BGuthrie Photos: DC Heritage Trails: Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail

DC Heritage Trails: Top of the Town: Tenleytown 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. TRTEN_200502_001.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail Tenleytown's story begins with Native American footpaths that crossed at the highest natural elevation in what became Washington, DC. European settlers broadened the paths into roads, and in the late 1700s the enterprising John Tennally opened a tavern at the intersection of today's Wisconsin Avenue and River Road. Soon a community known as Tennallytown surrounded the tavern. Until the early 1880s Tennallytown remained a village amid rural Washington County, where about a dozen tightly knit and often inter-married families dominated daily life. Then modern transportation made Tenleytown easily accessible to downtown and pushed it into the 20th century. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail shows you where, during the Civil War, the Union Army created Fort Reno. See where a mostly African American community grew up on -- and eventually was erased from -- the grounds of the old fort. Discover traces of Tenleytown's rural past. Witness the neighborhood's important role in both world wars. And discover where legendary TV and radio personalities got their starts. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour of 19 signs, just under three miles, offers about two hours of gentle exercise. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses and institutions along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
2. TRTEN_200502_005.JPG: A Wisconsin Ave. streetcar leaves the boarding platform at Tenley Circle, 1936. The building at left with the billboard is Gauley's Tenleytown Pharmacy.
3. TRTEN_200502_012.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail 14 On the Circle In the 1930s city engineers created Tenley Circle where commuters heading cross-town or downtown changed streetcars. Across the street and to the left of Tenley Circle, a surviving strip of historic Grant Road meets Wisconsin Avenue. In the 1890s, the two-story, stucco structure on that corner was John and Rebecca O'Day's feed store, stocking everything from hay to kerosene for area farmers. After 1915 it became "Doc" Scholl's pharmacy, a popular spot for soldiers training nearby at Camp American University during World War I. When "Doc" Gauley took over during the roaring '20s, the "Tenleytown Special" sundae was a soda fountain favorite. Since the 1940s restaurants on this spot have served everything from corned beef to cannolis. The stucco building remains the oldest commercial building still standing in Tenleytown. Directly across the circle is Wisconsin Avenue Baptist Church. Founded as Mount Tabor Baptist Church in 1880, it first occupied land donated by parishioner Mary Burrows at 4620 Wisconsin Avenue. When the city widened the avenue in 1924, nearly erasing its lot, the church moved. This building is its third home. The handsome stone structure on the rise behind you was the Seminary of Our Lady Immaculate, established in 1905 by the Sisters of Providence. "Immaculata" offered a first-rate education to female students. After 80 years, the order announced the preparatory school's closing. A year later, despite protests by the school community, the order sold this campus to nearby American University.
4. TRTEN_200502_016.JPG: Immaculata Seminary students practice archery.
5. TRTEN_200502_021.JPG: This 1905 view shows Immaculata Seminary and St. Ann's Church before Tenley Circle was built.
6. TRTEN_200502_024.JPG: The Immaculata basketball team, 1963.
7. TRTEN_200502_028.JPG: Despite two years of protests including the one at right, Immaculata closed, holding its final graduation in 1986, below.
8. TRTEN_200502_032.JPG: Despite two years of protests including the one at right, Immaculata closed, holding its final graduation in 1986, below.
9. TRTEN_200502_039.JPG: Inside Gauley's Pharmacy, 1939
10. TRTEN_200502_042.JPG: The building is visible at the right edge of this 1950s view of the Wisconsin Ave. streetcar.
11. TRTEN_200502_046.JPG: Young members of Wisconsin Avenue Baptist Church, above, and a Sunday School class, 1950s.
12. TRTEN_200502_050.JPG: Young members of Wisconsin Avenue Baptist Church, above, and a Sunday School class, 1950s.
13. TRTEN_200502_069.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail Tenleytown's story begins with Native American footpaths that crossed at the highest natural elevation in what became Washington, DC. European settlers broadened the paths into roads, and in the late 1700s the enterprising John Tennally opened a tavern at the intersection of today's Wisconsin Avenue and River Road. Soon a community known as Tennallytown surrounded the tavern. Until the early 1880s Tennallytown remained a village amid rural Washington County, where about a dozen tightly knit and often inter-married families dominated daily life. Then modern transportation made Tenleytown easily accessible to downtown and pushed it into the 20th century. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail shows you where, during the Civil War, the Union Army created Fort Reno. See where a mostly African American community grew up on -- and eventually was erased from -- the grounds of the old fort. Discover traces of Tenleytown's rural past. Witness the neighborhood's important role in both world wars. And discover where legendary TV and radio personalities got their starts. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour of 19 signs, just under three miles, offers about two hours of gentle exercise. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses and institutions along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
14. TRTEN_200502_077.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail 1 Beer, Popcorn, and Penny Candy Suburban shopping arrived in Tenleytown when Sears, Roebuck & Co. erected a Moderne style store here in 1941. The sleek fa�ade demonstrated the latest in department store design. Sears was the second Tenleytown business -- after Giant Food -- to offer rooftop parking. The aromas of popcorn, half smokes, and doughnuts led customers to Sears' entrance/penthouse snack bar. Attracting shoppers from the city and nearby Maryland, Sears ushered in Tenleytown's modern commercial era. Sears replaced the three-story former Tenleytown Inn, which, beginning in the mid-1800s, was a stopping point for farmers and merchants traveling on the Georgetown-Frederick (Maryland) Pike. When William Achterkirchen ran the inn for owner Christian Heurich in the early 1900s, Tenleytowners arrived with their growlers -- tin buckets with lids -- to carry out the inn's popular brew. By 1918 innkeeper Howard Crandall had adapted the inn for his Hilltop Service Station, Tenleytown's first gas station. While Tenleytown celebrated the arrival of Metrorail in 1984, it came at a cost. The east station entrance replaced the Burrows-Mostow building, built in 1900 as commercial space with an apartment upstairs. It also replaced Joe's Variety Shop. Generations of Tenleytown children had flocked to Joe Gould's narrow store, packed floor to ceiling with toys, games, penny candy, and school supplies. The William R. Singleton Masonic Lodge has occupied 4431 Wisconsin Avenue since 1909. Its members follow Freemasonry, an ancient fraternal organization rooted in the building trades and dedicated to good works and fellowship.
15. TRTEN_200502_106.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail Tenleytown's story begins with Native American footpaths that crossed at the highest natural elevation in what became Washington, DC. European settlers broadened the paths into roads, and in the late 1700s the enterprising John Tennally opened a tavern at the intersection of today's Wisconsin Avenue and River Road. Soon a community known as Tennallytown surrounded the tavern. Until the early 1880s Tennallytown remained a village amid rural Washington County, where about a dozen tightly knit and often inter-married families dominated daily life. Then modern transportation made Tenleytown easily accessible to downtown and pushed it into the 20th century. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail shows you where, during the Civil War, the Union Army created Fort Reno. See where a mostly African American community grew up on -- and eventually was erased from -- the grounds of the old fort. Discover traces of Tenleytown's rural past. Witness the neighborhood's important role in both world wars. And discover where legendary TV and radio personalities got their starts. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour of 19 signs, just under three miles, offers about two hours of gentle exercise. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses and institutions along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
16. TRTEN_200502_110.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail 9 And the Church Goes On
17. TRTEN_200502_131.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail Tenleytown's story begins with Native American footpaths that crossed at the highest natural elevation in what became Washington, DC. European settlers broadened the paths into roads, and in the late 1700s the enterprising John Tennally opened a tavern at the intersection of today's Wisconsin Avenue and River Road. Soon a community known as Tennallytown surrounded the tavern. Until the early 1880s Tennallytown remained a village amid rural Washington County, where about a dozen tightly knit and often inter-married families dominated daily life. Then modern transportation made Tenleytown easily accessible to downtown and pushed it into the 20th century. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail shows you where, during the Civil War, the Union Army created Fort Reno. See where a mostly African American community grew up on -- and eventually was erased from -- the grounds of the old fort. Discover traces of Tenleytown's rural past. Witness the neighborhood's important role in both world wars. And discover where legendary TV and radio personalities got their starts. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour of 19 signs, just under three miles, offers about two hours of gentle exercise. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses and institutions along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
18. TRTEN_200502_139.JPG: The sisters of the Convent of Bon Secours, 1961.
19. TRTEN_200502_143.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail 13 To the Rescue The brick building across the street opened in 1928 as the Convent of Bon Secours (literally, "good help"). The convent's sisters had arrived in Baltimore from France in 1881. In Baltimore they quietly nursed both wealthy and needy patients in their homes. Soon after the sisters moved to Tenleytown in 1905, they aided the community during the frequent typhoid and influenza epidemics. Neighbors remember the exquisite lace and other handwork the sisters created in their spare time. As people turned to hospitals for nursing care, the sisters explored expanding their convent for on-site care, but lacked the necessary resources. So they sold their building to the Embassy of France. The French International School held classes here in the late 1960s, followed by the all-girls Oakcrest School. In 2010 the Yuma Study Center planned to occupy the old convent, a city Historic Landmark since 2004. Hidden from view to your right is Dunblane, one of the last remaining estate houses in Tenleytown. The Greek Revival style country retreat was built in the early 1800s. When fox hunting grew fashionable later that century, the house hosted the elite Dumblane Hunt (the name has two spellings). Eventually the grounds were sold for Immaculata Seminary, and the old mansion was adapted for elementary school classes. Today American University's Tenley Campus enjoys the mansion and these historic grounds. Ahead on your left is St. Ann's Church, a Tenleytown institution dating back to 1866. This building, dedicated in 1948 as the church's third on this site, is a fine example of the magnificent urban Roman Catholic parish churches built between 1900 and the Great Depression of the 1930s.
20. TRTEN_200502_146.JPG: Home nursing from Sisters Stephanie and Mary of Incarnation, 1954, far left
21. TRTEN_200502_149.JPG: Sister Aloysious Barrett, left, 1940
22. TRTEN_200502_152.JPG: Sister Cornelius Cremin, who learned lacemaking in Ireland, made this cap around 1940.
23. TRTEN_200502_155.JPG: Gathering the hounds for the Dunblane Hunt, around 1900, above.
24. TRTEN_200502_158.JPG: A few years later, Chevy Chase Hunt members meet at the same spot.
25. TRTEN_200502_161.JPG: The current church is seen under construction around 1947 at left.
26. TRTEN_200502_164.JPG: The original modest St. Ann's Church and hall, seen in the 1920s.
27. TRTEN_200502_169.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail 19 Community Building Blocks Security and style came to Tenleytown in 1900, when Engine House No. 20 opened across from Wisconsin Avenue. No longer would fire fighters have to come all the way from Georgetown to extinguish blazes in Tenleytown's wood-frame houses. Opened with horse-drawn equipment, Engine House 20 became the District's second motorized fire station. The modern fire house reassured builders and buyers that Tenleytown was a good investment. Recent improvements to the fire house harmonize with its original handsome Italianate design by Leon Dessez. The 1907 Art Deco style C&P Telephone Company Exchange Building to its left was designed by Eidlitz and McKenzie, who are better known for No. 1 Times Square, where each December 31 a lighted crystal ball drops to mark the New Year. The fist enterprise to occupy the 4200 block of Wisconsin Avenue was Raymond T. Johnson, Sr.'s Wisconsin Avenue Market. Shortly after the grocery opened in 1932, Johnson agreed to sell a few of his neighbor's geraniums. From these humble beginnings grew Johnson's Flower Center. At 4321 Wisconsin Avenue is the Friendship Building, Tenleytown's first office building. Its second floor dance studio was the 1944 birthplace of the Washington School of Ballet. Nearby on the corner of 39th Street and Windom Place is "the Rest," Tenleytown's oldest surviving house, dating to the early 1800s. It is the centerpiece of Armesleigh Park's quiet blocks to see the variety of houses with rough stone chimneys and generous porches designed by prolific local architects George Santmyers or Alexander Sonnermann.
28. TRTEN_200502_201.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail Tenleytown's story begins with Native American footpaths that crossed at the highest natural elevation in what became Washington, DC. European settlers broadened the paths into roads, and in the late 1700s the enterprising John Tennally opened a tavern at the intersection of today's Wisconsin Avenue and River Road. Soon a community known as Tennallytown surrounded the tavern. Until the early 1880s Tennallytown remained a village amid rural Washington County, where about a dozen tightly knit and often inter-married families dominated daily life. Then modern transportation made Tenleytown easily accessible to downtown and pushed it into the 20th century. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail shows you where, during the Civil War, the Union Army created Fort Reno. See where a mostly African American community grew up on -- and eventually was erased from -- the grounds of the old fort. Discover traces of Tenleytown's rural past. Witness the neighborhood's important role in both world wars. And discover where legendary TV and radio personalities got their starts. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour of 19 signs, just under three miles, offers about two hours of gentle exercise. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses and institutions along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
29. TRTEN_200502_204.JPG: This 1928 view shows Harper's Filling Station where Old Loughboro Rd. angled off Wisconsin Ave., before Van Ness St. was cut through to Wisconsin. The houses just past the bend remain on Van Ness.
30. TRTEN_200502_210.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail 15 For the Children From 1927 until the late 1950s, the landscaped grounds across the street were the Hillcrest Children's Center. It was founded downtown in 1814 as the Washington City Orphan Asylum by Marcia Burnes Van Ness and President Madison's wife Dolley. The center's Tudor style stone cottages created a village environment. In the 1960s changing social conditions led Hillcrest to move back downtown, this time in service to disabled children and their families. The National Presbyterian Church and School, which occupy Hillcrest's former site, trace their origins to four in-town congregations. One of these dates from 1795, when stone masons working at the White House gathered for services there in a carpenters' shed. Most presidents since James Madison -- and notables including Queen Elizabeth and Mother Teresa -- have worshipped with the congregation. President Lyndon Johnson's message for National Presbyterian's 1966 groundbreaking praised the church for forging "bonds which draw us together and which crumble the barriers that stand between us." In 1970 Duke Ellington told a reporter that he performed here to "praise God with music" and to raise money for the church's Eisenhower Memorial Arts Fund to foster harmony between religion and the arts. Along with its soaring carillon tower, the church boasts a main sanctuary that seats 1,260, and dramatic walks and gardens. It is the third largest religious center in Washington, after the Washington Cathedral and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It was designated the national church for its denomination in 1947.
31. TRTEN_200502_220.JPG: Girls play ring-around-the-rosy, top
32. TRTEN_200502_223.JPG: And boys play basketball at the Hillcrest Children's Center of the 1950s
33. TRTEN_200502_228.JPG: The parlor of the old Washington Orphan Asylum featured an oil portrait of founder Marcia Burnes Van Ness.
34. TRTEN_200502_232.JPG: At right is the old asylum at 14th and S Streets.
35. TRTEN_200502_235.JPG: Sr. Minister Rev. Dr. Edward L.R. Elson and church officials break ground for the National Presbyterian Church, 1966.
36. TRTEN_200502_241.JPG: Worshipers fill the completed church, right, 1969.
37. TRTEN_200502_248.JPG: At far right, former president and church member Dwight D. Eisenhower participates in the cornerstone-laying.
38. TRTEN_200502_253.JPG: Top of the Town Tenleytown Heritage Trail Tenleytown's story begins with Native American footpaths that crossed at the highest natural elevation in what became Washington, DC. European settlers broadened the paths into roads, and in the late 1700s the enterprising John Tennally opened a tavern at the intersection of today's Wisconsin Avenue and River Road. Soon a community known as Tennallytown surrounded the tavern. Until the early 1880s Tennallytown remained a village amid rural Washington County, where about a dozen tightly knit and often inter-married families dominated daily life. Then modern transportation made Tenleytown easily accessible to downtown and pushed it into the 20th century. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail shows you where, during the Civil War, the Union Army created Fort Reno. See where a mostly African American community grew up on -- and eventually was erased from -- the grounds of the old fort. Discover traces of Tenleytown's rural past. Witness the neighborhood's important role in both world wars. And discover where legendary TV and radio personalities got their starts. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour of 19 signs, just under three miles, offers about two hours of gentle exercise. Top of the Town: Tenleytown Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses and institutions along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
39. TRTEN_200502_257.JPG: Young residents enjoy an early autumn day in one of the many gardens at the Hilcrest Children's Center, 1950s.
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