded citizens organized to stop the bulldozers. As a result, when architect Chloethiel Woodard Smith designed the mid-20th century Harbour Square, she included Wheat Row, Duncanson-Cranch House, and Edward Simon Lewis House, as you can see to your left. The elegant 1794-1795 set of four Federal style houses behind you across Fourth Street is Wheat Row, created by James Greenleaf, Washington's first real estate speculator. Greenleaf and his partners hoped to get rich building housing for the new city. Instead Greanleaf went bankrupt, but left behind a few well-made houses. These were named for John Wheat, an early owner who worked as a Senate messenger. Across Fourth to your left at 456 N Street is Lewis House, built in 1817 for a Navy Department clerk. A few houses down at 468-470 is Duncanson-Cranch House, built around 1794. In 1901 Charles Weller opened Neighborhood House in Lewis House as Washington's first social settlement. There, in keeping with Washington's segregation, he provided education and recreation for poor white children and adults, including the city's first organized playground. Its first branch library was open to all, however. In 1904 Washington artist and socialite Alice Pike Barney bought Duncanson-Cranch House so that Neighborhood House could move into the larger space. The institution was re-named Barney Neighborhood House. It continued to grow, desegregating in the 1940s and also occupying three of Wheat Row's four houses before relocating to 16th Street, NW in 1960. Weller also helped begin the "Colored Social Center" in 1903 at 118 M Street, forerunner of today's Southwest Community House.
32. TRSW_200419_164.JPG: The Lewis House, far left, at 456 N Street, was Barney Neighborhood House's first home, until moved to Duncanson-Cranch House at 468-470, left. After urban renewal, both houses became part of Harbour Square along with Wheat Row, 1315-1321 Fourth Street, above.
33. TRSW_200419_167.JPG: The Lewis House, far left, at 456 N Street, was Barney Neighborhood House's first home, until moved to Duncanson-Cranch House at 468-470, left. After urban renewal, both houses became part of Harbour Square along with Wheat Row, 1315-1321 Fourth Street, above.
34. TRSW_200419_170.JPG: The Lewis House, far left, at 456 N Street, was Barney Neighborhood House's first home, until moved to Duncanson-Cranch House at 468-470, left. After urban renewal, both houses became part of Harbour Square along with Wheat Row, 1315-1321 Fourth Street, above.
35. TRSW_200419_173.JPG: Artist Garnet Jex photographed the Duncanson-Cranch House in 1963 as construction was underway for Harbour Square cooperatives.
36. TRSW_200419_176.JPG: Barney Neighborhood House brochure of 1908, above.
37. TRSW_200419_180.JPG: Adult classes included vegetable carving, 1942.
38. TRSW_200419_183.JPG: Beloved World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle, center, once lived in a Lewis House apartment.
39. TRSW_200419_185.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.
40. TRSW_200419_192.JPG: Neighbors line Forth Street for a May Day celebration mounted by Barney Neighborhood House, around 1940. At left is the Marine Band. At center is the "May Day Procession of Clubs" led by Boy Scouts with the May Day Queen and attendants close behind.
41. TRSW_200419_195.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 1 Change on the Waterfront You are standing in the heart of one of Washington, DC's oldest -- and newest -- neighborhoods. For 150 years Southwest Washington was a working waterfront community. Then urban renewal changed the landscape forever. Today Southwest is a monument to 1950s and 1960s architecture and city planning. The city's first military post (now Fort Lesley J. McNair) was established here in 1791 on Greenleaf's Point, where the Anacostia and Potomac rivers meet. In 1978 a ferry began running to Virginia from the point. Wharves received building materials and food for the new city, while shipyards thrived. The port was particularly busy during the Civil War. By 1900 this bustling neighborhood was fully built, home to a densely populated working-class community of 35,000. They were modest people of all backgrounds: European immigrants, urban African Americans, and migrants from nearby rural areas. Southwest was called "the island" because the Tiber and James creeks separated it from the rest of the city. Later a canal and railroad tracks reinforced the nickname. Homey and self-sufficient, Southwest aged in place. Its modest brick and wooden rowhouses, interspersed with some elegant dwellings and many alley homes, became run down. By the 1930s reformers called it obsolete, located "shamefully... in the shadow of the Capitol." Consequently nearly all of Old Southwest -- 560 acres of buildings -- disappeared between 1954 and 1960 for a new neighborhood free of what was then called urban blight. Southwest became an admired "new town in the city." But the forced dispersal of 23,500 people continues to raise important questions about the benefits of urban renewal.
42. TRSW_200419_231.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.
43. TRSW_200419_237.JPG: Foreground, a very built-up Southwest, 1880.
44. TRSW_200531_001.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 6 St. Dominic Church: Community Anchor Behind you stands St. Dominic Church, established 1852. It anchors the city's only Dominican parish and is its sixth oldest Catholic church. St. Dominic's survived two upheavals -- a fire in 1885 and the threat of urban renewal in the 1950s (thanks to friends in Congress -- to prevail as a spiritual and community center. Throughout the 1800s it ministered to farmers, slaves, free blacks, and Irish, German, and Italian immigrants as well as native-born government workers and members of Congress. Since urban renewal, it has served its newest neighbors. This Gothic style structure was dedicated in 1875. The famous and the humble have sought spiritual comfort at St. Dominic's, from newly freed slaves during the Civil War to former Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, Actress Helen Hayes, born and raised in Southwest, sang in the church choir. And Washington Senators star pitcher Walter Johnson headlined the church's annual parade in 1937. Neighbors of all faiths have appreciated St. Dominic's. "The whole neighborhood would go to the carnival with its bright lights," recalled Larry Rosen who grew up on 4-1/2 Street. The priests and nuns of St. Dominic's school taught hundreds of area children from 1852 until 1957, when the rectory, convent, and school were all demolished for the Southeast-Southwest Freeway. The 600 block of Seventh Street was designated for a new school, but because the new Southwest had fewer children, the parish asked to use the site for low-income housing. After years of litigation, developers instead completed Capital Square townhouses, sold at market rates in 2001.
45. TRSW_200531_029.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.
46. TRSW_200531_038.JPG: Members of the Holy Name Society, St. Dominic's men's and boys organization, 1922.
47. TRSW_200531_043.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.
48. TRSW_200531_080.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.
49. TRSW_200531_083.JPG: Students at one of Southwest's elementary schools for white children perform posture exercises, around 1899.
50. TRSW_200531_088.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.
51. TRSW_200531_125.JPG: A fish peddler did business with a resident in a Dixon Court backyard.
52. TRSW_200531_139.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.
53. TRSW_200531_144.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.
54. TRSW_200531_173.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.
55. TRSW_200531_178.JPG: Rabbi Arthur Rosen, second from left, provided kosher chickens to Paul Clarke's Jewish customers, around 1938.
56. TRSW_200531_187.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.
57. TRSW_200531_194.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.
58. TRSW_200531_200.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.
59. TRSW_200531_234.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.
60. TRSW_200531_243.JPG: In December 1958 much of Old Southwest's tree-lined, low-scale neighborhood remained as Capitol Park, designed by Chloethiel Woodard Smith, was rising from its center. This sign would have been located at the arrow.
61. TRSW_200531_258.JPG: River Farms to Urban Towers Southwest Heritage Trail 2 New Town in the City All that surrounds this sign resulted from the nation's first urban renewal project. To your left is Arena Stage, a leader in the resident company theater movement. Founded as an innovative theater-in-the-round in an old downtown movie theater in 1950, Arena Stage moved to this Harry Weese-designed building in 1961. Just beyond Arena Stage is the Modernist high-rise residential complex of Waterside Towers, designed by Chloethiel Woodard Smith. Behind you across M Street stands Tiber Island, a prize-winning development by Keyes, Lethbridge & Condon. These designs explain Southwest's reputation as a showcase of 20th-century architecture and planning. St. Augustine Episcopal Church, completed in 1965, was one of seven built after renewal demolished 28 of Old Southwest's 34 houses of worship. In the 1930s congressional and city officials nationwide were struggling with the problem of aged, deteriorating cities. Could they be fixed and beautified or should they be torn down and built anew? Would better buildings improve the lives of residents if their communities were lost? Could governments re-make cities or did they need help from private developers? And would the displaced ever be able to come home again? Southwest offered Congress a test lab. Most Southwesters were low-income people who valued their neighborhood but had no political clout. Nearly half of Southwest's housing lacked plumbing, and disease rates were high. Criminal activity included gambling and prostitution. Beginning in 1954, despite thousands of protests, the Redevelopment Land Agency moved 23,500 people and began razing almost everything so that private developers could build a "new town in the city."
62. TRSW_200531_264.JPG: In 1951 this block of Sixth Street, below, consisted of brick rowhouses built around 1900 and a typical corner grocery. By 1962 the Town Center Plaza apartments, left, (now Marina View Towers) and Arena Stage occupied this site.
63. TRSW_200531_274.JPG: Church of God at 569 Maine Avenue, left, and Gorsuch Baptist Church at Fourth and L streets, below, were among dozens torn down during urban renewal.
64. TRSW_200531_281.JPG: Arena Stage's first production in its new theater, The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht, 1961.
65. TRSW_200531_287.JPG: Southeastern University, specializing in business courses for adult students, became a cornerstone of the new Southwest when it moved here and opened its doors in 1972.
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