BGuthrie Photos: DC Heritage Trails: Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail

DC Heritage Trails: Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw 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. TRSHAW_200417_01.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail This neighborhood has always been "a place between places," where races and classes bumped and mingled as they got a foothold on the city. It has attracted the powerful seeking city conveniences as well as immigrants and migrants just starting out. By 1900 the Shaw neighborhood lay just north of the downtown federal offices and white businesses, and south of the African-American-dominated U Street commercial corridor and Howard University. Longstanding local businesses took root here, and leaders flourished: Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, John Wesley Powell, B. F. Saul, and A. Philip Randolph. The nation's finest "colored" schools were here too. By the 1930s the area was known as Midcity or Shaw (for Shaw Junior High School). Over time the shops of Seventh and Ninth streets became a bargain-rate alternative to downtown's fancy department stores. There were juke joints, Irish saloons, storefront evangelists, delicatessens, and dozens of schools and houses of worship. As the city expanded, Shaw's older housing became more affordable but crowded. In 1966 planners worked with local church leaders to create the Shaw School Urban Renewal District and improve conditions. Then in 1968, destructive riots followed the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Years later the community has succeeded in creating the mix of new and old that you'll experience along Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail. Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing highlights of the 17 trail markers, is available in English and Spanish at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
2. TRSHAW_200417_05.JPG: Church of Jesus Christ Sunday School
3. TRSHAW_200417_08.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail 14 History in a House If a house could talk, what tales would it tell? The private residence at 415 M Street, to your left, would tell of hundreds of Shaw residents who came here to play and worship. The house at 415 was built in the 1860s for Joseph Prather, a butcher at nearby Northern Liberty Market. After Prather, the house became the first DC home of the Young Men's Hebrew Association (1913-1914), serving the recreational an spiritual needs of young local Jews. The YMCA evolved into today's Jewish Community Centers (DC; Fairfax, Virginia; and Rockville, Maryland). Next came the Hebrew Home for the Aged (1914-1923), which now operates in Rockville. From the 1920s until the 1940s, Shomrai Shabbos, an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, opccupied 415. In 1947 the Church of Jesus Christ moved in, remaining until 1980. This church was established by Mother Lena Sears after nearby Bible Way Church refused to let her preach, because she was a woman. Next came the Metropolitan Community Church, a Christian church with a special ministry to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered community. It is now located one block north of here on Ridge Street. A quick detour to Ridge Street will show you a number of rare small frame houses from as long ago as the 1860s. (Shaw housing generally is brick.) At number 448 Ridge Street, the Northwest Settlement House has provided social and day care services since 1934. The Tuesday Evening Club of Social Workers, a group of African American Women, founded the social center "to extend a helping hand to friendless girls, deserted women and neglected children.
4. TRSHAW_200417_14.JPG: The Hebrew Home for the Aged at 415 M Street.
5. TRSHAW_200417_17.JPG: Athletes of the Young Men's Hebrew Association, 1913.
6. TRSHAW_200417_20.JPG: Detail from the restored Shomrei Shabbos mural.
7. TRSHAW_200417_23.JPG: If you had lived here in the 1950s,you might have seen musicians Pearl Bailey and Louie Bellson drive by en route to visit her father's home on Fourth Street.
8. TRSHAW_200417_27.JPG: Opening day, Metropolitan Community Church, 1984.
9. TRSHAW_200417_29.JPG: Children gathered at Northwest Settlement House in the early 1950s to enjoy a new pastime: television.
10. TRSHAW_200417_39.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail This neighborhood has always been "a place between places," where races and classes bumped and mingled as they got a foothold on the city. It has attracted the powerful seeking city conveniences as well as immigrants and migrants just starting out. By 1900 the Shaw neighborhood lay just north of the downtown federal offices and white businesses, and south of the African-American-dominated U Street commercial corridor and Howard University. Longstanding local businesses took root here, and leaders flourished: Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, John Wesley Powell, B. F. Saul, and A. Philip Randolph. The nation's finest "colored" schools were here too. By the 1930s the area was known as Midcity or Shaw (for Shaw Junior High School). Over time the shops of Seventh and Ninth streets became a bargain-rate alternative to downtown's fancy department stores. There were juke joints, Irish saloons, storefront evangelists, delicatessens, and dozens of schools and houses of worship. As the city expanded, Shaw's older housing became more affordable but crowded. In 1966 planners worked with local church leaders to create the Shaw School Urban Renewal District and improve conditions. Then in 1968, destructive riots followed the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Years later the community has succeeded in creating the mix of new and old that you'll experience along Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail. Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing highlights of the 17 trail markers, is available in English and Spanish at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
11. TRSHAW_200417_42.JPG: In 1983 the Convention Center site was a mix of cleared land and parking lots.
12. TRSHAW_200417_46.JPG: The other side of the sign is missing, presumably being updated.
13. TRSHAW_200509_001.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail 1 Words and Deeds Wealthy industrialist Andrew Carnegie donated funds to build the Beaux Arts-style building you see across the street to your left, the city's first public library. The Central Library opened in 1903 with 12,412 books by its predecessor, the private Washington City Free Library. The public library welcomed all races at a time when the city was generally segregated. It occupied an unofficial border between businesses that primarily served Whites to the south, and those that largely catered to African Americans to the north. The library became a resource beloved by all where speakers such as civil rights activist and lecturer Mary Church Terrell gave public lectures. Edith Morganstein who grew up nearby in the early 1920s called "the beautiful building with magnolia trees all around" her "second home." The library's square was part of Pierre L'Enfant's 1791 plan for Washington, and it was unused until Northern Liberty Market opened there in 1846. The market became notorious in 1857 when a citywide election erupted in violence. Members of the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant "Know-Nothing" party trained a cannon on opponents arriving that day to vote at the market's polling station. Mayor William Magruder appealed for help to President James Buchanan. Soon 110 Marines arrived. When the Know-Nothings refused to disperse, the Marines fired. Six were killed and 21 were injured. In 1872 the deteriorating market was ordered demolished by Territorial Governor Alexander "Boss" Shepherd. Defying proper procedures and without notice, Shepherd had the building razed at night, accidentally killing several inside. When parts of the city went up in flames the day that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in1968, this neighborhood was badly damaged. Order was restored when U.S. Army troops and National Guardsmen were brought in to end the burning and looting.
14. TRSHAW_200509_005.JPG: Marine General Henderson confronts rioters at Northern Liberty Market in 1857. "Boss" Shepherd above later tore down the Northern Liberty Market.
15. TRSHAW_200509_008.JPG: Alexander R. "Boss" Shepard.
16. TRSHAW_200509_011.JPG: Checking out books, Central Library around 1935.
17. TRSHAW_200509_014.JPG: Millionaire Andrew Carnegie donated money to build four public library buildings in Washington.
18. TRSHAW_200509_016.JPG: In 1968, after rioters burned much of Seventh St., U.S. Army troops protected this intersection. The Convention Center now occupies the burned out block at center.
19. TRSHAW_200509_021.JPG: Modest shops and apartments occupied this corner in 1965.
20. TRSHAW_200509_032.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail This neighborhood has always been "a place between places," where races and classes bumped and mingled as they got a foothold on the city. It has attracted the powerful seeking city conveniences as well as immigrants and migrants just starting out. By 1900 the Shaw neighborhood lay just north of the downtown federal offices and white businesses, and south of the African-American-dominated U Street commercial corridor and Howard University. Longstanding local businesses took root here, and leaders flourished: Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, John Wesley Powell, B. F. Saul, and A. Philip Randolph. The nation's finest "colored" schools were here too. By the 1930s the area was known as Midcity or Shaw (for Shaw Junior High School). Over time the shops of Seventh and Ninth streets became a bargain-rate alternative to downtown's fancy department stores. There were juke joints, Irish saloons, storefront evangelists, delicatessens, and dozens of schools and houses of worship. As the city expanded, Shaw's older housing became more affordable but crowded. In 1966 planners worked with local church leaders to create the Shaw School Urban Renewal District and improve conditions. Then in 1968, destructive riots followed the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Years later the community has succeeded in creating the mix of new and old that you'll experience along Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail. Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing highlights of the 17 trail markers, is available in English and Spanish at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
21. TRSHAW_200509_035.JPG: Seventh Street, 1950, where record shops offered listening booths, and the latest hits boomed onto the sidewalk.
22. TRSHAW_200509_038.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail This neighborhood has always been "a place between places," where races and classes bumped and mingled as they got a foothold on the city. It has attracted the powerful seeking city conveniences as well as immigrants and migrants just starting out. By 1900 the Shaw neighborhood lay just north of the downtown federal offices and white businesses, and south of the African-American-dominated U Street commercial corridor and Howard University. Longstanding local businesses took root here, and leaders flourished: Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, John Wesley Powell, B. F. Saul, and A. Philip Randolph. The nation's finest "colored" schools were here too. By the 1930s the area was known as Midcity or Shaw (for Shaw Junior High School). Over time the shops of Seventh and Ninth streets became a bargain-rate alternative to downtown's fancy department stores. There were juke joints, Irish saloons, storefront evangelists, delicatessens, and dozens of schools and houses of worship. As the city expanded, Shaw's older housing became more affordable but crowded. In 1966 planners worked with local church leaders to create the Shaw School Urban Renewal District and improve conditions. Then in 1968, destructive riots followed the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Years later the community has succeeded in creating the mix of new and old that you'll experience along Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail. Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing highlights of the 17 trail markers, is available in English and Spanish at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
23. TRSHAW_200509_042.JPG: M. Frank Ruppert, son of the founder of Rupert's Hardware Store, poses in the doorway around 1920. The name of the gentleman at left is not currently known.
24. TRSHAW_200509_047.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail 17 The Place to Shop When Northern Liberty Market opened on Mount Vernon Square in 1846, small businesses soon followed. By 1900 they catered to everyday needs and formed a bargain district in comparison to downtown's fancy department stores. Many stored were owned by immigrant families who lived upstairs. It was not unusual to find side-by-side an Irish funeral home, a Chinese restaurant, a German hardware store, a Jewish delicatessen, and an Irish saloon. In the 1920s, Henrietta Zaltrow's father ran a small grocery next to a Chinese laundry. "My father used to borrow money from them all the time," she recalled. Shopkeepers frequently extended credit and more to their clientele. The commercial section here and closer to F Street attracted so many Jewish business people that by 1900 three synagogues -- Washington Hebrew, Adas Israel, and Ohev Sholom -- were located just south of Mount Vernon Square. German immigrants Henry and Charlotte Boegeholz opened their saloon and restaurant at 1139 Seventh (on the next block to your right) around 1874. By 1900 Census figures counted five adults, six children, and a servant, all living in the two upper floors. In 1911 KC Braun retired as head butler of the German Embassy and bought the business. The descendants of hardware store founder Henry Ruppert have operated businesses continuously on this block of Seventh Street since 1885. The hardware store closed in 1987, a casualty of Metro construction and changes in hardware retailing. Most of these blocks were devastated in the riots of 1968. They remained a sad reminder for nearly a decade until nearby churches collaborated with the federal government to build the apartments you see today.
25. TRSHAW_200509_076.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail Roots of Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral In 1904 members of Washington, DC's "Greek Colony" -- mostly recently arrived immigrant men -- held the city's first Greek Orthodox church service above a warehouse on Indiana Avenue near Seventh Street, NW. In the years that followed, they held religious services in various rented locations including the former Adas Israel synagogue, then at Sixth and G Streets, NW. Yearning for a home of their own, the congregation purchased land in 1913 at what was a northeast corner of Eighth and L Streets, approximately where the door to the Convention Center is on the block to your left. Seven years later, with a congregation of 500, Bishop (later Archbishop) Alexander Rodostolou laid the cornerstone for Saint Sophia, the first Greek Orthodox church built in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area. The basement was completed first, and services were held there staring in 1921. Three years later the entire edifice, with its Byzantine style interior, was dedicated. During World War II, hundreds of sons of Saint Sophia served in the U.S. armed forces, and 14 paid the supreme sacrifice. Thousands of servicemen and women of the period enjoyed Saint Sophia's hospitality in USO-type programs provided by the parish. The Saint Sophia parish remained on Eight Street for 34 years, with Father (later Bishop) Aimilianos Laloussis serving as pastor for most of that time. By 1955 the congregation had outgrown its building, so the church was sold to Rehobeth Baptist Congregation, and the parish moved to its current home on upper Massachusetts Avenue NW. The original immigrant congregation had changed considerably by the time of the move, when the majority were American families of Greek descent.
26. TRSHAW_200509_103.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail Remembering "the Village" Two churches on Eighth Street, the Greek Orthodox Saint Sophia's and the Syrian-Greek Orthodox St. George's once anchored a thriving community here known fondly as "the Village." Homes and businesses of European-immigrant and native-born white and African American families surrounded the churches. Seventh and Ninth Streets supplied life's necessities and small luxuries, from groceries to billiards. Although the Walter E. Washington Convention Center covered three blocks of Eight Street, the Village was torn down piecemeal long before the center opened in 2003. When Vasiliki (Billie) Stathes Wills was a young girl in 1932, her Village neighbors included a policeman, tailors, carpenters, cooks, chauffeurs, laborers, and entrepreneurs. Billie's Greek immigrant father James Stathes owned the Busy Bee Restaurant at Ninth and G. Palestinian immigrant John George owned a restaurant at Seventh and P. Russian-Jewish immigrant William Cafritz ran the District Grocery Store at Ninth and L. Across the street at 811 L, the Italian American physician Fred Repetti tended to neighborhood families at his home/office. And the Knights of Pythias hosted community activities in their elegant hall on Ninth. For Billie and her pals, fun meant daily visits to the Carnegie Library for playing on its grounds. And, without family automobiles of their own, they found the four gasoline stations at Eighth and M fascinating. "We would go to the corner every day to look at the marvelous cars that stopped for gas," she recalled. By the mid-1950s most of those who could afford to had moved out of downtown, and the two orthodox churches followed.
27. TRSHAW_200509_149.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail This neighborhood has always been "a place between places," where races and classes bumped and mingled as they got a foothold on the city. It has attracted the powerful seeking city conveniences as well as immigrants and migrants just starting out. By 1900 the Shaw neighborhood lay just north of the downtown federal offices and white businesses, and south of the African-American-dominated U Street commercial corridor and Howard University. Longstanding local businesses took root here, and leaders flourished: Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, John Wesley Powell, B. F. Saul, and A. Philip Randolph. The nation's finest "colored" schools were here too. By the 1930s the area was known as Midcity or Shaw (for Shaw Junior High School). Over time the shops of Seventh and Ninth streets became a bargain-rate alternative to downtown's fancy department stores. There were juke joints, Irish saloons, storefront evangelists, delicatessens, and dozens of schools and houses of worship. As the city expanded, Shaw's older housing became more affordable but crowded. In 1966 planners worked with local church leaders to create the Shaw School Urban Renewal District and improve conditions. Then in 1968, destructive riots followed the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Years later the community has succeeded in creating the mix of new and old that you'll experience along Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail. Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing highlights of the 17 trail markers, is available in English and Spanish at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
28. TRSHAW_200509_152.JPG: The Brightwood Railway, one of Seventh Street's many trolley lines, ca 1890.
29. TRSHAW_200509_155.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail 11 Seventh Street Develops In 1864 St. Patrick's parish opened an Immaculate Conception Church for Catholics living far from its downtown F Street home. This imposing Gothic style building was completed a decade later. Renowned actress Helen Hayes was baptized here in 1900. Immaculate Conception's community work included its Washington Catholic Hour radio show on WOL (1921-1962). For 99 years, until 1964, the church operated Immaculate Conception School for boys at 711 N Street. It is now an elementary school. Girls attended Immaculate Conception Academy nearby at Eighth and Q streets until 1954. After much of this area was destroyed in the 1968 riots, Monsignor Joshua Mundell worked to stabilize the neighborhood, encouraging church and federal government collaborations to build modern apartments. The Seventh Street Savings Bank building is a remnant of the block's business era. The combination bank/residential building opened in 1912. After many mergers, it closed for good in 1983. Seventh Street developed as a business street because of good transportation. Back in 1810, Congress chartered the Seventh Street Turnpike from Pennsylvania Avenue to Rockville, Maryland. At first omnibuses (horse-drawn wagons) carried passengers along Seventh. Then in 1862 Congress chartered street railways, with a Seventh Street line. Leading abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner made sure that the charter prohibited segregation on the streetcars. The first electric streetcars (1888) ran along New York Avenue to Seventh, but in 1962 were replaced by buses. The latest innovation, Metro's Green and Yellow subway lines, opened in 1991 after seven years of construction
30. TRSHAW_200509_159.JPG: A Church of the Immaculate Conception alter boy, 1937.
31. TRSHAW_200509_161.JPG: Shooting hoops across N St. from church, 1972.
32. TRSHAW_200509_164.JPG: Renowned actress Helen Hayes was baptized in 1900 at Immaculate Conception Church where her parents married.
33. TRSHAW_200509_169.JPG: This machine, photographed below Seventh and L sts., bored subway tunnels.
34. TRSHAW_200509_175.JPG: Wooden decking here covered the excavation here for Metro's Green and Yellow Lines, 1985.
35. TRSHAW_200509_178.JPG: National Bank of Washington was the last bank to occupy the Seventh Street Bank building.
36. TRSHAW_200509_187.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail 10 Community Anchors Across the intersection stands the tower of O Street Market. When the market opened in 1881, and refrigerators had not been invented, people shopped here daily for everything from live chickens to fresh tomatoes. At first the vendors were German immigrants, but by the 1960s, most were African American. Damaged in the riots of 1968, the market was restored in 1980 but lost its roof in a 2003 snow storm. On this side of the street, landscaper John Saul began planting fruit trees in 1852. His son, B. Francis Saul, later opened a real estate that became the B.F. Saul Company and Chevy Chase Bank. During the Civil War, the Union Army camped here at Wisewell Barracks and Hospital. Rowhouses facing Sixth Street eventually replaced the camp, along with the Henry, Polk, and Central High schools for White students. Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, class of 1913, is Central's best-known graduate. Central High School moved in 1926 to a grand new facility astride the 13th Street hill (now Cardozo High School). In the 1950s, this entire block was leveled for a playground. Completed in 1964, the playground was dedicated to the memory of President John F. Kennedy. Kids eager for play space clambered on its 1888 steam locomotive, a tugboat, and two surplus Air Force jets. But in the following decades, the playground's equipment was removed, and the facility became crime-ridden. Friends of Kennedy Playground led clean-up efforts in the 1990s, and a new recreation center opened her in August 2003.
37. TRSHAW_200509_193.JPG: In the refurbished market of 1980, shoppers found fruit, fresh fish, and more.
38. TRSHAW_200509_196.JPG: John Saul grew fruit trees here.
39. TRSHAW_200509_197.JPG: The girls of Washington [later Central] High School class of 1886. (Historical Society of Washington, D.C.) By 1908 three schools, left occupied this block.
40. TRSHAW_200509_199.JPG: J. Edgar Hoover, Central High School's most famous graduate (1913), and the debate team.
41. TRSHAW_200509_205.JPG: A young boy sat atop a surplus fire boat during a Kennedy Playground carnival, August, 1968.
42. TRSHAW_200509_211.JPG: The backside of the marker had been removed.
43. TRSHAW_200509_215.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail This neighborhood has always been "a place between places," where races and classes bumped and mingled as they got a foothold on the city. It has attracted the powerful seeking city conveniences as well as immigrants and migrants just starting out. By 1900 the Shaw neighborhood lay just north of the downtown federal offices and white businesses, and south of the African-American-dominated U Street commercial corridor and Howard University. Longstanding local businesses took root here, and leaders flourished: Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, John Wesley Powell, B. F. Saul, and A. Philip Randolph. The nation's finest "colored" schools were here too. By the 1930s the area was known as Midcity or Shaw (for Shaw Junior High School). Over time the shops of Seventh and Ninth streets became a bargain-rate alternative to downtown's fancy department stores. There were juke joints, Irish saloons, storefront evangelists, delicatessens, and dozens of schools and houses of worship. As the city expanded, Shaw's older housing became more affordable but crowded. In 1966 planners worked with local church leaders to create the Shaw School Urban Renewal District and improve conditions. Then in 1968, destructive riots followed the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Years later the community has succeeded in creating the mix of new and old that you'll experience along Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail. Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing highlights of the 17 trail markers, is available in English and Spanish at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
44. TRSHAW_200509_220.JPG: A mother and daughter walk pass the wreckage of Seventh Street on Easter Sunday, one day after the riots following Dr. King's assassination subsided. (The Washington Post)
45. TRSHAW_200509_224.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail 9 The Fires of 1968 The assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Thursday, April 4, 1968, changed this neighborhood forever. When word of Dr. King's murder spread that evening, Washingtonians gathered along busy 14th and U streets, NW; H Street, NE; and here on Seventh. At first distraught residents simply demanded that businesses close to honor the life of Dr. King, but soon angry individuals began smashing storefronts and taking merchandise. Fury over Dr. King's death, combined with local Black resentment of some White businessmen who treated their patrons as second-class citizens, fueled the rage and destruction. Stores were firebombed and looted. Firefighters could not do their jobs because rioters cut their hoses. Police were outnumbered. On Friday National Guardsmen and U.S. Army troops arrived to restore order. When the smoke cleared, the community discovered that 10 people had died in fires. Many were elderly and disabled, living above the storefronts. Businesses, owned by Blacks and Whites alike, were ruined, never to reopen. The riots unfortunately succeeded where urban renewal planners had failed: demolishing many of the area's oldest buildings. Shaw experienced years of boarded-up windows and vacant lots. By the 1980s, affordable housing stood where stores and taverns once did business. One building destroyed in the fires was a grand house built on this corner sometime before 1874 by fruit grower William F. Thyson. Later it served as a hotel for farmers selling goods at the O Street Market, and from 1920 to 1950 the Salvation Army used it to provide job training for African American men.
46. TRSHAW_200509_228.JPG: In 1950, shops and the Broadway movie house lined this side of Seventh, top, including Thyson House, above. At right is this corner the day after the April 1968 riots following Dr. King's assassination, with the smoking ruins of Thyson House at center.
47. TRSHAW_200509_234.JPG: The morning after the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Howard University students shut down the school in protest.
48. TRSHAW_200509_237.JPG: Firefighters battled a blaze at Ninth and L as a police officer scanned the roof tops for snipers.
49. TRSHAW_200509_240.JPG: Outnumbered police officers watched helplessly as looters cleared out stores on Seventh Street between L and M.
50. TRSHAW_200509_247.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail This neighborhood has always been "a place between places," where races and classes bumped and mingled as they got a foothold on the city. It has attracted the powerful seeking city conveniences as well as immigrants and migrants just starting out. By 1900 the Shaw neighborhood lay just north of the downtown federal offices and white businesses, and south of the African-American-dominated U Street commercial corridor and Howard University. Longstanding local businesses took root here, and leaders flourished: Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, John Wesley Powell, B. F. Saul, and A. Philip Randolph. The nation's finest "colored" schools were here too. By the 1930s the area was known as Midcity or Shaw (for Shaw Junior High School). Over time the shops of Seventh and Ninth streets became a bargain-rate alternative to downtown's fancy department stores. There were juke joints, Irish saloons, storefront evangelists, delicatessens, and dozens of schools and houses of worship. As the city expanded, Shaw's older housing became more affordable but crowded. In 1966 planners worked with local church leaders to create the Shaw School Urban Renewal District and improve conditions. Then in 1968, destructive riots followed the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Years later the community has succeeded in creating the mix of new and old that you'll experience along Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail. Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing highlights of the 17 trail markers, is available in English and Spanish at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
51. TRSHAW_200509_251.JPG: A McKinley Technical School track team of the 1930s goes on the school's front steps, now Asbury Dwellings.
52. TRSHAW_200509_253.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail 8 Reading and 'Riting and 'Rithmetic Wrapping the corner across Rhode Island Avenue is Asbury Dwellings for senior citizens. In 1901 it opened as the city's white-only McKinley Technical School, memorializing slain President William McKinley (1843-1901). In 1928 the "colored" school system took over the building for a new Shaw Junior High, honoring Robert Gould Shaw, the white commander of the Civil War Union Army's 54th Massachusetts regiment of black soldiers. Shaw's acclaimed faculty included abstract artist Alma W. Thomas (1891-1978), who taught there from 1924 until 1960. Today her paintings hang in renowned art museums worldwide. As time passed, the school became overcrowded and rundown, and parents protested for better conditions. Finally in 1977 a new Shaw Junior High opened at 925 Rhode Island Avenue. Asbury United Methodist Church rehabilitated the former school, and opened Asbury Dwellings in 1982. During the segregation era (1880-1954), the neighborhood was a center of black education. M Street High School, the nation's first high school (1870) for black students, moved nearby in 1892. Three famous high schools -- Cardozo (business), Dunbar (traditional academic successor to M Street), and Armstrong (technical) -- were here as well. Thousands of southern families migrated here specifically for the schools, where teachers with advanced degrees found work denied them by discriminatory universities. The library building across the street honors plumbing businessman Watha T. Daniel. Daniel (1911-1973) was a leader of the Model Inner City Community Organization, an early 1960s coalition founded to ensure that the poor would have a say in the urban renewal of Shaw. MICCO's work evolved into the Shaw School Urban Renewal Plan of 1969, designed to repair the devastation of the 1968 riots. The plan called for improved schools, better housing, and more services, including a branch library.
53. TRSHAW_200809_001.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail 5 Spiritual Life Washington's first black Muslim temple opened in 1940 when the Nation of Islam established Temple No. 4 at 1525-1527 Ninth Street. The Nation of Islam's second national leader, Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975), presided over the event. Founded in Chicago in 1931 by Wallace Fard, the Nation of Islam stands for discipline, racial pride, and respect for women, Allah and the Qu'ran, justice, pacifism, and the separation of African Americans from White society. In 1960 the temple, renamed Masjid Muhammad Mosque, moved nearby to 1519 Fourth Street where Malcolm X briefly served as its leader. The story of Shiloh Baptist Church, across the street began during the Civil War. The Union Army, about to attack Fredericksburg, Virginia, offered safe passage to Washington for enslaved or free Blacks wanting to flee. Some 400 members of Fredericksburg's accepted, and in 1863 founded Washington's Shiloh Baptist Church on L Street, NW, west of 16th. In 1924 Shiloh moved here to what had been Hamline Methodist Church. When some White neighbors objected, the owner of Hamline Church's organ paid a janitor to set the organ of fire, damaging the building. Unbowed, Shiloh members repaired the church and flourished. The church was rebuilt after another major fire in 1991. Like other churches in Shaw, Shiloh, with its Family Life Center, serves as a social gathering place. Shiloh is especially known for its Civil Rights work, housing assistance, and music ministry. Soprano Marian Anderson, the Wings Over Jordan gospel singers, and many others have performed at Shiloh.
54. TRSHAW_200809_006.JPG: Rev. Earl Harrison (behind the smoke) oversaw the burning of Shiloh's mortgage in 1943 as the choir sang.
55. TRSHAW_200809_008.JPG: Malcolm X of the Nation of Islam, 1964.
56. TRSHAW_200809_010.JPG: Elijah Muhammad, second leader of the Nation of Islam.
57. TRSHAW_200809_015.JPG: Marian Anderson performed at Shiloh in 1934. [Recital Program] "Marian Anderson, Contralto".
58. TRSHAW_200809_019.JPG: Shiloh Baptist Church members Dr. Theodore George (fourth from left), Rev. Walter Fauntroy, and Julius Hobson led a civil rights march from the church to the White House, May 1963.
59. TRSHAW_200809_023.JPG: Rev. Earl Harrison (behind the smoke) oversaw the burning of Shiloh's mortgage in 1943 as the choir sang.
60. TRSHAW_200809_025.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail This neighborhood has always been "a place between places," where races and classes bumped and mingled as they got a foothold on the city. It has attracted the powerful seeking city conveniences as well as immigrants and migrants just starting out. By 1900 the Shaw neighborhood lay just north of the downtown federal offices and white businesses, and south of the African-American-dominated U Street commercial corridor and Howard University. Longstanding local businesses took root here, and leaders flourished: Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, John Wesley Powell, B. F. Saul, and A. Philip Randolph. The nation's finest "colored" schools were here too. By the 1930s the area was known as Midcity or Shaw (for Shaw Junior High School). Over time the shops of Seventh and Ninth streets became a bargain-rate alternative to downtown's fancy department stores. There were juke joints, Irish saloons, storefront evangelists, delicatessens, and dozens of schools and houses of worship. As the city expanded, Shaw's older housing became more affordable but crowded. In 1966 planners worked with local church leaders to create the Shaw School Urban Renewal District and improve conditions. Then in 1968, destructive riots followed the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Years later the community has succeeded in creating the mix of new and old that you'll experience along Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail. Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing highlights of the 17 trail markers, is available in English and Spanish at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
61. TRSHAW_200809_029.JPG: Shiloh Baptist Church Sunday School students pose in front of the old L Street church, 1919.
62. TRSHAW_200809_032.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail 6 Working for the Race Carter G. Woodson, the "Father of Black History," worked and lived at Ninth Street from 1922 until 1950. The son of formerly enslaved people, Woodson received a Ph.D. from Harvard, and became an acclaimed scholar, educator, and advocate. He founded the Association for the Study of Negro (now African American) Life and History and the Associated Publishers, and organized Negro History Week (later Black History Month). He wrote The Mis-Education of the American Negro, the landmark textbook The Negro in Our History, and other important works. Because he often walked through Shaw carrying stacks of books, local schoolchildren dubbed him "Bookman." Poet Langston Hughes briefly worked here for Woodson, and many of his poems captured local working-class African American life. In The Big Sea (1940), he wrote: "I tried to write poems like the songs they sang on Seventh Street." The house to your right at 817 Q Street was once the Washington headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Founded in 1925 by A. Philip Randolph, the IBSCP was the nation's first and largest black trade union. Some 12,000 members -- highly skilled porters, attendants, and maids - -- all worked for the Pullman Palace Car Company. In 1925 Pullman was the nation's largest employer of African Americans. The IBSCP published The Messenger, battling discrimination practiced by most American labor unions. In 1938 female relatives of union members founded the International Ladies' Auxiliary. Much of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was planned at 817 Q Street by Randolph, along with Civil Rights activist Bayard Rustin.
63. TRSHAW_200809_035.JPG: Carter G. Woodson posed in his study at 1538 North St.
64. TRSHAW_200809_038.JPG: Members of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
65. TRSHAW_200809_041.JPG: Members of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
66. TRSHAW_200809_044.JPG: A. Philip Randolph, left, and Bayard Rustin helped plan the 1963 March on Washington at 817 Q St.
67. TRSHAW_200809_046.JPG: Publications from the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History
68. TRSHAW_200809_048.JPG: The large building on your right at Eighth and Q Sts. was the Immaculate Conception Academy, a Catholic girls school, until 1954.
69. TRSHAW_200809_052.JPG: The International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters published The Messenger.
70. TRSHAW_200809_053.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail This neighborhood has always been "a place between places," where races and classes bumped and mingled as they got a foothold on the city. It has attracted the powerful seeking city conveniences as well as immigrants and migrants just starting out. By 1900 the Shaw neighborhood lay just north of the downtown federal offices and white businesses, and south of the African-American-dominated U Street commercial corridor and Howard University. Longstanding local businesses took root here, and leaders flourished: Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, John Wesley Powell, B. F. Saul, and A. Philip Randolph. The nation's finest "colored" schools were here too. By the 1930s the area was known as Midcity or Shaw (for Shaw Junior High School). Over time the shops of Seventh and Ninth streets became a bargain-rate alternative to downtown's fancy department stores. There were juke joints, Irish saloons, storefront evangelists, delicatessens, and dozens of schools and houses of worship. As the city expanded, Shaw's older housing became more affordable but crowded. In 1966 planners worked with local church leaders to create the Shaw School Urban Renewal District and improve conditions. Then in 1968, destructive riots followed the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Years later the community has succeeded in creating the mix of new and old that you'll experience along Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail. Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing highlights of the 17 trail markers, is available in English and Spanish at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
71. TRSHAW_200809_060.JPG: Members o the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History pose in front of the Whitelaw Hotel, 1925. At far right, Mary Church Terrell in white, with Carter G. Woodson on her right.
72. TRSHAW_200809_065.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail 7 Safe Havens The building across the street at 901 Rhode Island Avenue is the city's first Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) for African Americans. It honors Phyllis Wheatley (1753-1784), considered America's first published black author. The Wheatley YWCA was organized in 1905 by the Booklover's Club, a black women's literary club, to provide housing, recreation, and vocational and Christian guidance to women. It opened at the Miner Institution Building in Southwest Washington. With hundreds of young women migrating to Washington, the YWCA needed a larger facility, opening this one in 1920. Carter G. Woodson frequently lectured and took meals here. The Julia West Hamilton League, organized by Mary Church Terrell to promote philanthropy, education, and character, met here. During World War II, Civil Rights leader Dorothy Height worked at the YWCA, which became a social center for black service men and women. Recently renovated, the building provides accommodations for women, day care, and meeting spaces. The original rowhouses at 901 R Street housed the Clef Club (later Lewis Thomas Cabaret). The facade of the current house recreates the look of the original. The popular nightspot presented Duke Ellington and Bricktop and, despite its residential location, proudly advertised that it was open from dusk to dawn. At 913 R Street, just beyond the site of the club, is the former Engine Company No. 4 fire house. In 1919 Company 4 became Washington's first all-black company after fire fighters seeking career advancement requested a separate facility. The company was captured at work in January 1943 by noted photographer Gordon Parks.
73. TRSHAW_200809_068.JPG: Dance class in the YWCA, 1940
74. TRSHAW_200809_072.JPG: This portrait of Phyllis Wheatley appeared in her book, Poems on Various Subjects..., 1773.
75. TRSHAW_200809_074.JPG: Civil Rights leader Dorothy Height worked at the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA from 1939 until 1944.
76. TRSHAW_200809_076.JPG: The Clef Club (later Lewis Thomas Cabaret) advertised in the Washington Bee.
77. TRSHAW_200809_080.JPG: The Clef Club (later Lewis Thomas Cabaret) advertised in the Washington Bee.
78. TRSHAW_200809_081.JPG: Business High School for whites, and then Cardozo Business High School for African America students, once occupied this block. Cardoza moved to 13th St. in 1950. Cadets of the white Business High School, right, posed in 1928.
79. TRSHAW_200809_087.JPG: Washington's first all-black company of fire fighters, photographed by Gordon Parks in 1941, respond to an alarm.
80. TRSHAW_200809_090.JPG: Washington's first all-black company of fire fighters, photographed by Gordon Parks in 1941, respond to an alarm.
81. TRSHAW_200809_093.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail This neighborhood has always been "a place between places," where races and classes bumped and mingled as they got a foothold on the city. It has attracted the powerful seeking city conveniences as well as immigrants and migrants just starting out. By 1900 the Shaw neighborhood lay just north of the downtown federal offices and white businesses, and south of the African-American-dominated U Street commercial corridor and Howard University. Longstanding local businesses took root here, and leaders flourished: Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, John Wesley Powell, B. F. Saul, and A. Philip Randolph. The nation's finest "colored" schools were here too. By the 1930s the area was known as Midcity or Shaw (for Shaw Junior High School). Over time the shops of Seventh and Ninth streets became a bargain-rate alternative to downtown's fancy department stores. There were juke joints, Irish saloons, storefront evangelists, delicatessens, and dozens of schools and houses of worship. As the city expanded, Shaw's older housing became more affordable but crowded. In 1966 planners worked with local church leaders to create the Shaw School Urban Renewal District and improve conditions. Then in 1968, destructive riots followed the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Years later the community has succeeded in creating the mix of new and old that you'll experience along Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail. Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing highlights of the 17 trail markers, is available in English and Spanish at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
82. TRSHAW_200809_096.JPG: A Phyllis Wheatley YWCA social event, around 1940.
83. TRSHAW_200809_107.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail 4 Alley Life You are standing at the entrance to Naylor Court. It was built in the 1860s as one of hundreds of intersecting alleys hidden behind DC houses. Stables, workshops, sheds, and often cheap two-story houses, built for the poor of all races, filled the alleys. While many of its old dwellings are gone, a few remain in Naylor Court. It forms half of the Blagden Alley-Naylor Historic District. During the Civil War housing crisis, builders crammed hundreds of dwellings into these tight spaces. Most lacked running water, plumbing, or electricity, and quickly became dilapidated. Yet the need for shelter was desperate. In 1908, more than 300 people filled 50 Bladgen Alley dwellings, averaging seven per household and paying $6 a month in rent. In 1900 Nochen Kafitz, a Lithuanian immigrant, opened a grocery in his house a few blocks away on Glick Alley. (The alley, now gone, once ran between Sixth, Seventh, and S streets and Rhode Island Avenue.) His son, Morris Cafritz (1887-1964), became a real estate developer and philanthropist. Alley dwelling construction was outlawed in 1934, but the buildings lingered. Some hidden alleys attracted prostitutes, gamblers, drug dealers, and speakeasies. Others, though, were tight communities, where people who happened to be poor looked out for one another. In 1990 the city moved its archives to the former Tally Ho Stables, built in 1883. Since the '70s, the small dwellings, former carriage barns, and horse stalls have housed artists' studios and residences as well as working garages.
84. TRSHAW_200809_111.JPG: The entrance to Naylor Court, around 1936
85. TRSHAW_200809_113.JPG: This typical alley dwelling remains today just to your left at 1326 Naylor Court.
86. TRSHAW_200809_115.JPG: A neighborhood carryout operated on this corner in 1981
87. TRSHAW_200809_119.JPG: The large numerals on this 1894 map count the number of outhouses per city square, a measure of population density and also of poverty. Square 368 (Bladgen Alley) had 35 privies that year.
88. TRSHAW_200809_122.JPG: The Bladgen Alley housing photographed here in 1937 remains today
89. TRSHAW_200809_125.JPG: Lacking indoor plumbing, alley residents drew water from standpipes. These children, photographed by the Alley Dwelling Authority in the 1930s, lived in an unidentified alley like those found in Shaw.
90. TRSHAW_200809_128.JPG: This 1887 map shows "Nailors Alley" (now Naylor Court), named for grocery Dickerson Nailor, and Blagden Alley, named for Thomas Blagden of an old DC business family.
91. TRSHAW_200809_133.JPG: Midcity at the Crossroads Shaw Heritage Trail This neighborhood has always been "a place between places," where races and classes bumped and mingled as they got a foothold on the city. It has attracted the powerful seeking city conveniences as well as immigrants and migrants just starting out. By 1900 the Shaw neighborhood lay just north of the downtown federal offices and white businesses, and south of the African-American-dominated U Street commercial corridor and Howard University. Longstanding local businesses took root here, and leaders flourished: Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, John Wesley Powell, B. F. Saul, and A. Philip Randolph. The nation's finest "colored" schools were here too. By the 1930s the area was known as Midcity or Shaw (for Shaw Junior High School). Over time the shops of Seventh and Ninth streets became a bargain-rate alternative to downtown's fancy department stores. There were juke joints, Irish saloons, storefront evangelists, delicatessens, and dozens of schools and houses of worship. As the city expanded, Shaw's older housing became more affordable but crowded. In 1966 planners worked with local church leaders to create the Shaw School Urban Renewal District and improve conditions. Then in 1968, destructive riots followed the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Years later the community has succeeded in creating the mix of new and old that you'll experience along Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail. Midcity at the Crossroads: Shaw Heritage Trail, a booklet capturing highlights of the 17 trail markers, is available in English and Spanish at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
92. TRSHAW_200809_139.JPG: The Tally Ho Stables building remains in Naylor Court.
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