Forest Hills Connection || News and Life in Our DC Neighborhood
Covering Forest Hills, Van Ness, North Cleveland Park and Wakefield
by Ann Kessler President Harry S. Truman loved to walk. He did so almost every morning of his adult life. “I go every morning at 6:30 to 7:00 for a half hour’s real walk usually doing two miles,” Truman once wrote to his mother. And for a few years, his starting point was 4701 Connecticut […]
The DC Public Library’s Washingtoniana collection needed a temporary home during the renovation of Martin Luther King Library. And for a little more than a year, Van Ness provided one. Washingtoniana moved out of its UDC Law School digs at 4340 Connecticut Avenue when DCPL’s lease expired early this year. And in a recent newsletter, […]
by Ann Kessler On the Flagship Car Wash at 4432 Connecticut Avenue there’s a sign that says “Since 1941.” It’s off by a decade. The car wash was built in 1931. What else was on this block south of Albemarle Street in the 1930s? 4434 Connecticut The current home of Bread Furst, a one-story brick […]
by Ann Kessler Looking at Connecticut Avenue between Van Ness and Albemarle Streets today, it might be hard to imagine that it was once a destination for drivers seeking gas for their cars. There isn’t even one gas station left. But where there are office buildings and stores and restaurants today, there used to be […]
“We Shall Not Bore the Reader.” That’s the first rule of The Blue and Gold, and a pretty good rule for any publication to keep in mind. But this newspaper is staffed by fourth and fifth graders at Murch Elementary School. The 17 student reporters work under the guidance of Aaron Epstein, an award-winning journalist. […]
by Steve Dryden Way back in the last century, there was a restroom at Peirce Mill – actually next to the Peirce Barn, but it did serve the purpose of making it easier to “use the facilities” without crossing Tilden Street and walking to the picnic pavilion. When the mill was restored, and the landscape […]
The first indoor shopping mall in DC was in Van Ness. Lady Bird Johnson carpooled with other Murch parents. Elvis was here. We have neighbor and historian Ann Kessler to thank for these stories and more. (She’s working on something cool right now. Stay tuned.) Here are some of the other DC historians and social […]
Did you know that today’s neighborhood kids flock to the same sledding hills as they did a century ago? And even in the early part of the last century, siblings could be a pain in the neck. But kids in today’s DC don’t spend their winter days caring for livestock or trying (unsuccessfully) to keep […]
by Ann Kessler The first people who lived here left their mark here. Archaeologists believe that the first inhabitants of the Washington, DC area arrived around 13,000 years ago. According to a 2008 archaeologists’ report on Rock Creek Park for the National Park Service, these ancient people built villages and left many artifacts along the […]
Who was Fred Rhodes? A federal worker whose long and varied resumé included the Manhattan Project and the Nixon administration, and later in life, a Baptist minister. But a century ago, he was just a kid in Forest Hills, and the Soapstone Valley was his playground. Thanks to the Historical Society of Washington and Ann […]
