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Hub, Home, Heart
Greater H Street NE Heritage Trail
5 Community Caretakers
The elegant Romanesque portion of the Senate Square condominium complex started life in 1874 as the Little Sisters of the Poor House for the Aged. St. Aloysius Church member Ellen Sherman, wife of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, helped the Sisters secure congressional appropriations to build the facility. The Little Sisters begged for donations on DC streets to support their free care for the elderly, regardless of race or religion.
In 1976 the city built the current overpass carrying H Street above Union Station's tracks. With a dangerous on-ramp just feet from their front door, the Sisters moved their home to the Catholic University neighborhood. In 1979 the Capital Children's Museum took over the old convent, moved the entrance to the rear, and inspired the "Hopscotch Bridge" mosaics on the overpass as designed by area artist Deirdre Saunder. The museum closed in 2004 for redevelopment as condominiums.
Dr. Thom Collins, born in 1905 and raised on the north side of the 300 block of H Street, was the son of a railroad engineer and descendant of Irish laborers recruited to rebuild Washington after the War of 1812. "Doc" Collins opened a medical practice in his home about 1935 and the 1940s charged seven dollars for house calls, recalled his son, broadcaster Pat Collins. He treated everyone, from residents of the Little Sisters' home and Gonzaga High School football players to members of Congress. Archbishop Patrick O'Boyle was a patient, as was a Union Terminal Market butcher who paid Collins in fresh meat. Although devoted to this community, Doc Collins moved away after the 1968 riots left much of it in ruins. |