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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." |