Existing comment:
Dupont Circle
Diverse Visions | One Neighborhood
Fire Fact | January 16, 1892
Box 318 sounded for a fire in the Church of the Covenant, southeast corner of 18th and N Sts., where President Benjamin H. Harrison was a parishioner. News of the fire spread quickly to the White House, and President Harrison raced over to witness the battle. Fortunately the church survived somewhat blackened but intact.
All the row houses in the 1700 block of Q St. (north and south pictured above) were built in the mid-1880s by one of Washington's most prolific architects/builders, Thomas Franklin Schneider. The prosperity and growth during the 1880s in DC resulted from the enlarged role of the Federal Government after the Civil War and general prosperity of the nation.
The next major builders were Harry Wardman, 1920s, and Morris Cafritz, 1940s. Schneider's dual expertise contributed to quality housing for white-collar workers after World War II.
Across the street to your left you can see new buildings that replaced five original residences. Their demolition in the 1960s spawned the neighborhood's preservation movement. The more than 60 remaining Victorian rowhouses, all with English basements, constitute the largest concentration of intact 19th-century homes in the city.
Fire Alarm Boxes such as this one (originally painted red) were installed in the District after the Civil War. Telegraphs transmitted the box number (top) to a fire alarm center. This system was used until the 1970s when the boxes were converted to a telephone system. By the 1990s, the callbox system had been replaced by the 911 system and was abandoned.
Freya Grand, an oil painter and muralist, exhibits widely to galleries and has created large scale commissioned murals. She believes that “the Dupont area's vitality and diversity make it the best environment in D.C.” |